APRIL IS STRESS AWARENESS MONTH
Stress Awareness Month is a national, annual campaign aimed at raising awareness about the impact of stress and poor mental health on our lives and opening up dialogue about ways to reduce stress and remove stigma around the topic.
This month’s theme is ‘little by little, a little becomes a lot’, and the Stress Management Society are suggesting we should commit to one little action each day in April, to explore how that could change our lives for the positive. I have committed to getting off the tram one step early on the way into work, to increase my step count and my time outdoors (regardless of the Manchester weather!
‘Little by little, a little becomes a lot’
But what could and should you be doing to assist your employees during April (and beyond?)
If you are an employer, you are under a legal duty to protect workers from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting on it. This is the same duty you have to protect people from other health and safety risks.
There is nothing ‘rocket-sciencey’ about this.
Whilst stress affects us all in different ways, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has helped to demystify the concept of ‘stress at work’, by identifying 6 key areas that need to be managed and controlled effectively, in order to prevent excess stress and stress-related illnesses.
These are:
Demands – this includes issues such as workload, work patterns and the work environment
Control – how much say the person has in the way they do their work
Support – this includes the encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by the organisation, line management and colleagues
Relationships – this includes promoting positive working to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behaviour
Role – whether people understand their role within the organisation and whether the organisation ensures that they do not have conflicting roles
Change – how organisational change (large or small) is managed and communicated in the organisation
We think that underpinning all of the above is the need for effective communication, at all layers of the business.
From a management perspective, often that means being brave and having ‘difficult’ ‘clear the air’ conversations, however these are often conversations which if avoided, lead to stress (and much greater difficulty) for both the business and the employee(s) in question. They are also often conversations which ultimately negate the need for lengthy performance or grievance processes.
As well as identifying these six key areas, the HSE has produced a significant amount of guidance, and template documentation, to assist employers in risk assessing the 6 key areas and implementing effective strategies to reduce any identified risks. These can be found here What are the Management Standards? - Stress - HSE
We can also assist with putting together a Stress at Work policy, which will set out your organisation’s commitment to promoting good mental health at work and signposting employees to appropriate support if required.
As with any policy however, this will only be as good as the workplace culture which sits behind it and the example being set by management. On that note, we look forward to hearing about your #littlebylitte commitments for April!