Health and Safety Executive: Management Standards for Stress

The HSE introduced Management Standards for Stress in the Workplace in November 2004. 

Staunton and Associates Ltd. can help you to comply with the standards.

These standards are intended to ease the pressure and improve the quality of life on the shop floor and in the office, while potential benefits to the organisation will include:

• reduced absenteeism

• reduced staff turnover

• increased productivity

• improved competitiveness

• better morale

• fewer errors and accidents

The standards are:

• Demands of the job – Employees indicate that they are able to cope with the demands of their jobs

• Control – Employees indicate that they are able to have a say about the way they do their work

• Support – Employees indicate that they receive adequate information and support from their colleagues and superiors

• Relationships – Employees indicate that they are not subjected to unacceptable behaviours, e.g. bullying at work

• Role – Employees indicate that they understand their role and responsibilities

• Change – Employees indicate that the organisation engages them frequently when undergoing an organisational change.

And in each case, systems should be in place locally to respond to any individual concerns.

Testing for compliance with the standards would usually entail running an anonymous survey involving all employees roughly every two years, to get the big picture, and managers carrying out risk assessments for stress related ill health for their reportees at appropriate times – for example following a major reorganisation, or when a person reports back to work after sickness absence. 

There are no hard and fast targets to achieve. The process is geared towards continual improvement.

It is important to manage the introduction of the process – especially the surveys – very carefully. You may decide, for example, to run a small pilot this year in anticipation of the introduction full-scale surveys next year. 

You will probably find that you are good on some things and less good on others. Together with any existing data you may have (for example, on sickness absence or staff turnover), this information can be used in focus group discussions with employees to determine what is happening locally and what should be done to close the gap.

Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) typically serve only the one or two percent of employees who suffer stress to the point where it affects their mental or physical health and are prepared to seek help. The new standards are designed to help the much larger group – about 20% of all UK employees – who feel very stressed or extremely stressed at work. 

Properly conducted, the survey process at the heart of these standards will

• help to identify those groups that feel most stressed at work,

• identify factors that create the most damaging levels of stress, and

• point to actions (interventions) that you can reasonably take to remedy the situation with the resources available.

Staunton and Associates Ltd are consultants in work related stress. We offer a tailorable service to organisations that want to understand and implement the HSE Management Standards.

Contact us