5th August 2019
According to the Health & Safety Executive, stress is ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’.
As an employer, you owe your employees a duty of care. That is, there is a duty to provide a work environment where employees are not caused psychological harm; should they be at risk of suffering work-related stress, you must do everything that is reasonable to prevent it.
‘In determining whether an employer is responsible for stress in the workplace and therefore liable to pay compensation, the court will determine whether an employee’s work-related stress was ‘reasonably foreseeable’ by the employer,’ explains Sarah Everton, employment law specialist at Myers & Co Solicitors in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. In other words, could you have predicted the work-related psychological harm and should you have prevented it from occurring?
Common causes of work-related stress include:
Some work is distressing or traumatic in itself, and this may be forgotten due to sheer familiarity. For example, the emergency services have long recognised the stressful nature of their work. More recently, the social media giants and the police have had to employ large teams of people who need to look through harmful content on a daily basis, and must take reasonable precautions to make sure that their employees do not suffer harm as a result.
To ensure that none of your employees have cause to make a claim of stress at work, there are a number of steps that you should take.
It is important to ensure that each employee’s workload is adequate, manageable and within their capability;
You should undertake a workplace risk assessment and ensure that management is trained in identifying psychological hazards arising in the workplace;
Once a hazard is identified, a plan of action needs to be put in place, in line with your employment procedures and policies, to prevent any psychological harm to your employees in accordance with the current employment law legislation;
It is important that you have an adequate policy relating to stress at work. This should explain to employees what their duties are in terms of reporting stress and what you will do as their employer to help deal with any stress that occurs in the workplace. You must ensure that this policy is made available to employees and that it is read and understood by them;
To prevent any workplace bullying, you should include policies and a code of conduct on appropriate behaviour in the workplace in your employee handbook.
It is important to look beyond stress as a risk management problem to manage. Many employers now take a holistic approach to the wellbeing of their employees, with a wide range of support and employee benefits such as flexible working or mindfulness sessions. Not only does this make the workplace a nicer place, it can help with recruitment and retention.
Our employment lawyers can help you to ensure that you have the right policies and procedures in place. And, if one of your employees does make a stress at work claim against your organisation, we can help you carry out an investigation into whether the psychological harm could have been foreseen or prevented and manage your defence.
If you are concerned about stress related claims or such a claim has been made against your organisation, please contact Sarah Everton on 01782 525012 or email sarah.everton@myerssolicitors.co.uk.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Please note that the law may have changed since this article was published.
