Employer awareness, understanding and compliance with Health and Safety Executive (HSE) stress risk assessment requirements remains “worryingly” low, a poll has found.
The survey by Occupational Health Assessment of 115 senior HR professionals, between them representing 88,000 workers, found widespread ignorance about stress risk assessments.
Workplace stress
Stress for HR specialists greater at larger organisations
Quarter feel their employer is ineffective at managing stress
Four out of every 10 employers (41%) were unaware that a formal stress risk assessment is legally required to be completed by any organisation with five or more employees.
Moreover, a quarter (25%) of all the employers surveyed had never undertaken a stress risk assessment.
A further 29% had failed to complete such an assessment in the past three years, despite regular reviews of existing plans being a central component of the HSE regulations in this area.
Half (50%) confessed to feeling “a little worried” about the idea of conducting a stress risk assessment, with a further 2% “very nervous”.
Occupational Health Assessment pointed to a recent investigation of The University of Birmingham as a warning to other employers.
The university allegedly failed to implement adequate procedures to prevent and minimise workplace stress.
Steve Herbert, brand ambassador at Occupational Health Assessment, said: “More than half of our respondents (52%) were worried about creating a stress risk assessment. Yet in reality, this is not a particularly complex exercise, albeit it does require a regular and persistent focus to yield positive results.”
More employers, he added, needed “to take the HSE regulations seriously”.
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