Following stress awareness month earlier in the year, the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) Working Minds campaign called on employers to support employees' mental health. Employers were encouraged to focus on one of the campaign's five Rs: to reach out and have conversations, recognise the signs and causes of stress, respond to any risks identified, reflect on actions that have been agreed and taken, and make it routine.
So what do employers have to consider in order to make tackling stress in the workplace routine?
What is stress and is it a disability?
Stress is defined as the "adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them". Most staff benefit from a certain amount of pressure in their work. It can keep them motivated and give a sense of ambition. However, when there is too much pressure placed on them, they can become overloaded. Stress can affect the health of staff, reduce their productivity and lead to performance issues.
Stress is not an illness, but it can lead to conditions such as anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression can amount to a disability under the Equality Act 2010 if they are long-term and have a substantial effect on day-to-day activities.
Quite apart from the potential risks of facing a disability discrimination claim, employers who ignore mental health in the workplace will find that it impacts on employee wellbeing, productivity and retention.
How can employers recognise and manage workplace stress?
Employers should ensure that managers understand the impact that workplace stress has on emotional, psychological and social wellbeing. They should also be alert to any changes in behaviour which might put them on notice that an employee is struggling.
Wellness action plans (WAPs) for staff can facilitate discussion and help to identify how mental health can be proactively improved. Mental health charity, Mind, has issued guidance on WAPs which includes guidance for managers.
Channels of communication should be kept open so if an employee does not initially want to talk about any problems they are experiencing they should feel that they can always do so at a later date.
Should employers carry out workplace stress risk assessments?
Employers have a duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act etc. 1974 to protect their employees from the risk of stress at work. They also have a duty under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 to carry out a health and safety risk assessment. This means that the risks of work-related stress will have to be identified and steps will have to be taken to prevent or reduce these risks.
The HSE provides comprehensive guidance for employers on managing stress in the workplace, focusing on prevention, early identification, and supportive intervention. Under UK health and safety law, employers have a legal duty to assess and address the risks of work-related stress, just as they would for physical hazards.
To support employers, HSE promotes the Management Standards approach, which identifies six key areas that can contribute to workplace stress: demands, control, support, relationships, role, and change. Employers are encouraged to assess how their organisation performs in each area and implement actions to improve employee wellbeing.
By combining legal compliance with practical tools and cultural change, HSE’s guidance helps employers create healthier, more productive workplaces where mental wellbeing is prioritised alongside physical safety.
What is an employer's duty to make reasonable adjustments?
If an employee has a mental health condition, it is important for the employer to take it seriously and approach it with the same care as would be taken with a physical illness. This means that reasonable adjustments should be made as a way of helping employees remain in the workplace while recovering from or managing a mental health condition.
Managers should remember that mental health is personal to the individual, so adjustments need to be bespoke and kept under regular review.
Acas has published some guidance, 'Reasonable adjustments at work' which contains a section on mental health adjustments. This guidance contains practical guidance for employers and employees, including examples of reasonable adjustments, such as changing someone's role or responsibilities. This may entail reviewing tasks or deadlines, breaking down work into short term tasks, and reviewing an individual's responsibilities to reduce those that are more stressful. It also suggests reviewing communication styles to help reduce anxiety (e.g. avoiding spontaneous phone calls) and changing the physical working environment by allowing someone to work from home or relocating someone's workstation to a quieter area.
Although the duty to make reasonable adjustments is dependent on the employee satisfying the legal definition of disability, the Acas guidance suggests that employers should try to make reasonable adjustments even if the mental health condition is not a disability. Putting in support could enable an employee to stay in work, instead of going off sick. Without support the condition could get worse and become a disability under the Equality Act 2010, so taking such measures could stop this happening.
How does this relate to the duty to ensure 'reasonably practicable' steps are taken under health and safety legislation?
While the duty to make reasonable adjustments comes from the Equality Act 2010, and the duty to manage health and safety risks arises under the Health and Safety at Work Act etc. 1974 and related regulations, there is an important overlap in how both are applied. In both cases, employers are required to take steps that are 'reasonable' or 'reasonably practicable' to prevent harm—whether that harm is mental or physical. This means employers do not have to eliminate all risks or provide unlimited adjustments, but they must take proportionate steps based on the risk, the resources available, and the impact on the business. When supporting an employee with a mental health condition, making reasonable adjustments—such as changing working patterns or responsibilities—not only aims to satisfy employers' duties under the Equality Act 2010 but also contributes to managing psychological risks under health and safety law. Therefore, these two duties should be viewed as complementary rather than separate obligations.
From a health and safety perspective, it is essential that mental health is considered with the same level of seriousness as physical safety. Employers should embed stress management into their wider health and safety frameworks, including reporting mechanisms, incident logs, and regular reviews of psychological risks. Creating a proactive culture around health and safety can reduce stigma and foster openness about mental health. Employers can integrate mental health awareness into safety briefings, ensure mental health is covered in safety training sessions, and include psychological wellbeing in their overall risk assessments.
How can employers promote wellbeing?
The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) has published some useful pieces of guidance: 'Supporting mental health at work: Mental health and the law' and 'Managing work-related stress' and has put together a framework for positive mental health at work. Acas views positive wellbeing and productive workplaces as a shared goal and its framework has three different components. Employers need to be committed to actively promoting positive mental health at work; managers need to understand mental health and be prepared to discuss it with their teams; and individuals need to look after their own mental health and ask for help when needed.
Putting in place a wellbeing strategy is one of the things that Acas recommends as part of the framework. Other suggestions include dealing with any causes of work-related stress, taking action to lessen the stigma around mental health, making sure there are policies in place to manage mental health, and supporting and providing training for managers.
The job of managers is to build good relationships with their team, have regular wellbeing check-ins, learn how to handle difficult conversations about mental health effectively and to support a healthy work-life balance among their team.
There is also an onus on individuals to look after their own mental health at work. The Acas framework states that, amongst other things, employees should notice how and when they get stressed, use positive strategies to help them cope, ask for help and support from line managers when they need to, and set clear boundaries between work and personal life.
Trowers' top tips for managing work-related stress
- Focus on one of the campaign's five Rs and then move on to the next!
- Put in place a wellbeing strategy and actively promote positive mental health at work.
- Upskill managers so they are empowered to discuss mental health with their teams.
- Encourage employees to look after their own mental health and ask for help when needed.
- Carry out workplace stress risk assessments, WAPs and make adjustments as reasonable.
