On March 16, 2026, the Ministry of Labor published the preliminary draft that reforms Law 31/1995. For the first time, psychosocial risks have the same legal weight as physical, chemical or ergonomic risks. Your company has new obligations, and some come into force before the text becomes law.
Here's what changes, what you have to do and where to start.
What are psychosocial risks and why do they now matter legally?
Chronic stress, excessive mental workload, harassment, algorithmic pressure on performance: until now, your ORP technician could mention these factors in the evaluation or ignore them without clear legal consequences. The draft closes that door.
The new text expands the concept of harm derived from work to six dimensions: physical, physiological, cognitive, emotional, behavioral and social. Evaluating only physical risks is no longer sufficient — and, when the law goes into effect, it will no longer be legal.
Furthermore, the text explicitly recognizes workplace violence and harassment carried out through algorithms or artificial intelligence systems as risks that the company must prevent. A change that directly affects industrial environments with performance monitoring systems.
The three specific obligations that the reform brings
The draft does not stop at declarations. These are the operational requirements that affect your prevention system:
Include psychosocial risks as a mandatory category in the risk assessment, at the same level as safety, hygiene and ergonomics.
Review the assessment when work organization, processes or procedures change — not just when equipment or facilities change.
Carry out evaluations through in-person visits to work centers, with procedures that demonstrate real contact with the operation.
The third point deserves special attention. The Ministry points out documentary evaluations that never set foot on the plant. If your risk assessment was written by someone in an office without visiting the centre, you need to review it.
Mental health: from recommendation to requirement
The UN declared mental health a global priority in February 2026. The Spanish draft includes it specifically: the company must guarantee the monitoring of physical and mental health, both individual and collective.
In practice this means:
Health examinations at the beginning of the employment relationship, periodic and after prolonged absences for health reasons.
Collection of exposure and damage data for analysis aimed at prioritizing preventive measures.
Reinstatement procedures after long absences, with adaptation of the position and updating of training.
For industrial plants with rotating shifts, night work or high physical demands, these three points imply redesigning the health surveillance protocol that you have probably been using for years without changes.
Algorithmic harassment: a new category affecting the industry
This is the least talked about change and one of the most relevant for industrial environments with performance control systems.
The draft recognizes harassment carried out through information technologies, algorithms or artificial intelligence systems as an occupational risk that the company must prevent. If you use productivity monitoring systems, tracking cameras or automated performance alerts, you must include their psychosocial impact in the risk assessment.
It is not a prohibition to use that technology. It is the obligation to evaluate whether it generates psychological pressure on workers and, if so, take measures.
Gender and age perspective: no longer optional
The draft makes something that until now was a recommendation into a legal obligation: integrating the gender and age perspective into preventive management.
Your ORP manager should consider that the same position may have different exposures depending on who occupies it. PPE, physical load limits and procedures must be adapted to the real characteristics of each worker, not to the profile of the standard worker.
What to do before the law comes into force
The draft is in public hearing until April 8. The parliamentary process will take months. But waiting for approval to act is the most expensive mistake your prevention team can make.
These are the five actions with the most immediate impact:
Audit whether the current risk assessment includes psychosocial risks as its own category with associated measures.
Verify that the latest evaluations were carried out with documented in-person visits to the center.
Review the health surveillance protocol: does it include mental health? Does it contemplate reinstatements after discharge?
Analyze whether performance monitoring systems generate measurable psychological pressure on workers.
Check that the PPE is sized for all worker profiles, not just a standard profile.
Companies that treat this reform as a compliance problem will arrive late and at a higher cost. Those who read it as an opportunity to improve their preventive system will arrive sooner and with less friction.
How computer vision helps manage psychosocial risks
Detecting fatigue, stress postures or risky behaviors in real time is exactly what computer vision does in industrial environments. Safe monitors behaviors, generates early alerts and produces the documentary record that the new regulations will require.
It does not replace the ORP technician. It gives you concrete data so you can make decisions with evidence, not intuition.
Discover how Safe manages psychosocial risks in the plant in real time