Stress and Mental Health at Work

Stress and Mental Health at Work

Overview

Employers have a legal duty to protect workers from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting on it. This is the same duty you have to protect people from other health and safety risks.

What is stress?

HSE defines stress as ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them.’

Workers feel stress when they can’t cope with pressures and other issues. Employers should match demands to workers’ skills and knowledge. For example, workers can get stressed if they feel they don’t have the skills or time to meet tight deadlines. Providing planning, training and support can reduce pressure and bring stress levels down.

Stress affects people differently – what stresses one person may not affect another. Factors like skills and experience, age or disability may all affect whether a worker can cope.

There are six main areas of work design which can affect stress levels. You should manage these properly. They are:

• Demands
• Control
• Support
• Relationships
• Role
• Change

Employers should assess the risks in these areas to manage stress in the workplace.

 

Signs of stress

 

Stress is not an illness, but it can make you ill. It can cause symptoms that affect how you feel physically and mentally. Recognising the signs of stress will help employers to take steps to stop, lower and manage stress in their workplace.

If workers start acting differently, it can be a sign they are stressed. Managers should look out for signs of stress in teams and workers. Think about whether the stress could be linked to work pressure.

Acting early can reduce the impact of pressure and make it easier to reduce or remove the causes. If managers are worried that a worker is showing some of these signs, they should encourage them to see their GP. These signs can be symptoms of other conditions. If there is something wrong at work, and this has caused the problem, managers should take action.

Signs of stress in teams

Signs of stress in a team include:

• Arguments.
• Higher staff turnover.
• More reports of stress.
• More sickness absence.
• Decreased performance.
• More complaints and grievances.

Employers must assess the risks of work-related stress in the workplace and take action to protect workers. You could review policies on bullying, harassment, and discrimination, and check that your first aid needs assessment considers physical and mental health needs.

Signs of stress in a worker

A change in the way someone acts can be a sign of stress, for example they may:

• Take more time off.
• Arrive for work later.
• Be more twitchy or nervous.

A change in the way someone thinks or feels can also be a sign of stress, for example:

• mood swings.
• being withdrawn.
• loss of motivation, commitment and confidence.
• increased emotional reactions – being more tearful, sensitive or aggressive.

Workers can help look after their own stress levels at work – if you think you have a problem talk to your manager, a colleague or your GP.

Causes of stress at work

There are six main areas that can lead to work-related stress if they are not managed properly. These are: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change.

For example, workers may say that they:

• Are not able to cope with the demands of their jobs.
• Are unable to control the way they do their work.
• Don’t receive enough information and support.
• Are having trouble with relationships at work, or are being bullied.
• Don’t fully understand their role and responsibilities.
• Are not engaged when a business is undergoing change.

Stress affects people differently – what stresses one person may not affect another. Factors like skills and experience, age or disability may all affect whether a worker can cope.

By talking to your workers and understanding how to identify the signs of stress, you can prevent and reduce stress in your workplace.

How to help

The earlier a problem is tackled the less impact it will have. If you think that a worker is having problems, encourage them to talk to someone, whether it’s their line manager, trade union representative, GP, or their occupational health team.

The HSE’s Talking Toolkits can help line managers have simple, practical conversations with workers which can help prevent stress.

To protect workers from stress at work, employers should assess risks to their health. These example stress risk assessments may help.

You may need to develop individual action plans for workers suffering from stress. HSE’s Management Standards may also help you to identify and manage the six causes of stress at work.

As part of your first aid at work needs assessment, you should consider the potential need to support workers who might become ill at work as a result of a mental health issue.

Stress Talking Toolkits

These toolkits are designed to help managers talk with workers as part of their overall approach to preventing and managing work-related stress.

The toolkits should not be used in isolation as your only measure for preventing stress. They help start conversations to identify causes of stress for your workers and identify possible solutions, but you should still manage any identified risks.

They were developed for smaller organisations so they can gather data that larger organisations may gather through surveys. The conversations also can replace the ‘focus group’ element of the Management Standards approach. They can also be used in larger organisations by:

Managers or team leaders as part of their management role:

• In performance reviews, sickness absence management or return to work interviews, or one-to-one meetings.
• To develop ‘reasonable adjustments’ to get colleagues back to work.
• In resource and demand planning.

Senior managers:

• To develop ‘reasonable adjustments’ to get colleagues back to work.
• In resource and demand planning.

HR:

• To investigate where stress is identified or where there are multiple cases of stress.
• To develop ‘reasonable adjustments’ for people with mental health issues or returning to work following illness.
• To follow up the results of staff surveys, for example checking or comparing results.

If the toolkit is being used within a larger organisation it may be necessary to establish a route for managers to pass staff feedback up to the relevant people, for example HR staff, a stress champion or a health and safety team.

You can access the tollobox talk in Preventing Work Related Stress, here:

https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/assets/docs/stress-talking-toolkit.pdf

Stress risk assessment

 

Employers have a legal duty to protect workers from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting on it. You should assess the risk of stress, and its impact on mental and physical ill-health, in the same way as you assess other work-related health and safety risks.

If you have fewer than five workers, you don’t have to write anything down. But it is useful to do this, so you can review it later, for example if something changes. If you have five or more workers, you are required by law to write the risk assessment down.

Any paperwork you produce should help you communicate and manage the risks in your business. For most people this does not need to be a big exercise – just note the main points about the significant risks and what you decided.

An easy way to record your findings is by using the HSE risk assessment template, and there are example risk assessments on stress:

https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/risk-assessment-template-and-examples.htm

 

The following are examples of risk assessments carried out on different work places of varying sizes:

Small sized business https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/assets/docs/perfect-cakes-risk-assessment.pdf

Medium sized business https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/assets/docs/learning-with-care-risk-assessment.pdf

Large sized business https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/assets/docs/learning-with-care-risk-assessment.pdf

Employers may also find HSE’s Management Standards helpful. The standards help identify and manage six areas of work design which can affect stress levels – demands, control, support, relationships, role, and change. Our example risk assessments below show the kind of approach a small business might take. Use them as a guide to think through some of the hazards in your business and the steps you should take to control the risks.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/index.htm

Your risk assessment will help you to identify potential risks to your workers from stress and to take action to protect them. You could review policies on bullying, harassment, and discrimination, and check that your first aid needs assessment considers physical and mental health needs.

Help for workers on stress at work

If you are stressed you may notice changes in the way you think or feel, for example:

• Feeling negative.
• Being indecisive.
• Feeling isolated.
• Feeling nervous.
• Being unable to concentrate.

You may act differently, for example:

• Eat more or less than usual.
• Smoke, drink or take drugs ‘to cope’.
• Have difficulty sleeping.

If you are feeling signs of stress at work, it is important to talk to someone, for example your manager. If you talk to them as soon as possible, it will give them the chance to help and stop the situation getting worse.

If the pressure is due to what your line manager is doing, find out what policies are in place to deal with this. If there aren’t any, you could talk to your:

• Trade Union Representative.
• Worker Representative.
• HR Department.
• Worker assistance programme/counselling services if your company has these.
• First aider trained to support people experiencing mental health.

Many workers are unwilling to talk about stress at work, because of the stigma stress has. But stress is not a weakness and can happen to anyone.

What your employer must do

Your employer has a legal duty to assess the risks to your health from stress at work and share the results of any risk assessment with you. Your employer may follow HSE’s Management Standards approach, which help identify and manage the main causes of stress at work.

Employers must assess and manage all work-related risks. They should act to protect workers, and others, from any identified physical or mental health risks.

Help from the NHS and others

 

 

If you’re finding it hard to cope with stress you can get help from the NHS (nhs.co.uk). They also provide links to other sources of support and information.

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/feelings-and-symptoms/stress/