April is Stress Awareness Month

Make Stress Awareness Month the month you make it routine to prevent stress and support mental health at work.

The HSE defines stress as ‘an adverse reaction to excessive pressure’. Pressure is often part and parcel of work and helps to keep people motivated. However excessive, badly managed exposure to pressure can lead to stress. Workers who experience stress, anxiety or depression are unlikely to perform effectively. This can be costly to employers and in industries such as construction it can have serious consequences. It is important to remember that workers  may also have personal pressure such as personal relationships, financial concerns, domestic issues and bereavement which affect their ability to cope with pressure at work, and the effect of these factors is likely to vary over time.

This month the HSE are inviting employers and managers to complete the 5 steps of HSE’s Working Minds campaign over the course of April and have everything you need to get started, for free.

• Reach out and have conversations
• Recognise the signs and causes of stress
• Respond to any risks identified by agreeing action points
• Reflect on the actions taken – have things improved?
• Make it Routine to check back in on how things are going

To help you succeed in completing the 5 steps you can:

• plan it into the diary and tell your teams
• register for our bitesize learning for step-by-step advice, tools and templates
• Download the Working Minds campaign materials to share with others