Well, you won't feel any better if one of your team sues you because the pressure has got to them. Here's how to protect them from the strains of office life – and yourself from the lawyers.
Walk through any office in the land and the chances are you'll hear someone complaining about stress. It's a common gripe, but employers ignore signs of genuine stress at their peril. The annual cost of stress to British industry has rocketed to £370m and the Health & Safety Executive is willing to use its power to issue enforcement notices and prosecute any organisation that does not address and manage stress.

An employer can be caught out in two ways: the HSE will help an employee who brings an action for personal injury, or claims unfair dismissal as a result of stress, or the HSE may step in, as it did at West Dorset General Hospitals NHS Trust last month – and if the trust does not comply with the HSE's demands, it could face prosecution and an unlimited fine.

In all cases, employers are required to show that they have considered stress and identified ways of managing it. It's worth devoting some time to your stress policy – a Housing Corporation study last month suggested that the compensation bill for housing associations could reach £350m (HT 8 August, page 8). The only way to avoid payouts is to keep your staff safe from the worst effects of stress – and here's how.

Risk assessment

Employers are legally obliged to produce a written risk assessment of all health and safety hazards in the workplace, including occupational stress. This is the cornerstone of your defence against complaints, so you should update it at least once a year. The HSE will demand a copy if staff complain.

Once you have identified potential causes of stress, they must be monitored and it makes sense to draw up a stress policy detailing exactly how you're going to manage that risk. It may also contain procedures to address particular risks. Ronnie Clawson, director of human resources at the Peabody Trust, says: "Part of our assessment relates to home visits. We identify violent or aggressive tenants and make sure customer-facing staff have access to the records so two people can go – or we call them into the office instead."

Cost Up to £1500 for lawyers' or consultants' fees

The lawyer's view Mark London, health and safety lawyer at solicitor Devonshires, says: "An employer can't be expected to do a psychological evaluation of each employee, so you have to deal with the objective factors that may cause stress, so you can say to the HSE 'look, we have these in place'."

Training for managers

Spotting the signs of stress has joined the management training curriculum. Catherine Diamond, head of human resources at Basildon council, says the Essex local authority regularly runs stress training courses for staff and managers, and that identifying strain is part of the appraisal process. "People fill in evaluation sheets, so we can pick up issues in any area," she says.

Karen Harvey, head of human resources and organisational development at the National Housing Federation, says: "Historically, the human resources department would sort it out, but now it's up to the manager to structure the job, how they manage people at work and not give people things to do that they're not equipped for."

Cost £550-1000 a day for a training session

The lawyer's view Mark London says: "An employer could make line managers read a book on understanding stress. Training and spreading knowledge are wrapped up in the whole health and safety ethos.

"It would certainly help if you could show a court that managers were given training in managing and identifying stress, and that the managers spoke to the employee."

Employee assistance

Many firms offer counselling on demand to their employees. Huddersfield's Sadeh Lok Housing Association even calls in a life coach once a fortnight to help its 33 employees manage their time better (HT 5 September, page 12).

Another option is to run a confidential 24/7 hotline that staff can call for advice on work and personal issues. In February, Circle 33 began testing a Bupa phone service that offers counselling and legal advice to staff and their dependents. Up to June, 65 calls had been made – 40 for counselling and 25 for legal advice. "It'll be a permanent feature," says Anna Knight, head of human resource management at Circle 33. "We don't ask too many questions, but people have said it's a very good service."

This is different to an occupational health service, which employers use to get a medical opinion in cases of long-term sick leave.

Our annualised hours system is very useful for when there are peaks and troughs in the workload

Peter Wallop, southern housing group

Cost Face-to-face counselling is £11,000 for 275 hours. Sadeh Lok's life coach costs £560 a day. The price of a phone service depends on the level of service and number of employees. Circle 33 has more than 700 staff and pays less than £10,000 a year for its phone line.

The lawyer's view "It would certainly help your defence if the employer could show that, at the time of the claim, as well as talking to the employee and trying to help them, it also offered counselling. But it's tool, not a cure-all," says London.

"Associations and local authorities should not rely on something like that. If you're stressed at work, it's really your line manager you should be talking to."

Promoting relaxation

Group human resources director Sally Jacobson is proud of the happy atmosphere at London & Quadrant. The association runs achievement awards and regular staff outings, but most relaxing of all is L&Q's massage chair. It lives in a "relaxation zone" in the human resources department – a room with shutters, aromatherapy oils and soothing music. Staff can book 10-minute sessions for when it all gets too much. "I tried one at an exhibition and thought what a good idea it was. We're trialling it at the moment to see if staff like it," says Jacobson. Three months in, it seems to be a success. "We recommend one or two sessions a week. People can do it in work time, but we haven't had a problem with anyone abusing it."

Cost Chairs are £2000 to buy and £200 a month to hire.

The lawyer's view "This is an excellent idea. A chill-out room is a practical way of showing that the employer is trying to create a comfortable working environment. But the availability of a room does not affect the underlying causes of the stress and the focus should be on identifying those causes and managing them in accordance with the health and safety rules," says London.

Work/life balance

Employees can become stressed because they don't have enough time to resolve personal issues, so allowing them to choose more flexible hours or work from home can help. "We have laptops that link to the system over a phone line, so staff can work from home but still access their emails," says Peter Wallop, group personnel manager at Southern Housing Group. "You're at work, but without everyone knocking on your door."

Southern also operates an annualised hours system, calculating working hours over the year. This means staff can put in overtime when it's needed and know that they will get to make up for it when things are less busy. "It's really useful for when there are peaks and troughs, but you need to be very careful it's managed properly," warns Wallop. "At the end of the year, you could end up with a person having eight weeks of annual leave."

Cost Laptops start at £500 but allowing employees to work from home could cost nothing if you they provide their own PC and internet access. If you set people up with printers and faxes, it can get very expensive.

The lawyer's view "Working at home is obviously going to reduce stress," says London. "If an employer says to an employee, 'you're spending a lot of time in the office and you seem a bit stressed, why don't you spend an afternoon working from home', that's a proactive step.

Source

Housing Today