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    QHSEtech
    Updated 4 October 2026
    EU OSH Buyer's Guide

    EU OSH Strategic Framework 2021–2027: where it stands in 2026

    The EU strategic framework on health and safety at work 2021–2027 is a Commission communication, COM(2021) 323 of 28 June 2021. It sets priorities; the legal duties sit in the Framework Directive 89/391/EEC and the individual directives. We found no published mid-term review: the review the framework scheduled was a stocktaking summit in May 2023. What is new in 2026 is the consultation on a Quality Jobs Act, which covers psychosocial risks, extreme heat, off-premises work and algorithmic management.

    Below: what has been published since 2021, the six hazards the documents name, the records the directives require with a software test for each, and the researched platforms that meet one published rule. Sources checked 25 September 2026; each is linked where it is used and listed at the end.

    Quick Facts

    Adopted
    28 Jun 2021
    COM(2021) 323
    Stocktaking summit
    15–16 May 2023
    summit conclusions
    Fatal accidents at work, EU, 2024
    3,367
    Eurostat
    Workers with job-related stress, anxiety or depression, 2025
    29%
    Commission, 4 Dec 2025

    What exists in 2026

    The framework is a policy document, not legislation. It runs to 2027; we found no successor framework published by 25 September 2026. These are the documents that have followed it.

    1. 28 June 2021The Commission adopts the framework as a communication, COM(2021) 323, with two staff working documents (SWD(2021) 148 and 149). It sets three key objectives: anticipating and managing change in the new world of work brought about by the green, digital and demographic transitions; improving prevention of workplace accidents and illnesses, with a 'vision zero' approach to work-related deaths; and increasing preparedness for potential future health crises. (COM(2021) 323)
    2. 15–16 May 2023The stocktaking OSH summit in Stockholm, the review point the framework itself scheduled for 2023. Its conclusions confirm the framework's objectives, name psychosocial risks and mental health, climate change, and AI and robotics as issues that need intensified consideration, and call the Framework Directive 89/391/EEC a golden standard that covers all risks. (summit conclusions)
    3. October 2025The Commission completes its consultation of social partners on the right to disconnect and telework. (Commission, 4 Dec 2025)
    4. 4 December 2025The Quality Jobs Roadmap, COM(2025) 944, and a first-stage consultation on a Quality Jobs Act (open until 29 January 2026). The consultation lists safety and health at work among the areas a new law could cover, citing the rise in psychosocial and ergonomic risks. (Commission, 4 Dec 2025)
    5. 20 July 2026Second-phase consultation on the Quality Jobs Act, which closed on 28 September 2026. On health and safety it asks about updating rules for workplaces outside traditional offices and about extreme heat and psychosocial hazards such as sexual harassment. After it closes, the social partners may decide to negotiate an agreement themselves; the Commission says the proposal will be presented later in 2026. (Commission, 20 Jul 2026)
    6. 1 August 2026The European Parliament's employment committee is preparing an own-initiative legislative report asking the Commission for a proposal on psychosocial risks (procedure 2026/2023(INL)). In the Legislative Train update of this date it was awaiting a committee vote, with an indicative plenary date of October 2026. (EP Legislative Train)
    7. 13 October 2026 (scheduled)Launch event in Brussels for EU-OSHA's Healthy Workplaces campaign 2026–2028, 'Together for mental health at work', followed by the European Week for Safety and Health on 19–24 October 2026, as listed on the campaign site. The framework had announced the previous campaign, 2023–2025, on creating a safe and healthy digital future. (EU-OSHA campaign)

    An earlier version of this page described a "2026 mid-term review". We could not find one on the Commission's pages (Commission policy page) or by web search, so the claim was removed on 25 September 2026.

    Six hazards the documents name

    Psychosocial risks

    The framework has a section on them: before the pandemic mental health problems affected about 84 million people in the EU, and half of EU workers consider stress common in their workplace. In EU-OSHA's OSH Pulse survey (by telephone, April 2025, over 28,000 workers), 29% reported stress, anxiety or depression caused or worsened by their job in 2025, up from 27% in 2022. There is still no EU directive specific to psychosocial risks; the Parliament's INL and the Quality Jobs Act consultation both ask whether there should be.

    Sources: COM(2021) 323, EU-OSHA OSH Pulse 2025, Commission, 4 Dec 2025, EP Legislative Train

    Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)

    EU-OSHA describes MSDs as one of the most common work-related ailments, usually caused by a combination of physical, organisational, psychosocial and individual factors rather than a single one. The framework asks for further research and data collection on work-related diseases that also covers MSDs, and for awareness raising on them.

    Sources: EU-OSHA, MSDs, COM(2021) 323

    Carcinogens, mutagens and reprotoxic substances

    The framework names cancer as the leading cause of work-related deaths in the EU, with an estimated 100,000 occupational cancer deaths a year. Directive (EU) 2022/431 brought reprotoxic substances into Directive 2004/37/EC; Member States had to transpose it by 5 April 2024.

    Sources: COM(2021) 323, Directive (EU) 2022/431

    Heat and climate change

    The framework notes that climate change can affect workers' safety and health through higher ambient temperature, air pollution and extreme weather; the 2023 summit named climate change as a growing issue. The 2026 Quality Jobs Act consultation asks social partners about EU action on extreme heat.

    Sources: COM(2021) 323, summit conclusions, Commission, 20 Jul 2026

    Algorithmic management and AI at work

    The AI Act lists AI systems used to allocate tasks based on individual behaviour or personal traits, or to monitor and evaluate workers' performance and behaviour, as high-risk (Annex III, point 4(b)). The Platform Work Directive requires digital labour platforms to evaluate the safety and health risks of automated monitoring and decision-making systems, including psychosocial and ergonomic risks (Article 12(1)).

    Sources: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Directive (EU) 2024/2831

    Remote, hybrid and off-premises work

    The framework records that close to 40% of workers began working remotely full time as a result of the pandemic, which blurred work and private life. The right-to-disconnect and telework consultation closed in October 2025, and the Quality Jobs Act consultation covers rules for workplaces outside traditional offices.

    Sources: COM(2021) 323, Commission, 4 Dec 2025, Commission, 20 Jul 2026

    Pair with risk assessment software and the EU Green Deal hub.

    Records the directives require, and a demo test for each

    National law transposes these directives and decides the form of most records (Article 9(2) of the Framework Directive lets Member States set obligations by size and activity). The clause column is the EU text; check your national rule before configuring anything.

    RecordEU clauseAsk the vendor to show
    A risk assessment, including groups of workers exposed to particular risksDirective 89/391/EEC, Article 9(1)(a) (Directive 89/391/EEC)Open a risk assessment for one group at particular risk and show its revision history.
    Measures based on the general principles of prevention, among them avoiding risks, combating them at source, replacing the dangerous by the non-dangerous or less dangerous, and giving collective protective measures priority over individual onesDirective 89/391/EEC, Article 6(2), points (a) to (i); points (a), (c), (f) and (h) quoted (Directive 89/391/EEC)Record a hazard whose first control is elimination or substitution, and show that PPE cannot be entered as the only control without a reason.
    Consultation of workers or their safety representatives, in advance and in good time, on any measure that may substantially affect safety and health and on the information in Articles 9(1) and 10, which includes the risk assessmentDirective 89/391/EEC, Article 11(2)(a) and (c) (Directive 89/391/EEC)Link a consultation record, with date and participants, to the risk-assessment version it concerned.
    A list of occupational accidents that left a worker unfit for work for more than three working days, and reports to the authorities in line with national law or practiceDirective 89/391/EEC, Article 9(1)(c) and (d) (Directive 89/391/EEC)Log an accident with four working days lost and show it appear on the list and in the export your national authority or insurer requires.
    An up-to-date list of workers exposed to carcinogens, mutagens or reprotoxic substances, kept at least 40 years after exposure ends for carcinogens and mutagens and at least five years for reprotoxic substancesDirective 2004/37/EC, Article 12(c) (list); Article 15(1) and (1a) as replaced by Directive (EU) 2022/431 (retention) (Directive 2004/37/EC, Directive (EU) 2022/431)Ask how the record survives the end of the software contract: export format, and who holds it for 40 years.
    Individual medical records where health surveillance is carried out, kept for the same 40 or five years as the exposure listDirective 2004/37/EC, Article 14(4) and Article 15(1) and (1a), both as amended by Directive (EU) 2022/431; health data is a special category under GDPR Article 9 (Directive (EU) 2022/431, GDPR)Show a line manager being refused access to a worker's health-surveillance record.
    Information to workers' representatives and affected workers before a high-risk AI system is put into service or used at the workplaceRegulation (EU) 2024/1689, Article 26(7), with Annex III, point 4; for the start date, the Commission's AI Act page gives 2 December 2027 for high-risk obligations (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Commission AI Act page)If you deploy such a system, store the notice, its date and recipients next to the risk assessment it affects.

    Digital labour platforms have an extra duty: evaluate the risks of automated monitoring and decision-making systems and consult platform workers on them (Directive (EU) 2024/2831, Article 12(1) and (2); transposition due 2 December 2026, Directive (EU) 2024/2831).

    What to skip when picking an EU OSH platform

    • ×An incident-only tool when you also need risk assessments, consultation records and exposure lists: the Framework Directive and Directive 2004/37/EC ask for each of these records separately.
    • ×A hosting answer you have not had in writing: health-surveillance and psychosocial-survey results are health data, a special category under GDPR Article 9, and any transfer outside the EU/EEA falls under GDPR Chapter V.
    • ×Paying for risk-assessment templates before a small single-site employer has looked at EU-OSHA's online interactive risk-assessment (OiRA) tools, which the framework describes as guiding employers through all steps of the process.
    • ×A per-worker quote you have not costed for your whole headcount: ask for the total with every reporting worker, contractor and seasonal worker counted.
    • ×A frontline interface you have only seen in English: name each language your workers use and test one form in each.

    Sources: Directive 89/391/EEC, Directive (EU) 2022/431, GDPR, COM(2021) 323.

    EU OSH platforms to evaluate

    This is not a ranking: each entry states what its researched profile documents, or this page's note on what it documents, what was not established and what it publishes about price.

    Tekmon pays for a sponsored placement (above); its place in this list follows the same rule as every entry. How lists are ordered

    Same rule for every product: tagged “EHS Management” or “Safety Management” or assigned primary category “EHS Management” or “Safety Management”, with a sourced incident management capability in its record, or one the vendor stated to us, labelled as vendor-stated. 57 qualify; the first 8 are shown, then the other 49.

    Also meet the rule, in the same order (49)

    What vendors publish about price

    This page used to show annual cost bands by employer size. They had no source, so they are gone. What each profile records about price is in the list above, in its note or on its profile.

    For a multi-country programme, ask each vendor for one written total that names the modules, user and contractor counts, languages, implementation, data migration and renewal terms. Products that do publish a price are in the QHSE software pricing index.

    The economic case, as the sources state it

    This replaces a table of percentage improvements (assessment cycle time, reporting rate, inspection preparation, works-council lead time) that had no source. We found none for any of them.

    • The framework puts the cost of work-related accidents and illnesses at over 3.3% of EU GDP a year, about EUR 460 billion in 2019, calculated from disability-adjusted life years; it credits the figure to an EU-OSHA international comparison from 2017 (COM(2021) 323).
    • It also cites estimates that each euro an employer invests in OSH returns around twice as much, from a 2011 Commission study on the socio-economic costs of accidents at work and a 2020 Institute for Work & Health economic analysis of methods to reduce silica dust exposure. That is a return on OSH measures in general, not on software (COM(2021) 323).
    • Eurostat counts 3,367 fatal and 2.78 million non-fatal accidents at work in the EU in 2024 (non-fatal meaning at least four calendar days' absence): 1.65 fatal and 1,359 non-fatal accidents per 100,000 employed people. Construction accounted for 23.0% of fatal accidents (Eurostat).

    Illustrative calculation, not a benchmark

    Inputs: a workforce of 1,000 employed people (an example headcount) and the EU-wide 2024 rate of 1,359 non-fatal accidents per 100,000 employed (Eurostat). Arithmetic: 1,000 × 1,359 ÷ 100,000 ≈ 13.6 accidents a year with four or more calendar days' absence, if your workforce matched the EU average.

    It will not. Rates depend on sector and on national reporting systems: Eurostat reports 65 per 100,000 in Romania and 2,622 in France, and warns that very low rates may reflect under-reporting. Use your own accident list (the Article 9(1)(c) record above), your own days lost and your own daily absence cost; note that the list counts more than three working days unfit for work, while Eurostat counts at least four calendar days of absence, so the two totals will not match exactly. We do not supply a cost per day, because no EU source we found publishes one that would fit your organisation.

    Sources

    All opened and read on 25 September 2026. Product statements come from the linked profiles, each with its own source list and check date.

    Build an EU OSH software shortlist in three questions

    Answer three questions for up to five profiles matched on your priority, industry and team-size tags. Confirm sites, languages, works-council needs and priority hazards with each vendor.

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    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the EU OSH strategic framework 2021–2027?
    A European Commission communication, COM(2021) 323 of 28 June 2021, titled 'Occupational safety and health in a changing world of work'. It sets three key objectives (managing change from the green, digital and demographic transitions; improving prevention of workplace accidents and illnesses; and preparedness for future health crises) and lists Commission actions and calls on Member States and social partners. It is policy, not law: employers' obligations come from the Framework Directive 89/391/EEC and the individual directives.
    Is there a 2026 mid-term review of the framework?
    We found none. The framework scheduled a 2023 stocktaking OSH summit instead, held in Stockholm on 15–16 May 2023; its conclusions confirmed the objectives and flagged psychosocial risks and mental health, climate change, and AI and robotics. The 2026 developments are the Quality Jobs Act consultations (the second phase closed on 28 September 2026) and the European Parliament's own-initiative report on psychosocial risks. Checked 25 September 2026 on the Commission's health-and-safety pages and by web search; the consultation closing date was checked on the Commission's notice on 4 October 2026.
    Which EU OSH software is best in 2026?
    We do not rank EU OSH software on performance, because no source we could check compares these products on the same programme. The researched EHS platforms are listed, each with the date its sources were checked, in our EHS platform comparison. Compare them on your own programme: a risk assessment completed in each frontline language you need, an anonymous psychosocial survey aggregated to team level, a works-council consultation record with version history, and where the data is hosted. In our catalogue, the 57 products that meet this guide's rule (a matching tag or allowed primary category, plus a sourced incident management capability or one the vendor stated to us) are EHS Insight, Safesite, 1Life, Emex, Intelex and 52 more, in documented-match order (see the list on this page). That order reflects documentation, not quality; no product is recommended.
    What do EU employers have to do differently in 2026?
    The framework itself creates no new duties. What changed in law: national rules transposing Directive (EU) 2022/431 were due by 5 April 2024, adding reprotoxic substances to the exposure list and record duties of Directive 2004/37/EC; digital labour platforms face the Platform Work Directive, due to be transposed by 2 December 2026. For the AI Act's high-risk obligations, the Commission's AI Act page gives a start date of 2 December 2027; the regulation as published in 2024 had set 2 August 2026. The Quality Jobs Act could add duties on psychosocial risks, heat and off-premises work, but no proposal had been published by 25 September 2026.
    How does this connect to ISO 45001 and CSRD?
    ISO 45001 is a voluntary management-system standard; certification does not replace the risk-assessment, consultation and record duties of the directives, but the same records can serve both. For CSRD, the ESRS adopted in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772 include Disclosure Requirement S1-14, health and safety metrics. Omnibus I, approved by the Council on 24 February 2026, narrowed CSRD to companies with more than 1,000 employees and above EUR 450 million net turnover, so check first whether and from which year you report. Our CSRD software comparison covers the reporting side.
    Is there an EU law on psychosocial risks?
    Not a specific one. One of the Framework Directive's general principles of prevention is a coherent overall prevention policy covering technology, organisation of work, working conditions and social relationships (Article 6(2)(g)), and the 2023 summit conclusions say it covers all risks. The European Parliament's report 2026/2023(INL) would ask the Commission for a proposal, and the Quality Jobs Act consultation asks about psychosocial hazards, including sexual harassment. Until then, national rules and guidance decide the method.
    How much does an EU OSH platform cost?
    We do not publish a price band, because we found no source for one. Each profile records whether a price is published; several EHS platforms scope a subscription with a multi-year term and separate implementation, or quote by proposal. Ask for a written total covering modules, users, languages, implementation and renewal terms, and see the QHSE software pricing index for the products that do publish prices.
    What does the EU AI Act mean for OSH teams?
    AI systems used to allocate tasks based on individual behaviour or traits, or to monitor and evaluate workers' performance and behaviour, are high-risk under Annex III, point 4(b). The employer is normally a deployer, not the provider: before putting such a system into service at the workplace it must inform workers' representatives and the affected workers (Article 26(7)). Conformity assessment is the provider's obligation (Article 16(f)). Record the notice alongside the risk assessment the system affects.