Employment Law - Defusing Stress at Work Claims

Employers are understandably nervous when dealing with employees alleging work stress.

An employee may claim that the employer has caused the stress or failed to deal with it; a demand for compensation for hurt feelings or personal injury may follow.

The Health and Safety Executive has recently proposed the imposition of minimum standards, including the carrying out of regular risk assessments, to be maintained by employers when dealing with stress in the work place. ACAS has also issued useful guidance.

Employers must now take notice of these issues or face a real risk of employee litigation.

As it is an implied term of any employment contract that a safe place of work must be provided, an employee may leave, claiming constructive dismissal, if a stressful situation is ignored.

If the employee suffers from a long term recognised psychiatric disorder (stress or anxiety would probably be insufficient), the employer will have to consider any reasonable adjustments which can be made to the employee’s role in order to alleviate difficulties.

This duty applies, even if the employer did not cause the mental illness (the employee may have suffered a traumatic event, unrelated to work).

If the work place is the source of stress, the employee suffering as a result a recognised mental illness, he or she may have a claim for damages in respect of personal injury, whether as part of a discrimination claim in an employment tribunal or as a stand alone claim in the County Court or High Court.

Practical steps which an employer can take to avoid liability, when dealing with a stressed employee, include the following:

• Establish a management culture which is sympathetic to stress.
• Ensure that health and safety risk assessments cover stress, if the employee’s work appears to require it.
• address immediately any claim, however fanciful it may seem, relating to stress or other mental problems.
• Adopt a stress policy for the business.
• In managing an employee on long term sickness, insist on a medical report from an independent specialist. This may help to establish whether the claimed medical condition is recognised and, therefore, covered by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and, if so, what adjustments can reasonably be made to the employee’s role.
• Establish a rehabilitation strategy, allowing the employee to return to work gradually and on an agreed programme.
• Make early contact with the employee, if absent from work, but acknowledge the need for time to recuperate, if contact is unwelcome.
• Support the employee, rather than interrogate or alienate.

The important thing is to identify a potential problem early, to consider the employer’s legal and pastoral responsibilities to the employee and to act quickly and decisively in discharging such responsibilities.