Business Mentality

Work-related stress is a major cause of occupational ill health and businesses which do not tackle this serious health and safety issue are likely to see a high level of sickness absence and staff turnover and a poor performance level.

The cost to local businesses should not be underestimated - research carried out in this area suggests that work-related stress accounts for more than one third of all new incidences of ill health and that each such case of stress, depression or anxiety leads to an average loss of 30.2 working days.

This is why the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has been promoting - initially to major employers - its Managements Standards for Work-related Stress over the last two years, through workshops, training events and company visits. One of the regional employers which has benefited from this HSE support is Swindon Primary Care Trust (PCT), which attended two of the initial training events organised by HSE's 'stress' team.

As a result of implementing these Management Standards, Swindon PCT won the 2008 runner-up award in the 'Best management practice in tackling workplace stress' category of Healthcare People Management Association's annual awards.

Swindon PCT's 'Stress-less stress' initiative involved trialling the Management Standards on a few key area and setting in place a robust, accessible and comprehensible policy, backed up by training. By basing this policy on HSE's Management Standards, the PCT was able to fast-track its implementation and, as a result, the number of new stress-related absences has declined already and a decrease in the number of referrals to occupational health is anticipated in the near future.

The benefits to employers of tackling stress in the workplace are not only in terms of improving staff commitment, performance, productivity, recruitment and retention, but also have a legal 'pay off'. Employers have duties under Health and Safety legislation to assess the risk of stress-related ill health arising from work activities and to take measures to control such risk. Carrying out a proper risk assessment for stress could enable a company or organisation to avoid prosecution and litigation.

HSE hope to offer further stress-related events and workshops. Information on these and on the Management Standards and practical inspection tools outlined above is available from HSE's website: http://www.hse.gov.uk/.

This article was sourced from www.mentalhealth.org.uk