Bearly Stressed…

Bearly Stressed…

Koala Bear numbers are declining due to stress induced infections and with the current recession well under way, and the physiological effect that stress has on you and your organisation, current figures are indicating that stress is on the increase and now costing the UK a massive £100 billion per year.

Not all sickness can be attributed to stress but the International Stress Management Association states that typical symptoms to stress include susceptibility to minor illness such as head aches, migraines, irritable bowel and musculoskeletal problems all of which lead to higher absence rates.

With the current trend of company re-organisation and down sizing, this will undoubtedly be putting more and more pressure on the team that remains within your company and, as there is strong evidence that stress and poor management go hand in hand, management teams must now start to recognise stress as a legitimate work placed hazard and actively do something about it.

 A question of compliance…

The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 requires that employers ensure the health and safety at work of all employees as far as is reasonably practicable.   Great words we all know and recite regularly but are you sure your organisation is doing everything ‘as far as is reasonably practicable’?

Additional legislation states specifically that ‘ill health resulting from stress caused at work has to be treated in the same way as ill health due to physical causes present in the work place’.

So with this in mind why not use HSG218 which offers practical advice on the subject of stress management.

Suitable & sufficient risk assessments…

Start by including stress in your organisations risk assessments but actively look at the controls measures that you are using and audit these to ensure the controls are actively implemented.  

The best control measures are as ever very simple, and may include good communication with (yes actually talking to the people who work for you is a good start!) along with appraisal systems and measurement of sickness, absence and staff turnover rates as an indicator of stress within the organisation.

Don’t forget training is important too so again the HSE has developed a self assessment questionnaire to help managers to understand what behaviours are required to tackle stress.

Don’t forget you must re-assess your risk assessment in the event of changes.   So when there is a significant restructure or even when individuals have their responsibilities changed (e.g. promotion), there must be suitable control measures in place to safe guard against stress.