Support for staff who are under stress

April is Stress Awareness Month – something that has been marked in the UK since 1992. During the month, health care professionals and health promotion experts join forces to increase public awareness about the causes and cures for our modern stress epidemic.

According to research, over 11 million days are lost at work each year because of stress at work.

As well as affecting individuals, their families and colleagues by impacting on their health, it also impacts on employers with costs relating to sickness absence, replacement staff, lost production and increased accidents.

This absence in the workplace costs the country over £5 billion a year.

Employers do, however, have a legal duty to protect their workers from stress in the workplace by carrying out a risk assessment and acting on it.

Stress, as we know, can be triggered by so many different

factors, but industry figures estimate approximately three to five UK workers consider their workloads to be excessive, often with daily struggles to meet deadlines.

People do also bring homerelated stress into the workplace. Although employers are not legally responsible for stress that originates in the home, well-managed organisations will have arrangements that allow them to address it. This might include such things as access to counselling services, adaptations to the work, or changes to working hours.

So, how can you address the subject of stress in the workplace, and more importantly, take measures to prevent it?

Firstly, how about a regular delivery of fresh fruit, supplement yoga, gym or mindfulness classes, or encourage cycle to work initiatives with rewards for a more active commute?

Presenteeism seems to be less prevalent at the moment too, with flexible working arrangements or remote/ home-based working becoming more popular.

Setting up your own company policy and guidelines which demonstrate a commitment to protect the health, safety and welfare of staff is a great move.

In today’s candidate-led market, particularly in skillsshortage industries, businesses that are not implementing health and wellbeing programmes to support their staff are likely to see some problems with retention, alongside their usual issues with sickness-related absence.

Simply offering the highest salary may no longer be enough.