Management Standards for work-related stress

Unions campaigned hard for an Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) on stress, but this was rejected by the HSE. Instead, the HSE published its Management Standards for work-related stress. The six standards are voluntary guidance and are not legally binding. They cover: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change, and are looked at in more detail in Chapter 4: HSE guidance.

Although the Management Standards are voluntary, they are nevertheless a useful tool for reps who are attempting to combat stress at both an individual and an organisational level. As well as providing helpful proactive tools for a stress management framework, the Management Standards can be used reactively, to help negotiate on behalf of workers who have suffered psychiatric injury as a result of workplace stress, because they set a series of authoritative benchmarks that can be used to hold management to account in individual cases.

www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards