CIPD urges employers to improve stress management

CIPD urges employers to improve stress management after HSE takes action against NHS Trust

Employers have been urged by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) to improve how they manage stress at work after it has emerged that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued an improvement notice for stress against an NHS trust.

Details of the improvement notice against United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust – only the second ever issued for work-related stress - are revealed in tomorrowís issue of People Management magazine.

Ben Willmott, Senior Public Policy Adviser for the CIPD, says the improvement notice shows that the HSE will not shy away from taking action when employers fail to meet their stress management obligations under health and safety law.

He continues: ìStress at work is likely to become a growing challenge for employers as the recession takes hold. Employees are under increasing pressure as work intensity increases and worries over job security grow. It is in employersí interests to take action by using staff surveys to identify potential problems, training line managers to manage people properly and by ensuring there is access to occupational health services.

ìStress is a major cause of employee absence and conflict at work and will undermine morale and productivity. Long-term exposure to stress is linked to conditions such as anxiety and depression, as well as heart disease.î

The CIPD has just published Building the business case for managing stress, a guide which sets out the costs to organisations and individuals of failing to take action and the responses needed by employers to manage stress at work effectively.

The Health and Safety Executive is launching a new website on work-related stress that goes live today with updated advice and resources. These include the tools employers need to prevent stress at work, a new competency questionnaire for line managers and examples of what worked well for other organisations.