Questions and Answers about Stress
1. What is Stress?
2. Why have an Occupational Stress Policy?
3. How can I find out more about the Policy?
4. How will my Manager know about the Occupational Stress Policy
5. How can I learn to manage my own stress better?
6. Why does stress sometimes affect health?
7. How can I tell if stress is affecting my health?
8. Who can I ask for help?
9. How might I recognize if a colleague is under stress?
10. How is Loughborough University going to act to reduce stress?
11. When my manager does a risk assessment, how will he/she know what the main problems are?
12. I'm a manager. I already have enough to do without adding this to the list.
There are lots of different definitions of stress – the one we have used as the basis for the Loughborough University Occupational Stress Policy comes from the Health and Safety Executive and is
“…the reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed upon them”
The amount of pressure considered ‘excessive’ will vary from person to person and also from time to time for the same person. You can’t make a judgement that someone ‘shouldn’t ‘ be stressed because they are not under any more pressure than everyone else: it is the way the pressure is experienced by the individual that matters.
Loughborough University has a duty of care to its employees which means it has an obligation to treat them reasonably and not to put them at risk. An Occupational Stress policy puts into a formal agreement the steps Loughborough University will take to protect your mental well-being in the same ways it protects your physical health through attention to hazards such as noise, chemicals and heavy machinery.
In addition to this, managing stress makes good business sense. Stressed employees are less productive and effective, less likely to work well with colleagues and more likely to leave and find another job – so if we can keep stress down, everyone wins.
Once your managers have attended training sessions they will brief everyone who works for them on what the policy covers and what it means in practice. At the time as that briefing, you will be given your own copy of the Occupational Stress policy. In the meantime you can print a copy of the policy and associated guidance from this website or ask Human Resources for a paper version.
All Heads of Department and Heads of Section have been required to attend a half day course on Managing Occupational Stress. Some managers at other levels have also attended. Following this, shorter sessions on Managing Occupational stress are arranged to ensure that managers and supervisors at all levels understand their responsibilities and how the policy works.
The document ‘Guidance for Employees’ which accompanies the policy has lots of useful ideas on personal stress management, or you can print off an information leaflet ’Managing Personal Stress’ from this website. If you feel you need more help with this, contact Professional Development who are running courses on Managing Personal Stress.
This is because of the ‘fight or flight’ response which is an ordinary (and very useful) response our bodies have to stressful situations. If you are in a dangerous situation, your body produces adrenaline which increases your heart rate, your breathing rate, and your blood pressure so that you can run away faster (or fight better).
Problems arise when your body reacts in this way to everyday situations: you keep producing adrenaline but never get to run away (or fight!) to make use of it. So you spend lots of time with raised blood pressure, tense muscles, and so on – it’s not surprising you go home with a headache!
Symptoms of stress can include tiredness, headaches, aches and pains, poor sleep, loss of interest in sex, catching more coughs and colds, reduced interest in work, reduced confidence, palpitations, panic attacks and stomach upsets.
Your manager is often the best place to start as they are most likely to be able to help you make changes at work. However, if you don’t feel you can talk to your line manager (or if your manager is part of the problems), consider talking to:
- a colleague
- your manager’s manager
- your HR Adviser for your area of the University (see Sources of Support)
- occupational Health - tel 01509 222851 or extension 2851, email Wendy Jones
- Counselling – tel ext 2148 or e-mail Counselling
- your GP
Signs you might see in other people include irritability, loss of sense of humour, and reduced willingness to socialise. Increased mistakes at work, clumsiness, taking longer to do work or having difficulty planning projects and organising can all be signs someone is struggling. You may also see, for example, weight gain or loss, signs of increased drinking or changes in working patterns (either reluctance to come to work, or increased working hours to compensate for reduced function).
The policy includes a commitment to risk assessment and reduction. Heads of Department and Heads of Section are required to identify key factors which have the potential to affect the well being of their staff and to plan ways to manage these risks. The emphasis will be on factors which can be managed and improved at a local level such as communication, work planning and relationships.
Of course there may be things which cause staff stress which are not easily managed locally such as policy decisions and resource issues. Heads of Department will be encouraged to feed their concerns on these upwards to enable a risk assessment to be done at a higher level with the support of the Executive Management Group.
Your manager will gather information from a number of people to help him/her identify the key hazards. This may be by talking to a small cross-section of staff (in a group or individually) or by asking some or all of the team to fill in a questionnaire which highlights the main issues.
The responsibility to manage stress and treat your team fairly comes with the job, through duty of care, moral responsibility and the responsibilities to protect health and safety laid down in law. The Occupational Stress policy formalises this to make it clearer what you need to do, and to ensure the processes are in place to support you in these responsibilities. In addition, by managing stress proactively through the risk assessment process, you should end up with a more contented and productive team, which reduces the load on you as manager.
13. I have some family problems at the moment and they are making it difficult for me to concentrate at work.
Talk to your manager - there may be temporary changes he or she can make to your role to get you through this difficult patch. Perhaps it would help if you took on less complex jobs which didn’t require such a high level of concentration, or matter so much if you made mistakes; or perhaps it would help to have more flexibility than usual in the hours that you work.
14. I've been off work for two months since I became ill through worrying about my job. I'm nearly ready to go back now. What can I expect?
Through discussions with your manager you can plan your return to work. For example it may help to meet your work colleagues for lunch first to break the ice, or to drop into the department to say hello to people. There may be benefit in you starting on modified duties until you get your confidence back, or it may help for you to start on reduced hours for the first couple of weeks.
The relevant HR Adviser will usually be involved, helping your manager to make the right decisions. In some cases, the HR Adviser will ask you to see Occupational Health as well to giving more guidance on what to expect and how the University can best help. If there were problems at work that you feel contributed to your illness, these will need to be tackled to ensure the problem does not recur.
15. I’m struggling to cope with my workload. I’m working longer and longer hours and just can’t keep on top of it. What can I do?
Start by talking to your manager – he /she can help you prioritise your work and maybe identify some bits which don’t need doing at all or could be better done by someone else; or maybe there are some training needs you can identify together which will help you work more efficiently.
Working ever longer hours is not an effective solution to a problem like this as you will get progressively less effective and more tired so that you actually achieve relatively little despite your long hours.
16. I told my manager my work was making me ill and they said they wanted me to go to Occupational Health. Why?
The Occupational Health Adviser and the Occupational Health Doctor will be able to talk with you about your problems and help you decide how best to manage them – for example, are you better staying at work? or should you be off sick? Are there particular issues at work which need resolving? and who is the best person to do this. If you have work-related health problems a HR Adviser will often refer you to Occupational Health, but you can also refer yourself if you need support (tel 01509 222851 or extension 2851or email Wendy Jones ).
The issues you discuss with Occupational Health will be in confidence. If you are referred by the HR Adviser , the Occupational Health Adviser or Doctor will write a report back. This will be in general terms, advising what the University needs to do and what it can expect from you. It will not give details about your illness unless you want this to happen.
Author: Human Resources (MET) October 2005