1. Stress Risk Assessments
Your Name

2. Objectives At the end of this session you will be able to:
Give a clear definition of stress and stress risk assessments
Refer to a model for stress risk assessment
Identify who is best to undertake a stress risk assessment
Outline a range of interventions that might be used

3. Work Related Stress
“By the term ‘work related stress’ we mean the process that arises where work demands of various types and combinations exceed the person’s capacity and capability to cope. Think of this as ‘bad work’. It is a significant cause of illness and disease and is known to be linked with high levels of sickness absence, staff turnover and other indicators of organisational underperformance - including human error.”

4. Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is a process which systematically identifies causes of harm to employees.
It enables an employer to clarify whether it is doing enough to protect employees or if it needs to take further steps.

5. 5 Steps Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Identify the hazards
Decide who might be harmed and how
Step 3
Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions
Step 4
Record your findings and implement them
Step 5
Review your assessment and update

6. Stress Risk Assessment
A stress risk assessment follows the same process as a ‘normal’ risk assessment except that the hazard (stress) is already known at the beginning of the exercise.

7. Precautions
Outlining what the organisation is going to do with dates for action items to be reached.

8. Why carry out an SRA? Avoiding legal claims – Unfair dismissal
Employer’s ‘duty of care’
Part of wellbeing programme
Avoiding legal claims – Bullying & harassment
Avoiding legal claims - Discrimination

9. Who should carry out the SRA?HR
Line Manager
A N Other Manager
H&S Officer
Wellbeing Champion
External Person?

10. HSE Approach
Demands
Role
Control
Change
Support
Relationships

11. The Process 1 Demands Potential Workplace Stressor Individual Concern
Risk (L/M/H)
Control Measure
What causes the individual to feel under unnecessary pressure?

12. The Process 2 Demands Potential Workplace Stressor Individual Concern
Risk (L/M/H)
Control Measure
What causes the individual to feel under unnecessary pressure?
Unnecessarily tight deadlines and frustration with people having known something is expected but not informing those who need to know in order to get things done.
Constant changing of priorities and a lack of clarity.

13. The Process 3 Demands Potential Workplace Stressor Individual Concern
Risk (L/M/H)
Control Measure
What causes the individual to feel under unnecessary pressure?
Unnecessarily tight deadlines and frustration with people having known something is expected but not informing those who need to know in order to get things done.
Constant changing of priorities and a lack of clarity. H
It would be helpful for there to be some sort of structure where everyone sings from the same hymn sheet. Jim would prefer not to be told things on a Friday evening just before he leaves for the weekend. He would like clarity in terms of who sets his priorities.

14. The Process 4 Role Potential Workplace Stressor Individual Concern
Risk (L/M/H)
Control Measure
Is there a clear reporting structure?
Yes but people don’t stick to it. Stuff gets thrown at my team from all angles and that makes managing their workloads tricky. M

15. The Process 5 Role Potential Workplace Stressor Individual Concern
Risk (L/M/H)
Control Measure
Is there a clear reporting structure?
Yes but people don’t stick to it. Stuff gets thrown at Jim’s team from all angles and that makes managing their workloads tricky. M
For individuals to stick to the reporting structure or keep Jim in the loop so that he can either challenge it or at least be aware of what his team are working on.

16. Recommendations
Minimise
Avoid
Eradicate

17. Causes of Stress
Internal
External

18. Disability
The definition of what constitutes a disability can be split into three parts:
the employee must be suffering from a {?????} or {?????} impairment
the impairment must have a {?????} adverse effect on the ability to carry out {?????} {?????} activities
the effect must be long-term, in other words have already lasted for at least {?????} months or be likely to last that long.

19. Disability
The definition of what constitutes a disability can be split into three parts:
the employee must be suffering from a mental or physical impairment
the impairment must have a substantial adverse effect on the ability to carry out normal day to day activities
the effect must be long-term, in other words have already lasted for at least 12 months or be likely to last that long.

20. Reasonable adjustments
Physical Adjustments
Provision of Equipment
Reduction in Work Time
Change to Work Hours
Change in Responsibility

21. Objectives Now you can:
Give a clear definition of stress and stress risk assessments
Refer to a model for stress risk assessment
Identify who is best to undertake a stress risk assessment
Outline a range of interventions that might be used