It’s Stress Awareness Month which is a good opportunity to remind colleagues of our Trust resources and other national websites that can offer support and guidance.

Stress in the workplace can affect every aspect of an organisation, from sickness rates to interpersonal relationships.

It affects people differently and what stresses one person may not affect another. Factors like skills and experience, age or disability may all affect whether someone can cope at the time. Our ability to cope with stress may also be influenced by external factors outside of the workplace.

Recognising the signs of stress early means actions can be taken before serious stress-related illness happen. The challenge is that everyone experiences it in different ways, which contributes to stress exhibiting in very different ways.

Our Occupational Health intranet pages have lots of information to help prevent work related ill health, including stress.

Our Stress Risk Indicator Tool is a quick way to look at the factors that may be causing you to feel stressed. It’s designed to be completed by individual colleagues, rather than a manager.

It looks at six key areas, also known as domains: Demands, Control, Support, Relationships, Role and Change. Your responses will indicate whether to repeat the test in around four to six weeks or complete a full stress risk assessment.

The full stress risk assessment (on the same template as the stress risk indicator tool) is there to help the individual and their manager identify and manage the six domains by looking at each in turn and agreeing an action plan on how, if possible, to address the stressor. Both the individual and their line manager need to contribute to the stress risk assessment.

Other guidance and support:

Working Minds – Work Right gives handy tips and resources to help tackle work-related stress.

The Working Minds – Work Right website also has a Five Steps in Five Weeks page which is built around Stress Awareness Month.

We also offer a wide variety of health and wellbeing support for colleagues on the intranet.