Macclesfield Borough Council - Stress case study

Progress

Macclesfield have run focus groups and developed action plans.

Obtaining commitment to the SMS process

Visited HSE London for sign up event and had director and TU support.

Communications

Communications on the process are undertaken through email, posters and asking unions to raise the profile.

Engagement with staff to develop action plans

Have run focus groups to generate action plans.

Monitoring and evaluating

Two tier action plans have been developed – one a corporate plan, the other service plans (e.g. for the waste group).

Monitoring will be undertaken by random sampling of employees and running further focus groups.

Challenges

• Would promote more in future
• Process has taken more time than expected

Benefits

People in focus groups disheartened at first (heard it all before), but after the group discussion they understood it and were motivated

Tips

• have a devoted resource
• provide sufficient resources to project
• important to engage front line workers – do not rely on paper/electronic means of communications

• our chief executive is keen to use this type of approach in other areas of work activity – it works
• interesting work and enjoyed being involved in it