On October 2018, Mexican authorities published the Official Mexican Standard STPS-035, commonly known as “NOM 35”.
NOM 35 sets out new obligations to companies regarding identification, analysis and prevention of social and psychological risk factors of their employees, as well as promotion of a favourable organizational environment in workspaces.
NOM 35 has a high impact on the internal operations of companies, specifically on (i) internal standards and policies of normative compliance such as Code of Conduct, Rules of Procedure, Labor Contracts, complaints and allegations handling systems, as well as data protection and confidentiality of employees’ files. (ii) The way the company shall operate before government authorities such as the Ministry of Labor, Conciliation and Arbitration Board and the Mexican Institute of Social Security. (iii) New conditions for daily interactions between workers – company, such as labour unions and finally, (iv) the handling of examinations visits and the regime of sanctions for total or partial non-compliance with said visits.
The main obligations set out by NOM 35 to companies are 1. Establish a psychosocial risk prevention policy. 2. Identify and analyze psychosocial risk factors. 3. Evaluate the organizational environment. 4. Adopt a psychosocial risk control and prevention Measurements. 5. Profess medical exams and psychological evaluations to employees exposed to labour violence and/or psychosocial risk factors; and 6. Keep records of all matters related to psychosocial risks and its handling, among others.
NOM 35 also sets out obligations to workers that must be included in documents and contracts, as well as being a part of the respective training.
The effective date of implementation for the obligations set out by NOM 35 and henceforth, its enforceability by authorities is October, 23rd, 2019. The penalty established by the laws regarding NOM 35 are fines of up to MX$535,350.00 pesos per occurrence.
By virtue of the nature of the enforcement of NOM 35 implying a big challenge for companies, the Compliance branch of our firm has comprised a multidisciplinary team of lawyers, psychologists, IT specialists and labor relations and industrial specialists to establish a comprehensive implementation strategy of NOM 35, that allows to address it thoroughly and entirely, as opposed to a segmented approach.
We invite you to contact us to fully explain how these Official Mexican Standard impacts on your company.
