Working together we can successfully tackle work related stress

By working together you can successfully tackle the causes of work related stress. These pages show how everyone in an organisation has a responsibility for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their colleagues. By working together each person can help to promote and maintain health and wellbeing and prevent stress at work affecting your business.

The HSE Management Standards approach is proactive and focused at an organisational level. If we understand how a work system or organisation fails, we can repair it. To make the Management Standards approach work, everyone in an organisation needs to work together.

There are a number of key players who have particular roles and responsibilities.

Research done for HSE shows that when these people work effectively together there can be substantial benefits to the organisation.

These are the roles that are key to the success of the Management Standards or equivalent approaches. We recognise that not all organisations will have individuals with these functions and that some will have multiple roles. In particular SMEs are unlikely to have these formal roles. Research commissioned by the HSE has demonstrated that the Management Standards approach can be successfully used by organisations operating in this sector.

If you are not one of these individuals but you want to know more about HSE’s approach and the Management Standards please go to

These key roles represent the core of the steering group.