Workplace Stress: What can employers do to better support employees?

Workplace stress: what can employers do to better support employees?

Workplace stress can be easy to overlook. A busy period, a demanding deadline or a growing workload can all feel like part of working life, but the latest figures show why employers need to pay attention.

In 2024 / 25, an estimated 964,000 workers in Great Britain experienced work-related stress, depression or anxiety, resulting in 22.1 million working days lost. Together, these conditions accounted for 52% of all work-related ill health and 62% of working days lost due to work-related ill health. 

There is a financial impact too. Deloitte estimates that poor employee mental health costs UK employers £51 billion a year, with around £24 billion attributed to presenteeism, where people continue working while unwell but are unable to perform at their full capacity.

Those are big numbers, but addressing workplace stress doesn’t necessarily mean launching a big new wellbeing programme. Often, a better place to begin is with the support, working practices and employee benefits already in place.

What is work-related stress?

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) describes work-related stress as arising when the demands of work, and how work is organised and managed, create excessive or difficult-to-manage pressures.

Importantly, workplace stress isn’t simply an employee wellbeing issue.

Employers have a legal responsibility to assess and manage the risks of work-related stress, just as they do other workplace health and safety risks.

HSE identifies six areas of work that can contribute to stress when they are not managed effectively:

• Demands – including workload and working patterns
• Control – how much say someone has in the way they work
• Support
• Relationships 
• Role 
• Change

That means tackling workplace stress needs to go beyond offering support after someone is already struggling. Employers should also look at what may be causing or contributing to excessive pressure in the first place.

source: HSE

Five practical ways employers can support workplace wellbeing

1. Make wellbeing support visible

   You may already have more support available than you realise.

   Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs), private medical insurance, health cash plans and other wellbeing services can all form part of an employee’s support network.

   But there is an important distinction between having a benefit and employees knowing how to use it.

   Our existing wellbeing guidance makes the same point: regular communication can prevent valuable resources from becoming forgotten benefits. Supporting Employee Wellbeing recommends making sure employees understand what support exists, how they can access it and when they might use it.

   Rather than mentioning an EAP once during onboarding, for example, consider signposting it throughout the year when it is most relevant.

   A simple question to ask: If an employee needed support today, would they know where to find it?

2. Give managers confidence to have wellbeing conversations

   Managers can play an important role in creating a supportive working environment. That doesn’t mean managers need to become mental health experts. Instead, they should have enough confidence and information to start a conversation, listen and know where to signpost an employee for appropriate support.

   HSE’s Working Minds campaign encourages employers to reach out, recognise, respond, reflect and make stress prevention routine.

   Practical manager guidance can therefore be just as important as the benefit itself.

   Black Mountain’s existing mental health resources similarly recommend mental health awareness training for managers so they can identify, support and appropriately signpost employees.

3. Look at workloads, not just wellbeing benefits

   An EAP can be valuable. So can private healthcare, wellbeing apps and counselling. But benefits shouldn’t be used as a sticking plaster for problems elsewhere in the organisation.

   If employees are regularly working under unrealistic workloads, dealing with poorly managed change or lacking control over their work, simply reminding everyone about a wellbeing benefit may not tackle the underlying problem.

   HSE specifically recommends listening to workers and acting on what they say. This could involve reviewing workloads, improving communication, giving people more control over their own work or providing better support. That distinction matters.

   A good workplace wellbeing strategy should consider both sides:

   What support can we provide when somebody needs it?

   and

   What workplace pressures can we address before they become a problem?
   

4. Make better use of the employee benefits you already have

   Introducing another wellbeing initiative isn’t always the answer. An employer may already provide an EAP, private medical insurance or other health and wellbeing support, but low awareness can limit its value.

   Awareness campaigns such as National Stress Awareness Day provide a natural opportunity to remind employees what’s available, explain what different benefits actually provide and show employees where to go for help.

   That’s an approach we’ve taken across Black Mountain’s existing wellbeing guidance: connect relevant wellbeing themes with existing employee benefits rather than treating each awareness day as a standalone campaign.

   It’s also worth reviewing benefits periodically against the needs of your workforce. A benefit package shouldn’t simply remain unchanged because it has always been there.

5. Keep the conversation going

   There’s a reason awareness days are useful. They give employers a natural opportunity to start conversations that might otherwise be difficult to raise.

   The danger is allowing the conversation to end the following morning. HSE’s final principle in its five-step Working Minds approach is “make it routine”, encouraging employers to regularly check how people are coping.

   That could mean incorporating wellbeing into manager conversations, reminding employees about support throughout the year, monitoring workplace pressures or linking wellbeing communications to relevant moments in your annual calendar.

   The aim isn’t to talk about wellbeing constantly. It’s to make support visible enough that employees know where to turn when they need it.

Workplace wellbeing doesn’t need to start with something new

• For employers looking at the workplace stress statistics and wondering where to begin, the first step doesn’t necessarily need to be another programme, platform or policy.Start with what you already have.

  Ask:

   

• Do employees know what support is available?
• Could they easily find it if they needed it?
• Do managers know where to signpost somebody?
• Are workloads and working practices contributing to unnecessary pressure?
• Are employees actually using the benefits you provide?
• When did you last ask employees what support would be useful?

Black Mountain’s existing wellbeing material recommends looking at absence reasons, employee feedback, benefits usage and EAP feedback when deciding where wellbeing activity should be focused.

Those questions can give you a much clearer picture of where practical improvements could make a difference.