Step 3 - Evaluate the risk and take action

Before you begin Step 3, you should have completed Checkpoint 2 - Decide who might be harmed and how:

• Acknowledged that stress has the potential to affect any member of staff
• Considered the data available to you to indicate any potential problem areas
• Measured your performance against the Management Standards
• Identified any stress “hot-spots” in your organisation
• Recorded what you have done

There are a variety of sources of information that can help contribute to a general picture of the current risk for work-related stress in an organisation, and identify where the biggest problems seem to be.

When you have collected initial information for your risk assessment (as described in step 2), you should confirm your findings, explore what this means locally, and discuss possible solutions using a representative sample of your work force.

Linking problems to solutions using focus groups

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.

To begin to develop solutions, the focus group should consider the good practice outlined in the ‘states to be achieved’ of the Management Standards, and whether this good practice is happening. This approach can give structure to your focus group meeting, and help you make a local action plan to tackle stress.

• how to set up and run focus groups [82kb]

What solutions are going to work for me?

Developing solutions is often the most difficult part of tackling the possible causes of work-related stress. Each workplace and each worker is different, meaning that it is not possible to describe one set of solutions for all circumstances. There are some good examples of what other organisations have done to successfully deal with problematic working conditions that could help you and your employees:

• Good practice in Real Solutions, Real People
• Work related stress case studies
• Things that can be done to help you work towards the conditions described in the Management Standards [69kb]

The overall aim of each focus group is to draw up recommendations in the form of an action plan (see step 4). It is reasonable that employers/senior management may have to prioritise solutions from the different action plans, but they should communicate back to staff the general results of the risk assessment and their plans for continuous improvement, with dates for review.

Communicating the results

Providing feedback

It is important that you communicate with management, employees and their representatives. You should keep them updated as you go through this process. For example, it is unrealistic to expect employees to participate in focus groups to discuss problems without a commitment to at least share the outcome with them soon after.

Individual concerns

The surveys and focus groups may identify that individuals are experiencing problems that the majority of employees are not. The solutions you develop for the majority of your employees may not address individual problems. However, you still have a duty of care to take steps to protect the health and well-being of these employees too.

It is essential that you develop ways for employees to raise their concerns. These could include the following:

• Create an environment where employees are encouraged to talk, both formally and informally, to their manager or another person in their management chain.
• Remind employees that they can speak to trade union representatives, health and safety representatives, human resources personnel.
• Encourage employees to talk to someone in the organisation or seek advice from occupational health advisors, or from their GP if they are concerned about their health.
• Introduce mentoring and other forms of co-worker support.
• Provide employee assistance (counselling) services.

Checkpoint 3 – Evaluate the risk and take action

Before you begin the next stage, you should have done the following:

• Consulted with employees to discuss problem areas in more detail.
• Worked in partnership with employees and their representatives to develop actions to take.
• Ensured that issues affecting individuals are addressed.
• Fed back results to employees, with a commitment to follow-up.
• Recorded what you have done.

Next: Step 4: Record your findings