UK legal firm asb law Survey Reveals Employers’ Confusion About Tackling Stress

• 80% had not undertaken Stress Audits despite HSE guidelines
• 56% do not have a specific strategy for managing workplace stress
• Over 80% of line managers have no training to identify warning signs
• 60% do not monitor stress-related absence
• Nearly 50% are totally unaware or unsure of their legal obligations 
• Major legal and insurance implications for UK businesses

Employers are unprepared strategically, unprotected legally, and underinsured with regard to tackling the growing phenomenon of stress in the workplace.  Many of them simply do not understand its impact:  they are either hoping it will just go away, or paralysed with uncertainty as to how to handle it. 

These are the findings of a nationwide survey published Thursday, of 1,400 HR professionals undertaken by asb law, the South East’s largest law firm, in conjunction with Human Resources, the leading HR journal.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has estimated that half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress at a level they believe is making them ill, and up to 5 million feel ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressed by their work.  The HSE estimates that stress costs U.K. organisations around £3.7 billion annually.  And that is before adding in other costs to employers – such as non-compliance. 

The HSE introduced guidelines on this issue last year, and yet 80% of respondents to asb’s survey said they had not undertaken audits to identify likely causes of stress.  Moreover of those few who had carried out audits, only 18% had then developed appropriate policies. 

Rebecca Thornley-Gibson, Head of Employment Law at asb law, said:  “Employers have a legal duty of care towards their staff, and this includes implementing effective policies to minimise the impact of stress-related illness.  Our survey indicates that employers have two attitudes towards tackling stress.  The first is to treat it merely as the latest ‘fad’ – like RSI or ME had been dismissed in the past – and not worth taking seriously.  In the second camp, companies acknowledge the problem, but they simply can’t get to grips with it.  They don’t know how to run stress audits, what questions to ask, how to assimilate the information or, indeed, how to use the results in a practical manner.”

The survey revealed a fundamental knowledge gap between HR and line management.  While 70% of respondents – all with HR responsibilities – felt they were aware of the early warning signs, over 80% admitted that their line managers had no training in detecting stress-related problems.   Part of the problem may be because of confusion as to where responsibility for monitoring stress resides – is it an issue for HR or Health and Safety? 

“Training for line managers has to be addressed”, adds Rebecca Thornley-Gibson, “but, from my experience, companies are holding back because they’re worried about opening up a can of worms.   Employers are concerned that stress-related investigations will exacerbate problems and make implicit criticisms of their line managers’ competence.

“That said, I’m amazed that nearly 50% were either totally unaware or unsure of their legal obligations with regard to stress.  I appreciate that, for companies with limited resources, the HSE’s guidelines may seem onerous but doing nothing is not an option.  The implications are serious from a risk management perspective.  It will be far more difficult to defend cases now that stress is viewed officially as ‘foreseeable’”

From a legal perspective, perhaps the most worrying finding was that 60% of respondents said that they did not monitor stress-related absence.  This information is vital at tribunals when employees claim they were forced to resign because of a stressful working environment.  Without evidence to show that there was not a high level of absence, the court will infer that the claimant is correct.  Rebecca Thornley-Gibson estimates that up to 50% of tribunal cases have stress claims hidden within them.

Paul Clark, from insurance broking and risk management consultants Aon, said:  “My experience of industry is that only around 50% of companies have a stress policy in place.  Invariably, however, the policy is too brief and would not stand up to scrutiny in the event of a litigated claim.  Moreover, the majority of clients I deal with who have experienced stress claims are still failing to instigate policies aimed at preventing future claims.

“Another area of weakness is Occupational Health in helping a company to avoid or manage a complaint involving work-related stress.  There are too few companies offering a free confidential advice service with referral to counselling or treatment.  The same goes for training:  both HR and Management deal poorly with complaints.”

Lee Hills, Head of Insurance at asb law, added:  “We are likely to see rapid growth in claims in the next few years:  it seems inevitable that insurers will making more pay outs and businesses will be facing increased premiums.  Employers need to have sufficiently robust policies and processes in place which will either prevent claims or restrict the amounts paid due to ‘the employer’s negligence’”.

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