Managing stress: how to be proactive

Lee-Anne Crossman, Associate, Hill Dickinson LLP considers stress in the workplace and provides practical advice about how employers can manage stress.

Research shows that employee stress levels are rising in line with demands of the 21^st Century workplace.  ACAS reports that each new case of stress leads to an average of 31 days off work.

What is stress?

The Health and Safety Executive (“HSE”) defines stress as the “adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them“.  Stress takes many forms.  As well as leading to anxiety and depression it can have a significant impact on an employee’s health.  ACAS states “Pressure is part and parcel of work and helps to keep us motivated.  But excessive pressure can lead to stress which undermines performance, is costly to employers and can make people ill“.  Therefore, managing stress effectively is important for all employers.

The law

There is no legislation in the UK that deals specifically with stress.  The rights and duties of employers and employees in relation to stress derive from a combination of different statutory and common law provisions and include health and safety legislation; common law tort, (negligence); restrictions on working hours, i.e. the Working Time Regulations 1998; disability discrimination; breach of contract, (breach of mutual trust and confidence); whistleblowing and so on.  Failure to deal with stress adequately can lead to claims brought in courts and the employment tribunal.

How to manage stress

ACAS states that “For many people “stress” still represents something of an unknown quantity.  HSE has addressed this problem by developing Management Standards to help employers measure their performance in managing the key causes of stress at work and identify areas of improvement“.

The Standards look at the following:

• Demands made on employees; this requires understanding stress risk factors such as workload or under load and exposure to physical hazards;
• the level of control employees have over their work; in other words how much say the person has in the way he / she does work;
• the support employees receive from managers and colleagues; employers should consider training and factors unique to the individual;
• the clarity of an employee’s role within the organisation; whether the individual understands his or her role in the organisation;
• the nature of relationships at work; this covers issues such as bullying and harassment;
• and the way that change is managed and communicated within an organisation

When addressing the Standards mentioned above employers should consider taking the following steps:

• Design a stress policy; this signals that the employer takes issues of stress seriously.  It should provide guidance to employees on to how to deal with the effects of stress and how to raise these concerns within the workplace.
• Carry out a stress audit;
• Ensure an open environment in which employees can speak about stress;
• Use return to work interviews after sickness absence, performance appraisals and employee surveys to identify any underlying stress related reasons for absence or poor performance;
• Train managers to recognise situations likely to cause stress and identify symptoms of stress;
• Consult employees, employee representatives or Unions on organisational changes;
• Avoid placing unreasonable demands on employees by prioritising workloads and appropriate delegation of duties;
• Provide adequate training;
• Provide support through the employee assistance programme or Occupational Health service and / providing independent counselling.

Overall by taking proactive measures, stress can be prevented thereby reducing sickness absence and in turn time and cost to an employer.  It will also provide a more productive and happy workforce.

What makes us susceptible to burnout?

In this episode  of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.

We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.

Listen now!