Stress in the Workplace

Your Federation representatives have seen a dramatic recent increase in the amount of questions being asked by members about stress at work, and most of these questions centre around 'work overload'.

Currently 25% of absence is recorded as 'stress'.

If you are under stress at work then little can be done about it unless your manger knows about it and you can prove that your manager knew about it. If an employer knows or ought to know about work overload for example, then any psychiatric harm should be foreseeable. In essence, the employee should warn their manager of their concerns.

There are three legal requirements which must be established before an employer is in effect liable for a psychiatric illness caused by stress at work:

• That it was foreseeable that the officer was at risk of mental breakdown because of their work,

• That your employer was in breach of its duty of care to prevent such foreseeable injury by failing to take reasonable precautions to prevent such illness, and

• That the psychiatric injury occurred as a result of the stress at work

However even where managers have repeatedly heaped work on a buckling staff member, no claim against the employer is likely to succeed without a psychologists report confirming that a psychiatric disorder has developed because of occupational stress.

Stress in the workplace will be best managed and minimised by a manager who understands and knows their staff and their workload and who does something about it, and by staff who feel able to talk freely with their manager.

John Ainsworth
JBB Treasurer