We're always talking about workplace health and safety on this blog, but most of the news stories we look at concern physical injuries: severed fingers, broken bones, that sort of thing.
However, stats suggest that the greatest threat to the health and safety of Britain's workers is not rotating blades, slippery surfaces, unprotected edges, or anything like that.
According to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which surveyed roughly one thousand health and safety representatives across the UK, the main concern for this country's H&S officials in 2016 was... stress!
What Did the Survey Find?
Before we take a closer look at that perhaps unexpected finding, here are a few facts and figures from this study:
- 70% of those surveyed said that stress is a problem where they work.
- The most high-stress sectors are central government, education, and health services.
- Since 2014, there has been a 13% increase in the number of medium-sized companies reporting stress as a key health and safety concern.
- Among the reasons cited for the increase in workplace stress were "low job security" and "long working hours"
And, in the years that have passed stress levels remain high. According to the HSE, there were 35.2m working days lost due to work-related ill health and non-fatal injuries in 2022/23. Most of these lost days (17.1m) can be accounted for by illnesses related to stress, depression, and anxiety disorders.
How to Manage Stress at Work
Business owners often forget about stress when assessing risk in the workplace. It's fairly easy to identify obvious threats like moving parts and high voltages, but it's often far more difficult to address the unseen causes of stress and anxiety - this isn't a straightforward hazard that can be neutralised by putting up a safety sign. Reducing stress in the workplace tends to necessitate real shifts in the way that you and your employees work.
That may sound like a lot of hassle, but stress in your organisation is absolutely worth addressing, just as much as any other health and safety hazard. Stress engenders low productivity, poor staff morale, and high employee turnover.
Prolonged stress can also trigger an array of mental and physical health problems, such as depression, digestive disorders, short-term memory loss, muscle tension, low immune function, and even heart attacks.
If the TUC's findings have made you stop and think about how to relieve stress in your workplace, here are a few tips to get you started.
Stress Management Tips
- Ensure that you are providing a comfortable, spacious, well-lit working environment for your staff.
- Check that all desks, chairs, and workbenches are ergonomically correct.
- Provide equipment that works properly and is well-suited to the task(s) at hand.
- Set clear, achievable goals and realistic deadlines for your workers.
- Make sure that workers have the necessary training/information to do what's expected of them.
- Give your workers regular breaks.
- Help your staff to achieve a good work/life balance - avoid forcing them to work long/unsocial hours if possible.
- Implement a proper procedure for dealing with complaints and grievances.
- Welcome feedback from your staff and promote an open, ongoing conversation about working conditions.
- Offer flexible working hours and annual leave allowances where possible.
- If possible, provide extra support for your workers (e.g. transportation, counselling, special allowances for childcare, maternity, bereavement, etc.).
How Can Label Source Help?
If you’d like a visual resource that you can display to help convey some top tips on how to deal with stress and anxiety, then check out our stress management guide.
