World Mental Health Day, taking place on Saturday 10th October, is an opportunity for employers to consider how work affects their employees’ mental health, and what practical steps they can take to create healthier workplaces.
The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) Working Minds campaign encourages employers to prevent work-related stress by identifying the pressures people face at work and taking action to address them.
Raising awareness is important, but it must be supported by meaningful change that protect their workforce’s health and wellbeing.
Why preventing work-related stress matters
In Great Britain, an estimated 964,000 workers experienced work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, resulting in 22.1 million working days lost.
Behind these figures are people whose health, relationships and everyday lives can be affected by workplace stress.
Work-related stress can arise when the demands of a job exceed a person’s ability to cope. If left unaddressed, it can affect individuals, workplace morale, productivity and business performance.
Preventing work-related stress is not simply a wellbeing initiative; it is an important part of managing health and safety at work.
What are employers’ responsibilities?
Employers have a legal duty to assess the risks of work-related stress and take appropriate action to protect workers. Where an employer has five or more employees, significant findings of the risk assessment must be recorded.
The HSE’s six Management Standards provide a useful framework for identifying common causes of work-related stress:
- Demands: Are workloads, deadlines and working hours manageable?
- Control: Do employees have a say in how they carry out their work?
- Support: Do people have the resources, training and management support they need?
- Relationships: Are conflict, bullying and unacceptable behaviour addressed?
- Role: Are responsibilities clear, without conflicting expectations?
- Change: Are workplace changes communicated and managed effectively?
Considering these areas can help employers identify where stress is building and where improvements are needed.
Turn conversations into action
Talking openly about workplace pressures is an important starting point, but employers must also act on what they learn.
Involve employees and their representatives in identifying problems and agreeing practical improvements. Depending on the issues identified, actions could include:
- Reviewing workloads and adjusting deadlines.
- Redistributing tasks or providing additional resources.
- Clarifying roles, responsibilities and expectations.
- Improving communication and support.
- Addressing conflict and unacceptable workplace behaviour.
- Communicating changes clearly and involving those affected.
Actions should be assigned to individuals, given realistic timescales, and reviewed to establish whether they are making a difference.
Wellbeing initiatives and access to support can play a valuable role, but they should complement (not replace) action to address the underlying causes of work-related stress.
Use the HSE’s Working Minds 5 Rs
- Reach out – Make time to talk and listen to workers about the pressures they may be experiencing.
- Recognise – Identify signs of stress and understand the workplace factors contributing to it.
- Respond – Take action to address the causes of stress and agree appropriate improvements.
- Reflect – Review whether the actions taken are helping and identify anything that needs to change.
- Make it routine – Build stress prevention into everyday management and workplace practices.
Making these steps part of normal business operations can help employers identify concerns earlier and create a workplace culture where people feel able to speak up.
Free resources to help your business
The HSE provides a range of free resources to help employers understand, assess and manage work-related stress.
- Stress risk assessment guidance and template – Help identify workplace stressors and plan appropriate action.
- HSE Management Standards – Guidance on the six key areas that can contribute to work-related stress.
- Working Minds campaign – Practical guidance and tools to help employers prevent work-related stress.
- Working Minds campaign resources – Resources and downloadable materials to support the campaign.
- Free Working Minds online learning – Online learning to help employers and managers understand work-related stress and how to prevent it.
How Immerse Safety can help
At Immerse Safety, we recognise that effective health and safety management means understanding how a business operates, identifying risks and implementing improvements that work for the people involved.
If you are unsure where to start, or whether your current arrangements adequately address work-related stress, we can help you review your approach to risk assessment and identify practical steps to protect your workforce.
This World Mental Health Day, make a commitment to preventing work-related stress. Start the conversation, agree a change and take action.
Contact Immerse Safety to discuss how we can support your business.
