What is stress and how should we manage it?

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines stress as “the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them”. It is important to distinguish stress itself from pressure – as where pressure can be a positive driver when managed correctly, stress can be harmful to health and generally forms because of excessive and/or sustained pressure. Stress at work can occur when people struggle to cope with job-related demands or pressures – creating feelings of worry, strain or difficulty.

As an employer, we have a duty of care to protect our colleagues from the risk of stress at work, in line with the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974). There is a collective responsibility for helping identify and tackle stress, and to help create working environments that are better for all.

Different people present symptoms of stress differently. Amongst some of the most common include symptoms include changes in work performance, adoption of negative behaviours, regression, withdrawal, changes in behaviour and habits and physical symptoms of stress. More information on these is available within our guidance.

Guidance from expert organisations including the World Health Organisation, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the International Organisation for Standardisation all reference the importance of managing workplace factors that can cause stress and harm to a colleague’s psychological wellbeing. These organisations advocate for a three-tiered approach to stress – our interpretation of which captured in the graphic to the right and in more detail both below and within our guidance.

Prevention of Stress

To enable stress prevention, a toolkit is included within our guide to tackling stress, which features a range of tools that line managers and colleagues can use to identify stressors and promote conversations around reasonable adjustments – all of which can be made to help keep colleagues well.

As an organisation, we encourage managers to use these tools proactively and review them with colleagues regularly – rather than waiting for colleagues to identify as struggling with stress. This more proactive approach to the use of stress identification and prevention tools should help to create a culture which promotes stress prevention in the first instance.

Amongst the tools included in the prevention toolkit is a new-look Stress Risk Assessment (SRA). The new template has been designed to encourage managers and colleagues to capture actions they can take to reduce, limit or remove stressors; provide an idea of ‘what good looks like’; provide staff the chance to raise concerns that aren’t necessarily work-related and enable managers to conduct ‘Team Stress Risk Assessments’ for the first time.

To help managers use the new template, accompanying SRA Guidance is also available – which includes a guide to and top tips for conducting individual and team SRAs, as well as example adjustments which might be useful across the six HSE Management Standards.

Protection against, self-management and regulation of stress

Also found in our guidance to tackling stress is information on the health & wellbeing support available to all staff which is designed to help colleagues regulate and manage stress effectively. Much of this support is that which is hosted here on balancegateshead.com, split across elements of wellbeing such as mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

This section of the guidance may be of particular interest to colleagues seeking to protect against stress more effectively, and is designed to acknowledge the fact that for many, stress is not always work-related. Accordingly, this section aims to capture the support and resources that are available to help those struggling with stressors in their home and personal lives, and ensure that as an organisation, we can be as supportive as is possible in helping you identify and tackle any external stressors as well as those that are work-related.

Nevertheless, internal and peer support networks are also promoted in this section – inclusive of support through the Staff Wellbeing Hub, Mental Health First Aiders, Professional Nurse & Midwifery Advocates and more.

Professional psychological support for those at risk of or experiencing burnout

Although our ultimate vision is to prevent stress in the first place, we know that some colleagues will unfortunately be at risk of or will experience burnout. In these instances, we understand the importance of the provision of timely access to professional psychological support – and those who download our guide will find a dedicated section which sets out how staff can access exactly that.

Included in this section is detail around our Occupational Health Counselling Service, which can be accessed for those experiencing work-related stress. Also included is information around rapid-access to psychological support through the Staff Wellbeing Hub, as well as information on other free services available through providers like Maximus, Able Futures, NHS Talking Therapies and many more.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of a switch to a more preventative approach, this section still encourages use of these services in a more proactive approach wherever possible to ‘nip it in the bud’ – while still offering the flexibility to provide those who are experiencing burnout with the support needed.