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How to Tackle Work-Related Stress and Reduce Staff Sickness Absence

At first sight work-related stress is a complex area of hazard management that to some may seem just too hard to tackle effectively. Identifying causation and separating it from employees own lives can seem an impossible task. Yet the measures that employers can take to reduce stress amongst their workforce are often very simple and are in the main just good management practice – the kinds of things they should be doing anyway to run a successful business.

Framing these measures within a structured approach to tackling stress helps give the initiative a focus, keeps it on track, and demonstrates to all employees that it is being taken seriously. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidance on managing work-related stress sets out an approach that employers can take, including looking for evidence of any problems with stress, consulting with employees, and achieving compliance with legal requirements. The defining feature of this guidance is the six management standards it uses to help categorise the potential causes of stress ; demands, control, support, relationships, role, and change. Whilst the HSE guidance outlines an approach, it doesn’t specify the bespoke tools and systems that each employer needs to develop to implement to manage stress within their organisation.

A Plan of Action

Managing work-related stress needs a partnership approach across an organisation, involving a number stakeholders; managers, employees, employee representatives, occupational health, health and safety, and human resources. A good starting point therefore is to develop a specific management plan for work-related stress that coordinates the role of each stakeholder, in much the same way as Asbestos Management Plans tackle another complex health hazard. The management plan, headed by a specific policy statement setting out the organisation’s intentions for managing stress, can contain all the relevant procedures and resources within the organisation that relate to work-related stress. The policy statement should be supported by a clear statement of the specific responsibilities of everyone in the organisation including employees themselves, for instance not taking on excessive work or working excessive hours of the their accord.

Role of the Manager

An organisation’s line managers need be at the heart of any effective attempt to tackle work-related stress. They directly influence the working environment of their employees through their own behaviour, the support they provide and by controlling workloads. They are also well placed to spot the early signs that employees are struggling to cope. And it’s here that taking a broad view of employee wellbeing, rather than focussing on narrow legal obligations, is crucial. It doesn’t matter really what the cause of someone’s stress-related illness is; firstly, quite often there a number of work and non-work factors involved; secondly, there is nearly always something the employer can do to help, whether it’s through provision of counselling, or flexible working options, and irrespective of the causation if the individual is absent from work, it’s the employer that suffers through increased costs and reduced productivity.

Risk assessing for stress

Its pointless loading responsibilities on to managers for managing stress without equipping them with the tools and knowledge to do so. The starting point is to define exactly what you mean by stress, some employers will use other terminology to avoid any negative connotations or cynicism. A better way is to meet this head on and define what stress means to your organisation. The HSE’s definition, that stress is the adverse reaction to prolonged or excessive pressure, provides an excellent starting point. With this definition pressure can be good or bad, something that we all need to help focus and create a ‘buzz’. That pressure can in certain circumstances result in stress focuses managers on the need to prevent this happening in the first place. And in this sense it is no different from managing any other workplace hazard; that harm needs to be prevented before it occurs. Therefore the cornerstone of a good stress management plan should be a risk assessment tool that empowers managers at a local level to identify possible causes of stress and implement measures to control them.

The HSE’s five steps to risk assessment provides a simple mechanism for any risk assessment, and it works for stress as well. But how can you risk assess a hazard that is so varied and affects individuals in different ways? One answer is to build the risk assessment around the HSE’s six management standards described above. All possible causes of stress drop into one or other of the six standards, helping managers join up related issues and identify simple interventions such as improved communication, further training or additional resources.

Its ok to talk

Perhaps the biggest benefit of empowering managers to tackle stress at a local level is that talking about stress becomes the norm. By sharing the risk assessment with their team, the manager gets a greater perspective of pressure points and possible solutions, which in turn further improves their understanding of the workplace. It also helps the manager value the measures they have already got in place to support the team. Talking openly in this way starts to erode the stigma that stress can carry, and employees will more readily ask for help if they are struggling.

The underlying theme throughout all of this is that good stress management is not about NOT doing things, but about HOW you do those things. For instance restructuring a business may not be a matter of choice, but the way in which the organisation communicates, consults and engages with its employees will contribute hugely to whether the change is managed successfully and reduce the impact on employee wellbeing. That’s just good management practice.

About Author: John Hamilton is the Head of Safety, Health and Wellbeing at Leeds Metropolitan University and the author of the Employers Guide to Stress Law.