Are you aware of your risks?
27 February 2026
A supervisory report from the Swedish Work Environment Authority in December points to insufficient systematic work environment management in smaller workshops, especially when it comes to investigating, assessing and documenting risks. Share the report and think about how your workplace is doing in terms of risk assessments, both for your own workplace and your coworkers, but also for the contractors who come to you to perform work.
Extensive inspection efforts 2022-2024
The background is a multi-year effort in which the Swedish Work Environment Authority completed 2,161 inspections and follow-ups at 1,343 workplaces, completed between April 2022 and December 2024. The companies inspected had between 5 and 100 employees. The results show that around 80 per cent of the workplaces (1,075) received inspection notifications with requirements for health and safety measures. In total, more than 4,800 requirements were set, about half of which were connected to the rules for systematic work environment management.
Major deficiencies: risk assessments
The Swedish Work Environment Authority points out that they have seen the most insufficient investigations and assessments of risks and measures to prevent ill health and accidents. A recurring deviation is risk assessments prior to work carried out at external clients, e.g. maintenance work at an industrial site. For this reason, the inspection is particularly aimed at companies that both have their own workshop and regularly work on site at the client’s premises, for example in the case of machine repairs or on-site constructions.
Machine safety and older equipment
In addition to SAM, machinery, vibration work, lifting aids/ergonomics and chemical and physical risks were also reviewed. The efforts show insufficient machine safety, which according to the Swedish Work Environment Authority is partly related to the fact that many smaller workshop companies use older machines, which often lack the protection provided by newer CE-marked machines. During the operation, a ban was issued on twelve machines that were not completed.
What does this mean for the industry?
The report’s message is that routines that work in everyday life are required, even when jobs are moved to other workplaces. For industrial companies and subcontractors, this also becomes a business issue: clear risk assessments, order on machine safety and a vibrant systematic work environment work reduce both the risk of accidents and production disruptions.
You can read the full inspection report here: Report on supervisory activity - A safe working life Zero vision Smaller workshop companies
Curious about risks and Europe?
The first results from EU OSHA’s European Enterprise Survey ESENER 2024 show that psychosocial risks are common. At the same time, there are significant differences between industries, countries and organisation sizes. If you are curious about more, you can use ESENER’s interactive data visualisation tool to filter results by substance and chart type, and produce statistics by sector, company size and country.
Find out more here: Investigate workplace risks in Europe: data visualisation for Esener 2024 | Safety and health at work EU-OSHA