The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), via their Working Minds campaign, has declared April Stress Awareness Month.
Work-related stress is an important consideration for businesses since all employers have a legal duty to prevent work related stress to support good mental health in the workplace. Clearly it is beneficial for employees when businesses make efforts to manage and reduce work-related stress, but employers can benefit too. A reduction in work-related stress amongst the workforce means the employer is less likely to come across issues such as reduced productivity, repeated sickness absence, and poor staff retention.
Clearly it is beneficial for everyone in the business that work-related stress is managed and reduced, and so the HSE are inviting employers to complete 5 steps this April:
- Reach out and have conversations.
- Recognise the signs and causes of stress.
- Respond to any risks identified by agreeing action points.
- Reflect on the actions taken – have things improved?
- Make it Routine to check back in on how things are going.
Sometimes stress is easy to spot in the workplace, but there can be less obvious indicators that stress is taking a toll on workers. For instance, stress may be behind a worker who is taking more time off, arriving for work later, seems to have lost motivation or confidence, or seems more emotional or nervous than normal. An increase in arguments, complaints, sickness absence, people leaving, or decreased performance can be indicators that there is a stress problem affecting team members.
The legal duty that employers have in relation to stress does not extend to diagnosing or treating stress. However, it is an employer’s responsibility to identify the risks of stress and then act on them.
