Being Proactive:
An Organisational Approach to
Managing Workplace Stress
I/O Net
Presentation by
Dr Hillary Bennett
Director, PsychAssessments
Healthy Work: Managing
Stress in the Workplace. (2003)
“ Creating a healthy and safe
workplace requires employers and
employees to work systematically
together to identify hazards and
manage them”
Stress an integral and inevitable
feature of most contemporary
workplaces
Workplace stress arises when
individuals perceive an imbalance
between the pressures and demands
made on them and the resources
they have to cope with these
demands
Managing Stress in the
Workplace
• Traditional view
– Stress the responsibility of the individual
• Organisational view
– Employers and employees have a
responsibility to address work-related
stress
The HSE Amendment Act 2002
Objective:
To promote the prevention of harm to
all persons at work through the
systematic management of hazards
HSE Amendment Act 2002 holds
Employers Responsible for
• Implementation of effective systems for
identifying existing and new hazards,
including work-related stress
• Systematic management of hazards, by
eliminating them, isolating them or
minimising them, in that order of
preference.
• Provision of opportunities for employee
participation.
3 Approaches to Tackling Workrelated Stress
 Prevention
 Identifying and acting on the causes of stress
 Stress Risk Assessments
 Management
 Giving staff the skills to cope / manage
 Treatment
 Professional medical and psychological support
Stress Risk Assessment A Preventive Approach
SRA aims to identify:
1. The level stress (the harm)
2. The main sources of work-related stress
(the hazards)
3. What practicable steps can be taken to
eliminate the sources of stress
(hazards), if possible
An International Perspective
• An
international
review
of
stress
prevention in the workplace highlights
that there has been a lack of systematic
Stress Risk Assessment (Kompier and
Cooper, 1999).
• The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
Guidance recommends that a risk
assessment approach be followed when
tackling work-related stress
Steps to Risk Assessment
Step 4 & 5 - Record and Re-Assess
Step 1:
Identify Hazards
What might
cause harm?
Step 2:
Step 3 (a):
Step 3 (b):
Evaluate Harm
Who could
be harmed,
and how?
Evaluate Risks
How likely
is it that the
hazard could
cause harm?
Introduce controls
What can we do
to reduce the risk
that hazards
will cause harm?
Comparison of a Risk Assessment
With a Stress Risk Assessment
Risk Assessment
Stress Risk Assessment
1. Identify the Hazards
1. Assess levels of stress
(harm)
2. Evaluate the Harm
2. Identify main sources of
stress
3. Identify the main sources of
stress for individuals / teams
3. Evaluate the Risk
4. Introduce Controls
4. Identify what can be done to
manage the main sources of
stress
Stress Risk Assessment Process
1. Planning and Consultation
2. Data Collection
Qualitative methods e.g. interviews, focus
groups, Stress Diaries
Quantitative
methods
e.g.
structured
surveys, StressTools
3. Data Analysis
4. Feedback and Action Planning
StressTools
A Tool for Tackling Work-related Stress
 StressTools aims to help organisations identify
and manage work-related stressors.
 StressTools takes a preventive approach
emphasising removing work-related stressors
rather than treating stress symptoms
 StressTools developed by the Keil Centre with the
assistance of Birbeck College and local industry
 StressTools won the European Health and Safety
Best Practice Award.
StressTools
3 Work Stress Risk Assessments(SRA)
 Task-based SRA
 Team-based SRA
 Future-focused SRA
Task-based SRA
 Identify and control stressors and other human
factors hazards arising from an unusual, complex or
hazardous task
 To be included in pre-existing Risk Assessment
process
 Emphasises links between stress and safety
 Tackles stigma associated with mentioning stress
Future-focused SRA
 Involve cross-section of employees identifying work-related
stressors likely to be associated with a future project or
organisational change and planning preventative measures
 Focuses on preventing future work-related stress
 Relevant to major projects or organisational changes
 Identifies relevant work-related stressors through employee
involvement
 Can be tailored to local circumstances
 Identifies actions to prevent / manage future sources of workrelated stress
Team-based SRA
The team-based SRA method, which
identifies levels and sources of
stress in teams doing similar work in
organisations and identifies locally
relevant solutions through employee
involvement is particularly relevant
in light of the changes to the Health
and
Safety
in
Employment
Amendment Act 2002.
Team-based SRA Involves 4 Steps…..
Step 1. Evaluating harm .
Measures team members’ perceptions of level of workrelated stress and benchmark levels of stress with other
groups
Step 2. Identifying the hazards.
Assesses which work- related stressors are causing
stress, using a generic (40 predefined) and locally
relevant work related stressors. Identifies the main workrelated stressors affecting team members now or in the
recent past
Step 3. Evaluating risks.
Assesses what are the most significant sources of stress
for team members and describing these sources in more
detail.
Step 4. Introducing controls.
Identifies what can be done by management or team
members to prevent and manage work-related stress
Conducting a Team-based SRA
 Train project organiser / working team
 Needs to be well-respected by the team
 Important to maintain confidentiality about employees
opinions about stressors and levels of stress
 Prepare for the team-based SRA
 Use cross-section of employees to identify local workrelated stressors
 Customise the team-based SRA




Identify sub-groups
Choose comparison group for benchmarking purposes
Add local work-related stressors
Add additional questions. Questions need a yes no answer
format
 Collect data
 Paper workbook / on-screen option
Results of Team-based SRA
 Stress levels
 Stress comparisons with benchmark group
 Stress exposure - % of people in each group
which indicated that each stressor was “often”
of “always” a source of stress
 Stressors high- low
 Ranked stressors – significance of stressors
 Movement
 Written comments on main sources of stress
StressTools
14 Management Standards Providing Guidance
on How to Prevent Work-related Stressors




Workload
Job Insecurity
Teamworking
Performance
feedback
 Training &
development
 Hours of work








Job design
Management support
Tools and equipment
Communication
Role ambiguity
Skill under-utilisation
Work-life balance
Effort-reward
imbalance
Each Management Standard Includes…
 A definition of the stressor
 How the stressor can cause individual harm and organisational
harm
 How to identify if problem exists now or may do so in the future
 Management practices that may prevent or resolve these
problems
 A table which includes:
 “States” which describe a well-managed organisation, in
relation to this stressor
 A space to record current organisational practice, enabling
a gap analysis to be done
 Examples of the types of best practice which exemplify the
“state”
 A space to record next steps/actions
International Research Shows
1. Most of the activity in the field of stress
management has focused on reducing the
effects of stress rather than on reducing
the presence of stressors at work.
2. Most activities are primarilyy aimed at the
individual rather than the organisation.
3. Concluded that successful management of
stress requires intervention at both an
individual and organisational level.
Benefits of Stress Risk
Assessment
• Signals to employees that the employer is
being proactive and serious about managing
stress in the workplace.
• It ensures that subsequent stress-related
activities aimed at management or treatment
are targeted at specific problems and specific
individuals.
• Provides a tailored approach to managing
stress rather than a “pray and spray”
approach.
In the long term it is more
effective in terms of costs and time.
In Conclusion
Compared to other stress management
techniques
The risk assessment approach to stress is
likely to more effective, as the source is
being addressed rather than the
symptoms
It is a proactive
Stress Management = Good
Management
and
Good Management = Stress
Management