According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), around half of all work absence is stress-related. This rises to over three-quarters in the five priority sectors being targeted by HSE, two of which are local government and education.
Schools and local authorities are being asked to show they are taking reasonable steps to manage stress amongst their staff. They require a specialist approach to addressing stress in the workplace.
HSE recognises that Worklife Support’s Well-Being Programme can demonstrate that schools are meeting the duty of care under health and safety legislation. In fact, the HSE invited us to partner with them to roll out their Management Standards for Work-Related Stress.
“The Well-Being Programme from Worklife Support … is broadly equivalent to HSE’s Management Standards approach. Participation in the Well-Being Programme will enable schools to demonstrate they have met their duty of care under Health and Safety legislation.”
Health and Safety Executive
Under health and safety legislation, employers have a duty to ensure the health and safety of their employees while at work, conduct risk assessments, and take measures to control exposure to these risks.
HSE runs targeted inspection activity in local authorities, seeking evidence that “suitable and sufficient” risk assessments for work-related stress are being carried out.
During their inspections, HSE will want to ensure that reasonable steps are being taken to manage stress - either following their Management Standards or an equivalent approach such as Worklife Support’s Well-Being Programme.
“Doing nothing is not an option. You need to take action to ensure that you are meeting your responsibilities under Health and Safety law.”
“HSE’s approach to state-maintained and secondary-school education has been to work in partnership with Worklife Support, who have a well-established and well-respected proactive organisational approach to tackling work-related stress in schools: the Well-Being Programme.
HSE encourages organisations to implement the Management Standards approach but considers the Worklife Support product to be ‘broadly equivalent’. Encouraging the uptake of the Well-Being Programme is a realistic way of getting education and Children’s Services directorates to manage work-related stress at the individual school level.”
Health and Safety Executive
- The Well-Being Programme was specifically developed for schools. It is a sophisticated, tailor-made tool with which to carry out a risk assessment on work-related stress.
- The programme’s staff-perception survey is completely automated and paper-free. There is no need for staff responses to be collated and input manually and the results of the survey are automatically generated, saving you valuable time.
Each organisation receives a powerful, detailed data profile that breaks down staff data into demographic categories and provides benchmarking against schools or organisations of the same type. - The Well-Being Programme encourages a very high participation rate: on average, three quarters of staff in an organisation voluntarily take part in the survey.
- Confidentiality is inbuilt and guaranteed.
- Worklife Support provide support for ongoing work, helping to ensure that all changes generated are properly embedded and sustained.
