Health Work and Wellbeing (HWWB) - Stress
This is the first in a series of articles related to the HWWB agenda. Here we take a look at what HR professionals can do to minimise the prevalence and impact of that most common of mental ill-health diagnoses, stress.
Most of us would be less than honest if we did not confess that our hearts sink when we receive a doctor’s certificate with ‘stress’ on the diagnosis line. We know that most people suffering from stress are not able to recover quickly; that managers can be pretty cynical about the diagnosis and that we are going to have to muster all our absence management skills to deal with a potential long-term absence which could turn into an expensive recruitment exercise if we do not get it right.
Of course, not all stress is caused by the workplace. Everyone has a life outside work and from time to time we all suffer stress related symptoms caused by anything from moving house to simply trying to fit a pint into a half-pint pot. We also understand that the physical and mental symptoms of stress can be very debilitating.
On the other side of the coin, intuitively we understand that work can have a positive impact on our health. Purpose, companionship, challenge and, above all, feeling valued can promote self worth which in turn is good for us.
HR has a pivotal role in building these values into the organisational culture which, in itself, helps to ensure a healthy, low stress workplace.
Two key things that HR can do to help promote a positive culture are:
- Consider a low cost employee reward scheme – perhaps cinema tickets or the prime parking place for a week
- Introduce a ‘break-out’ point where staff can have a cup of tea together and chat for a few minutes each day. The “chat around the water-cooler” can show real benefits to morale.
Effective managers, with support and encouragement from HR, take their people management responsibilities seriously. They know their staff and perhaps know a little about their current circumstances. For example, knowing that Granny is seriously ill should have a manager making sympathetic offers of flexibility and perhaps a redistribution of the more challenging areas of an individual’s job role. Taking care of an employee’s wellbeing at this difficult point in their lives can reap dividends in terms of their health and ongoing loyalty. Neither will it go unnoticed by the rest of the workforce.
So what goes wrong ? Our experience is that the ‘people’ element of a manager’s job is often underplayed in terms of time allocation and plays a poor second fiddle to ‘getting the job done’. Consequently managers do not have time to chat to their staff and as a result they miss vital clues until it is too late. A manager with 10 staff giving each only 15 minutes of his/her time over a week is 2.5 hours – that is 7% of a 37 hour week. The reality is that it is not enough but we suspect our example is actually above average.
Two key things that HR can do to support first line managers are:
- Make sure that people management has a proper time allocation within a manager’s job profile and
- Make sure managers know that they can and should be flexible when the circumstances warrant it.
Concurrently, managers may themselves face stress when they know that they ought to be supporting one of their staff but their own job requirements do not permit them to spend as much time as they know they ought on the people management role.
Focusing on the workplace itself, poor relationships are often cited as prime stressors and that usually relates to management : employee relationships.
Autocratic command and control management styles, unrealistic deadlines, insufficient training and most importantly, failures to listen are all stress triggers for employees.
An employee struggling to make an ancient and perhaps faulty piece of equipment produce work to the quality and quantity specified by a distant manager - who may never have time to hear about the problems or dismisses the solutions offered by the very person who understands the equipment best – is unintentionally building a stress related illness in the employee. This example breaches at least three of the HSE standards !
Two key things that HR can do to help with workplace relationships are
- Include listening skills in managers’ competence frameworks, performance management and any other training you deliver;
- Include autocratic management and unrealistic deadlines in your anti-bullying training or policy documents;
Here is a quick reminder the HSE Managing Standards for Tackling Work-Related Stress. All six are required to be underpinned by a proper grievance procedure – “systems are in place locally to respond to any individual concerns’. These are the standards against which the HSE monitor:-
- Employees indicate that they are able to cope with the demands of their job:
- Employees indicate that they are able to have a say about the way they do their work:
- Employees indicate that they receive adequate information and support from their colleagues and superiors:
- Employees indicate that they are not subjected to unacceptable behaviours , for example bullying:
- Employees indicate that they understand their role and responsibilities:
- Employees indicate that the organisation engages them frequently when undergoing an organisational change.
Two key things that HR can do to help observe the standards are:
- Make sure everyone understand how to access the grievance procedure and that grievances are properly managed.
- Encourage the concept of team meetings with impartial facilitation –that is you!
Finally, when the HSE standards were piloted a large number of focus groups were held. The groups indicated their highest propriety was having someone simply say “thank you” for a job well done. £ Cost – nil.
