Employers have a legal duty to protect workers from stress at work by undertaking a risk assessment and acting on it. This is the same duty you have to protect people from other health and safety risks under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and regulation 3(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
Work-related stress is an area of particular focus for the HSE, and employers may be questioned by HSE inspectors during routine inspections or as part of an investigation into a work-related incident, even if that incident is unrelated to work-related stress.
The HSE defines stress as ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’.
Employers are required to match demands to workers’ skills and knowledge. For example, workers can get stressed if they feel they don’t have the skills or time to meet tight deadlines. Providing planning, training and support can reduce pressure and bring stress levels down.
Guidance issued by the HSE states there are six main areas of work design that can affect stress levels:
Stress affects people differently – what stresses one person may not affect another. Factors like skills and experience, age or disability may all affect whether a worker can cope.
Stress can cause symptoms that affect how workers feel physically and mentally. Recognising the signs of stress will help employers to take steps to stop, lower and manage stress in their workplace. Acting early can reduce the impact of pressure and make it easier to reduce or remove the causes.
Employers should undertake a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks in these areas to manage stress in the workplace so far as reasonably practicable. The risk assessment must be conducted by a competent person.
You should assess the risk of stress, and its impact on mental and physical ill health, in the same way as you assess other work-related health and safety risks. If you employ five or more workers, you must record the risk assessment in writing, though it may be helpful to record the assessment even if you have fewer than five workers.
Your risk assessment will help you to identify potential risks to your workers from stress and to take action to protect them. You could review policies on bullying, harassment, and discrimination, and check that your first aid needs assessment considers physical and mental health needs.
The following tools on the HSE website are provided to assist employers in meeting their duty to manage stress in the workplace:
Employers who fail to comply with their duties to take reasonably practicable steps to protect their workers from stress in the workplace can face investigation, enforcement action (such as improvement notices and prohibition notices) or even prosecution. An employer can be prosecuted simply for failing to manage the risk, even if no incident occurs.
The sentencing guidelines applicable in such cases ensure that the courts have extensive sentencing powers, with the ability to issue significant fines as well as other orders, including the requirement for an employer to publish its conviction on its website.
Where a worker’s death is shown to be related to stress at work, the employer and relevant individuals responsible for line-managing the individual can also face criminal investigation and prosecution for manslaughter offences and may also be required to give evidence at an inquest.
Should you wish to discuss the management of stress in the workplace further or indeed have any questions in relation to the HSE and police powers to investigate, please do not hesitate to contact David Rainey. David is an experienced Partner in our Manchester office and is a highly regarded specialist regulatory lawyer.
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