Why Stress?

Work-related stress is one of HSE’s current priority topics. These pages provide information on stress from a human factors perspective so only supply limited information on HSE’s overall approach to stress. For more detailed background information and HSE’s advice on work-related stress, go to HSE’s main stress web pages. Statistical information on stress and psychological ill-health is available on HSE’s statistics pages.

Typically, a stress response can occur whenever we feel threatened or unable to cope e.g. when there is an imbalance between the requirements of a job and a worker’s capability to meet those demands. Frequent or prolonged exposures can be harmful to the individual and may lead to workers developing physical and mental symptoms of stress such as headaches, gastrointestinal disorders, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal problems, insomnia, anxiety and depression.

While occasional pressure or challenges can sometimes motivate workers and make them perform better in the short-term, under certain circumstances (e.g. safety critical), too much pressure, particularly when coupled with poor design, can lead to errors, accidents or injuries . So as well as compromising the health of workers, stress can adversely affect performance, productivity and safety, all of which are bad for business .

Therefore taking steps to reduce or eliminate work-related stress makes good business and financial sense. As well as improving the health, safety and welfare of workers, organisations may also benefit from increased efficiency and/or productivity, reduced sickness and absence levels, better staff retention and reduced risk of accidents and injuries.

Duty under law

Employers have general health and safety responsibilities (e.g. a duty of care in law) for their employees and others . This includes assessing and managing the risks of psychological and emotional harm to employees from work-related stress. It also means identifying those activities that are safety critical and likely to be adversely affected by the effects of employee stress or unplanned pressure/challenges. Having identified such risks the duty of care then requires the planning and organising of work activities to minimise the risks.

Stress and Human Factors

As stress can affect both behaviour and performance, it has the potential to contribute to accidents and other incidents at work. A “systems” approach (which takes account of the whole picture), such as ergonomics, offers an effective approach to tackling work-related stress. This is particularly important since stress can impact on, or combine with, some of the other HF/E issues that are highlighted on these pages. For example, stress can affect human reliability and the ability of people to make sound and accurate judgements and so can lead to an increase in mistakes or errors. Stress also seems to be linked to the development of musculoskeletal disorders and some fatigue.

Some influences on workers will be outside an employer’s direct control. Individual workers vary in how well they cope with stressful work situations depending on a range of personal factors such as their personality, their approach to life, their social and domestic arrangements and other external pressures. Work-life balance is an important consideration. There are however, certain features of job design and working conditions that can contribute to work-related stress and a human factors/ergonomics approach can be useful in addressing these.

How a Human factors/Ergonomics approach can help reduce work-related stress

HF/E is about designing work and workplaces so that people can carry out their duties effectively and efficiently, without experiencing discomfort, becoming ill or making mistakes due to poor job or equipment design, or negative organisational influences. The nature of the job, the organisational context and the individual characteristics required all influence individual performance. A systematic human factors/ergonomics approach would involve an analysis of:-

• The job design (tasks to be done) and how it relates to the other jobs & tasks. This includes looking at workload (physical and mental), work patterns, information and communication needs, job role and amount of personal discretion, equipment design and the work place environment. Getting these aspects right can be especially important where the work is safety-critical or involves safety-critical decisions;
• The knowledge, skills and abilities required to carry out the work. Differences in competence can, to some extent, be minimised through appropriate selection and subsequent training. Other individual differences such as personality, health status and domestic circumstances are more often addressed through appropriate management;
• The organisational context within which the work takes place. Much of this relates to the organisational culture and takes into account working relationships between relevant workers, teams and managers (e.g. are they supportive or antagonistic?). Another aspect concerns whether the right level of practical support is available in the form of resources and management sponsorship, for example. Also, since few organisations remain static for very long, then whether change is planned and managed effectively is also important.
  Click here for more information on considering organisational change from a human factors perspective.

To make things simpler, HSE has identified six key areas of work design that can give rise to work-related stress if they are not properly managed. These key areas (demands, control, support, relationships, role and change) are covered in detail in HSE’s Stress Management Standards, which offer practical advice on managing the risks of work-related stress. The Stress Management Standards are based on known good practice and an organisation that is addressing the six key areas is likely to be also managing the risks of work-related stress.

The six areas that HSE has identified as contributing to work-related stress are all factors that influence worker behaviour (a human factors specialist may refer to them as performance shaping or influencing factors). Applying ergonomic principles that take account of human capabilities and limitations and the influences upon them can reduce many of these stressors.

Sources of Further Information

HSE and work-related stress: The Management Standards approach

Further advice on how to assess and manage the risks of work-related stress and minimise its impact on your business can be found on HSE’s Stress pages. These include information on HSE’s Stress Management Standards, which have been developed by HSE to reduce the levels of work-related stress in the UK. They describe a simple five step approach to assessing and managing the risks of work-related stress and provide practical advice for managers on how to introduce a cycle of continuous improvement.