Norway's Labour Inspectorate Opens Free Seminar Series as Europe Confronts Workplace Burnout

Trondheim, Oslo, Tromsø, Bodø — Employers across Norway are being offered a free, seven-session crash course in meeting the country's tougher rules on psychosocial working conditions, with the state labour inspectorate running the programme through the autumn and into January.

Arbeidstilsynet has scheduled the practice-oriented seminars in four cities, aimed squarely at managers, safety delegates and union representatives. Places are capped, so advance registration is compulsory. The opening session in Trondheim on 16 November, 12:30–15:00, has already filled up; a repeat there follows on 30 November at the same time.

Oslo hosts two morning sessions, on 26 November and 1 December, both 09:00–11:30. Tromsø gets two afternoon slots: 3 December, 12:30–15:00, and 15 December, 12:00–14:30. A final date in Bodø on 19 January runs 09:00–11:30, and the inspectorate has not ruled out adding more.

Why now: the law moved first

The legal trigger is Norway's Working Environment Act, whose requirements for a healthy psychosocial working environment were spelled out more precisely with effect from 1 January. The seminar series is designed to help companies put those obligations into practice.

The push comes as regulators, watchdogs and health institutes across Europe sharpen their focus on psychosocial risk and work-related exhaustion.

The numbers behind the urgency

Data from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) illustrates the scale. In its ESENER 2024 survey, 56 percent of organisations in the services sector reported dealing with difficult customers, patients or students, while 43 percent cited structural time pressure as a burden.

Eurostat figures cited by EU-OSHA indicate that 45 percent of employees in the European Union are exposed to risk factors for their mental wellbeing at work. According to the OSH Pulse 2025 survey, 29 percent suffer from work-related stress — or stress made worse by work — as well as anxiety or depression.

Brussels launches a three-year campaign

On 13 October, EU-OSHA unveiled in Brussels its three-year campaign on healthy and safe workplaces for 2026 to 2028, dedicated to a joint effort on mental health at work. The European Week for Safety and Health at Work kicked off the operational phase on 19 October.

Five priorities anchor the campaign: assessing and managing psychosocial risks; protection against harassment, including sexual assault, and against violence; the interaction between physical hazards and mental health; the situation in health and social care; and workplace support and reintegration measures.

Croatia's cautionary note on burnout

National bodies are also working on how to define and tackle work-related strain. The Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ) produced a workbook on preventing burnout and guarding against relapse.

Its starting point was European research finding that 35 percent of respondents often feel exhausted after work. The authors — Barbara Raguž Pe?ur, Petra Bekavac, Helena Koren and Vik Bubaš, from the HZJZ department for occupational and sports medicine, disability prevention and psychosocial risks at work — treat that figure with care.

They point out that the 2024 European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS) used an incomplete measurement framework that captured exhaustion alone. Concluding that 35 percent of employees actually suffer from burnout syndrome is therefore not permissible.

The World Health Organization has, since 2019, classified burnout not as a standalone medical diagnosis but as an occupational phenomenon linked to chronic stress. The Croatian workbook, presented at an October specialist conference on employee wellbeing and available online, centres on organisational levers alongside self-tests and routes to recovery.

Those levers include workload, transparent role allocation, room for manoeuvre and support within the company. The HZJZ also runs anonymous telephone and electronic counselling on psychosocial risks, available without a doctor's referral.