TUC guidance on the Management Standards


The TUC’s safety reps’ guide to the HSE stress management standards says that workplace stress has been viewed as a major problem by trade unions since the 1980s, but that while many employers have accepted that stress is a major problem in their workplace, few have any idea how to tackle it effectively. It says that the HSE Management Standards for Work-related Stress provide clear guidance to help organisations identify practical solutions to the problem and that safety representatives should encourage their employer to implement them in their organisation. “Unions have a major part to play in ensuring that the employer takes their responsibilities to tackle work-related stress seriously. Dealing with stress at work highlights the fact that health and safety is not divorced from the rest of a union’s industrial activity,” says the TUC. “Unions and employers working together to invest in health and safety can result in a vast improvement in other aspects of industrial relations and a working environment in which stress is managed properly.”


The TUC guide gives a background to the problem of stress; outlines what the standards are; explains what safety reps and employers must do; explains the process; and directs reps to further sources of information.