The Big Question: What are employers doing around stress in the workplace?
2011-10-31
Val Stevenson, HR director at Deloitte:
Many organisations are turning to prevention rather than reacting to the symptoms of stress and are seeking to support staff who are already affected. This is through the exploration of resilience.
This means creating a greater awareness as an individual something we can all benefit from as well as having programmes to equip managers to have a better understanding of the topic something they can add to their manager toolkit.
There are many definitions of resilience. My favourite is: 'The ability to identify, assess and respond to a potentially disruptive situation in order to prevent it from becoming a crisis.'
Resilience is not just about work. It improves the individual's ability to achieve in all aspects of life. Employers should not stop the support mechanisms, but prevention is better than cure, and they should be thinking about running workshops or introducing resilience training as part of their management development.
At Deloitte, we are doing just that. We take all mental health issues very seriously and try to prevent stress. The firm has trained nine of its senior partners to become mental health champions, in an effort to increase openness about mental health among staff, and to offer a support system to those who need it.
We have found that the mental health champions can direct staff to further help and support, and can sometimes prevent the issue from getting worse. Often having someone to talk to about their workload, or stresses outside the workplace, can really help. All employees are valuable to the firm, and if we can help them through difficult times, they will be happier when they are ready to return to work.
Andrew Kinder, vice-chairman of the UK Employee Assistance Professionals Association (UK EAPA) and chief psychologist at Atos Healthcare:
Employers could be forgiven for reacting to National Stress Awareness Day on 2 November by saying it is not a business priority and they are too busy responding to difficult trading conditions. However, given findings from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's October 2011 Absence management survey that stress is now the leading cause of sickness absence, perhaps the issue should move up the list of priorities.
There are a number of ways employers can respond to stress in the workplace and many actions they can take to make a positive difference for those affected. The situation is not helped by the fact that stress is actually quite a poorly defined concept. It is also not helped that stress does not exist from a medical point of view. So it is surprising how many times stress is written on employees' fit notes by GPs.
The first thing an employer can do is find out exactly what the problem is. The Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) stress standards and management competencies, outlined on its website, would be a good starting point.
The questions contained in the stress standards can be used freely by organisations and particular help should be given to problem teams, such as using focus groups to get them to come forward with ideas for improvement.
Putting in place and supporting an effective partnership between HR, occupational health and an employee assistance programme is also vital so support can be targeted and resources co-ordinated. Social issues as well as workplace problems can then be addressed, increasing the sense that the organisation cares and is interested in employees' wellbeing.
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Ann McCracken, chair of the International Stress Management Association and director of AMC2:
In our experience at the International Stress Management Association, the response to workrelated stress is more reactive than proactive.
Some employers are introducing intranete-programmes, running optional stress awareness sessions, open days focusing on wellbeing, and providing massage, physiotherapy and even peer supporters. This may encourage staff to change stress-inducing habits and enable a few to identify the difference between life pressure and ill health.
In 1999, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) required all employers with five or more staff to carry out risk assessments, including an assessment for stress. Some large employers have initiated this procedure, which takes about 18 months and includes an extensive audit of staff, focus groups and action plans. There is still a lot of confusion over this process.
In 2004, management standards were introduced that identified six risk factors in the workplace and placed the responsibility of managing work-related stress on managers. My experience is that health and safety, some occupational health and some HR managers are aware of these standards, but there has been limited roll-out of training to middle managers to use this process proactively.
This year, the British Standards Institute presented a new standard for proactive psychosocial risk management which identifies best practice of how senior managers can initiate and oversee risk assessment. This has been agreed with the HSE, the World Health Organisation and other global bodies.
Further standards are in preparation for managers and third-party providers.
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