Stressed at work?
There is a strong possibility that you are. And members of your team – stress has a trickle down effect, a stressed leader will transmit stress to their employees, and the ripple effect continues.
But stress is no longer “just one of those things” that have to be tolerated. It is now an enforcement issue and the Health and Safety Executive have stepped in to reduce the impact of stress on the workforce.
Examination of the HSE 2024/25 report shows some shocking statistics. Some 964,000 employees suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety, with 22.1 million working days lost to those conditions, almost a third higher than the previous year’s 16.4 million, and averaging 22.9 days per case. Of all causes of workplace ill health, stress accounts for over half, with workload, poor management and toxic cultures being the key factors cited.
I have been one of those statistics. The sinking feeling of dread on a Sunday evening often resulted in tears at the thought of having to go to work on Monday morning. I crashed and burned spectacularly, suffering a complete mental breakdown and quitting my job in desperation, a story which is repeated across the country as talent retention becomes a real factor for bosses in all sectors. And now, it is non-negotiable for employers to mitigate these risks and take steps to protect employees.
Managing workplace stress is now enforceable. In December 2025 the HSE served a Notice of Contravention on the University of Birmingham for not having effective arrangements to manage work-related stress, discussed in an article by Clyde & Co. The key factors included the University’s measures to prevent stress being ineffective and unmonitored, an issue which is addressed by ReSpeak’s ISO 45003-aligned programs. Motivational resilience talks, while inspirational and moving, are forgotten within a couple of days – a program that truly embeds through ongoing learning and development will be retained. Resilience can be learned and constructed instead of just admired from afar, and it is my mission to transmit this resilience to as many people as possible.
If any of this feels uncomfortably familiar – the Sunday dread, the team running on empty, the wellbeing initiative nobody can quite say worked – then take it as the signal it is. The law now expects you to assess the risk; your people have always deserved it. The good news buried in all those grim statistics is that this is fixable: stress risks can be identified, measured and genuinely reduced, and resilience can be built rather than simply applauded from the back of a conference hall. Start with an honest baseline. Ask what your organisation actually knows about the pressure its people are under, and whether you could show your answer to an auditor, or to yourself. And if you’d like help finding out, that conversation is exactly where we begin.