Management

How to minimise your exposure to stress claims

Every employer is, or should be, concerned with the increase in stress levels in employees whilst at the same time the barriers to making a claim against an employer are being lowered. How does a company minimise its exposure to stress claims?

Duty of care

Each employer has a legal duty of care for the health, safety and well being of their employees, and whilst we all recognise the health and safety implications of operating dangerous machinery, that same HSE legislation also applies to the mental health of individuals. Work related stress has been targeted by HSE over the past few years, and is receiving the same attention and rigour that more traditional high-risk operations have received in the past. As a result, employees are more aware of their legal rights, and employers who do not take the necessary steps are being pursued with stress-related claims.

Basis of a stress-related claim

For an employee to have a stress-related claim against their employer, they must generally prove that the company has breached their duty of care, that it was foreseeable that the breach would cause an injury, and that loss occurred as a result of the breach. The rules of thumb about what an employer could do to minimise risk have been changed following Dickins v O2. Previously, provision of an Employee Assistance Programme, or EAP was seen as a defence against the breach of duty, and the “reasonably foreseeable” was interpreted as a “requirement” for the employee to have previously had a mental breakdown. With the success of Dickins, these general tenets have been removed.

HSE recommendations

To minimise the risk of a successful claim, the employer need to consider the recommendations of the HSE with more than a “compliance” attitude. Recent court cases have shown that such an attitude is easily spotted by HSE and the courts, and that effective action is required. The key to the legislation is, as always, a risk assessment. HSE guidelines to carrying this out are as follows:

1. Identify the hazards - find out what’s causing stress in the workplace
2. Decide who may be harmed and how - identifying staff at risk
3. Evaluate the risks - gather information from employees, discuss, identify solutions, communicate and feedback.
4. Record results and form action plan - the formal plan which sets out how risks are reduced and hazards controlled
5. Monitor and review - keep going, this isn’t a one time deal

By taking this comprehensive approach, an employer not only protects themselves against a stress claim, but protects their staff against the effects of stress. The only true way to minimise the risk of a claim, is to minimise the risk of an employee suffering personal injury due to stress. There is no shortcut, easy route.

How does OSCR fit in?

Our online stress audit and culture reporting tool, OSCR, is used in all 5 stages of the HSE recommendations. The ethos and culture audits will pick up any unknowns in stage 1, the stress audit identifies those at risk (2), gathers all the relevant information regarding that stress(3) and our report and action plan take account of (4). Monitoring and review (5) is simply a re-run of the surveys with historical analysis for comparison. Our system covers all your requirements, in theory, it just remains for you to put them into practice. The only real way to minimise the risk of a stress related claim is to take real steps to minimise the risk of stress related injury.

If you would like to talk to someone about your exposure to stress related claims, then please get in touch.

© 2008 stress and culture audits.