The five step stress risk assessment is a proven method for assessing the risk of workplace stress. It is a very simple approach.
Step 1: Identify the hazards
Identifying the hazards has been made easy for businesses with the newly published HSE Management Standards (see above). What would be important is to assess how relevant the HSE factors are for a specific business and the job roles within a business and to widen the list of hazards to include others that may be business specific.
Step 2: Identify who might be harmed
In essence, the most important part of this step is to decide who, in the business, is likely to be most vulnerable to the hazards identified in step 1. This will guide you to those parts of the business that require a proper evaluation of the risk. It may be that the whole organisation needs to be assessed, or it could be that only one department is identified as at risk.
There already is information that can be used to indicate potential problem areas.
- High levels of sickness absence. What are the reasons for absence is it stress related absence?
- Low levels or productivity
- High employee turnover – conducting exit interviews will help to determine if the turnover is being caused by stress factors
- Performance appraisal discussions may uncover sources of pressure
- Team meetings may provide information about the state of things in a work group
- Existing staff surveys provide pulse information. Is it possible to reformat the staff survey so as to tap into the six Management Standards?
- Health and safety committees and working groups
- Training sessions and away days
- Committees e.g. Works councils
Step 3: Evaluate the risk
This is the most important part of the risk assessment process. It is concerned with the measurement of the risks. Stress auditing using a staff survey is the most effective and most reliable way of evaluating the stress risks in a business.
The measurement can be done quantitatively, qualitatively or using a mix of both methods. It is advisable to undertake a quantitative assessment of the risk by doing a stress audit using survey methodology.
Staff Survey
A staff survey is the best way to gather quantitative data about the risks to stress. We at Smithfield Performance use the HSE Management Standards questionnaire in our surveys to ensure clients are conforming and adhering to the latest guidelines.
Focus groups
Staff in a business are usually the most valuable voices to listen to when introducing a stress prevention strategy. Staff know and understand what their own issues are and most of the time they know what the solutions ought to be. If only people would listen to them!
Focus groups are a way of listening to them and engaging them in a participative way. BUT, the focus group has to be run properly in order to get the best out of them. In fact, more damage than good can be done by poorly managed focus groups (see information under ‘Facilitation of focus groups’).
The main purpose of the groups is to use the expertise and the knowledge of the staff to build an accurate picture of the key stressors in their jobs. It is also possible to use the focus group participants as a sounding board. For example, it is possible to use the expertise and experience of the participants in the focus group to verify the evidence of stress gained from other sources, such as survey data.
One of the most important ways of making best use of focus groups is to ask participants to brainstorm ‘solutions’ to the stress problems that they are raising. The solutions can be built into the stress prevention strategy almost directly provided they are reasonable and pertinent.
Step 4: Record the findings
An audit report will contain the main findings of the risk assessment and should highlight the following:
- Groups of people (defined according to sensible demographics such as job role, work location, work team, etc) who are at risk of high levels of stress
- The key stressors that are putting these groups of people at risk
- The plan of action required to deal with the risks, or to help protect those at risk
- A communication plan for disseminating the information within the business to all staff and to top management
- An indication of timescales agreed with the business and staff representative groups
The action plan will include the following:
- what the problem is
- how the problem was identified
- what the response is going to be
- how the solution was arrived at
- some key milestones and dates for them to be reached
- a commitment to provide feedback to staff on progress
- a date for reviewing against the plan
Step 5: Review and evaluate
The best way to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions is to undertake another stress audit survey. The audit survey is a way of taking another temperature check and provide people with a chance to say whether they think the interventions have worked or not.
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