HSE Talking Toolkit – Preventing work-related stress in construction

Introduction

This toolkit is aimed at small businesses with a regular workforce (employed and contracted) who want to start looking at this issue. It will also help site managers wanting to identify project-specific issues.

Purpose of this toolkit

Work-related stress is not an illness, but it can make you ill. HSE defines stress as ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’. Workers feel stress when they can’t cope with pressure and other issues. It can affect people differently – what stresses one person may not affect another.

Starting the conversation is an important first step in preventing work-related stress. This toolkit will help you to do this. Acting on work-related stress also helps to address some key aspects relating to mental ill health. The two often go together as work-related stress can aggravate an existing mental health problem, making it more difficult to control. However, they can also exist independently.

Mental health is about how we think, feel and behave. Common mental health problems can be caused by things unconnected to work. Some aspects of mental health therefore fall outside of work-related stress and this toolkit. The construction industry has introduced its own wider initiatives to help promote positive mental health and support those in need.

Using the talking toolkit

There are six main themes linked to work-related stress. By starting simple and practical conversations in these areas, you will be taking steps to reduce pressure, manage potential stressors and limit the negative impact work might be having on staff. The toolkit outlines how workers should feel in relation to these themes and provides a series of questions to help explore what the issue might be where this is not the case.

The toolkit is designed to be used flexibly. There is no set format for these conversations nor how they should be conducted. Here are some tips:

• Timing: This depends on what works best for you. You could have one conversation a week.
• Theme: Your conversations could focus on one theme at a time and you could cover the themes that you feel are most important first.
• Setting: The conversations could be held on a one-to-one basis or with a whole team – during a tea break, for example.
• Time: Make time for these discussions. They don’t have to be more than 10 or 15 minutes for each theme.
• Openness: The toolkit relies on open and honest discussion around issues. Everyone needs to listen to what is being said.
• Questions: The questions are intended to help start a discussion. They are not prescriptive; the important thing is to have a conversation that is relevant to your work.
• Solutions then actions: These should be agreed together.

Practical advice, tools and free learning, from HSE, is available to help employers, managers and teams take simple action early.

Find more information here: https://workright.campaign.gov.uk/working-minds/working-minds-resources/