April’s Employment Law Digest – How to identify and combat stress in the workplace

What is stress?

The NHS define ‘stress’ as being the body’s reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure. The HSE define ‘workplace stress’ as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them at work. Experiencing a lot of stress over a long period of time can also lead to a feeling of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion, often called burnout. So it can quite easily, and often does, lead to poor mental health.

Why is this important?

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1975, every employer has a duty to take reasonable care of the health and safety of its employees, and a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees. This duty of care extends to the employee’s mental as well as physical health.

In 2021/22, the HSE reported that 914,000 workers were affected by work-related stress, depression and anxiety and an estimated 17 million working days were lost as a result of people being absent due to stress. In the same period, work-related stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 51% of all work-related ill health. These figures show that stress in the workplace is a widespread problem, and that it is likely that every worker will experience it at some point.

From a practical perspective, the consequences of work-related stress can include high levels of absenteeism, lack of engagement, low performance and lost productivity to name just a few. From a legal perspective breaching relevant health and safety duties may result in claims against the employer.