Acas is a public body working with the aim to improve organisations and employees working life by providing up to date information and independent good practice advice.
A good way to decide what needs to be done is to bring together groups of about 6 – 10 employees as a “focus group”. Talking to a selection of employees from a specific work group will allow issues from the findings of the risk assessment to be explored in more detail, and also take into account local challenges.
Aspects of an organisation that appear to be major contributors to the issue of stress and absence. A hot-spot for stress might be particular team or division or location in an organisation, or may be a particular stressor area, i.e ‘demand’. Hot-spots can be identified by use of the survey tool or other data sources such as return to work interviews and sickness absence figures and may form the basis of discussions with focus groups and a useful guide for future actions.
Improving Working Lives (IWL) aims to support organisational culture change to embed good HR practices, but it is also about ensuring that staff are supported and developed, and recognising that investment in staff is also investment in patient care.
Visit the enforcement guide site for details on all aspects of HSE enforcement.
HSE Management Standards includes an Indicator Tool [45kb] 
that can be distributed to all employees. It is made up of 35 items that ask about “working conditions” that are known to be potentials for work-related stress. These working conditions correspond to the six stressors of the Management Standards. The employee answers according to how they feel these aspects of their work are for them.
The Investors in People Standard is a straightforward, proven framework for delivering business improvement through people and our website can provide you with all the information you need to get involved, keep up to date and put the Standard into practice
As part of a project aimed at introducing the management standards to key sectors, HSE are currently working in partnership with around 70 organisations to implement the management standards (MS). These organisations were volunteers from 5 sectors identified as having a high number of cases of work related stress: Education, Finance, Local Government, Central Government, and Health. The organisations included in the case studies are all part of this project and continue to implement the MS with guidance from HSE.
Please contact martin.jones@hse.gsi.gov.uk with any enquiries concerning the details of these case studies.
High levels of sickness absence may indicate a potential problem area. Information collected might include total working time lost for each spell of absence, measured to the nearest half day; the number of separate spells of absence and any information collected in return to work interviews. Checking the reasons given for absence may help identify the cause.
The primary function of a Steering Group is to oversee and facilitate the Management Standards project, effectively acting as a project management group or board.
The Steering Group should serve to guide and give authority to the risk assessment and subsequent actions. The group should also maintain both the organisation’s and the employees' sense of involvement in the project. While the exact composition of the Steering Group will need to reflect the organisation’s structure and culture, it should represent the interests of all key stakeholders, including the employees.
A number HSE Operations staff are involved in the SIP1 project as Stress Partners. Their role is to provide support, advice and assistance and act as first point of contact for participating organisations.
A stress Policy can form part of an organisation health and safety policy or be a separate document. It will contain information on the organisation’s definition of stress and the issues, set out clear goals and direction related to tackling the problem and identify key roles of individuals teams involved in implementing solutions. The policy should summarise the safety management system and be igned by the Chief Executive to provide commitment.
HSE now host stress solutions discussion group for people to discuss approaches to tackling stress in the workplace, and to provide feedback on HSE's developing approach.
Here you can share your ideas, experiences and questions with other interested organisations and individuals and is ideally suited to those professionally interested in, or responsible for the reduction of stress.