Stress risk assessment: how to complete one and why it matters

Why is a stress risk assessment important?

Employers have a legal duty to protect workers from work-related stress by assessing the risk and acting on it. HSE says that organisations with five or more workers must record the assessment, although writing it down is useful for every employer because it provides a basis for action and review.

This is not a marginal workplace issue. HSE’s latest published figures estimate that 964,000 workers suffered work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25. These conditions accounted for an estimated 22.1 million lost working days. Behind those figures are real effects on health, attendance, concentration, safety, performance, turnover and management time.

A suitable assessment helps an employer act before the problem becomes an absence, accident, breakdown in working relationships or formal complaint. It also creates evidence that concerns were identified, discussed and addressed rather than simply acknowledged.

First: understand which assessment you need

An organisational stress risk assessment examines work-related stressors affecting the workforce, a department, site or defined group. It looks for patterns and underlying causes in the way work is organised.

An individual stress risk assessment or action plan is used when a particular worker reports stress, shows signs that cause concern or returns after stress-related absence. It considers their role, circumstances, work factors and support needs in a confidential conversation.

The two can inform each other, but one does not replace the other. A generic company assessment will not resolve a live concern affecting one employee, while an individual action plan may reveal a wider problem—such as excessive workload, poor change management or unclear responsibilities—that needs organisational action.

Use HSE’s six Management Standards

HSE identifies six areas of work design that can cause work-related stress when they are not managed properly. They provide a sensible structure for discussions, evidence gathering and the assessment itself.

• Demands — workload, work patterns, deadlines and the working environment.
• Control — how much say people have over the way they carry out their work.
• Support — information, resources, encouragement and support from the organisation, managers and colleagues.
• Relationships — positive working, conflict management and unacceptable behaviour such as bullying or harassment.
• Role — whether people understand their responsibilities and whether conflicting roles are avoided.
• Change — how organisational change is planned, explained, consulted upon and managed.

How to complete a stress risk assessment

The assessment should be proportionate to the size and complexity of the organisation. A ten-person business may gain better information through structured conversations than an anonymous survey. A larger or multi-site employer may need workforce data, a survey, focus groups and separate assessments for different teams.

• 1. Define the scope. Decide whether you are assessing the whole organisation, a site, team, role or current change programme. Identify who will lead it and how workers or their representatives will be involved.
• 2. Gather more than one source of evidence. Consider sickness absence, overtime, working hours, staff turnover, exit interviews, complaints, grievances, productivity, accidents, near misses, occupational-health information and what workers say in meetings or one-to-ones.
• 3. Identify the hazards. Work through demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. Ask what is happening in practice, which groups may be exposed and whether current arrangements create sustained or excessive pressure.
• 4. Decide who may be harmed and how. Avoid assuming that everybody experiences the work in the same way. Consider new starters, managers, lone or remote workers, shift workers, disabled workers and teams affected by particular workloads or change.
• 5. Evaluate existing controls and identify gaps. Record what is already working, whether it is applied consistently and what more is reasonably practicable. Give priority to changes that remove or reduce the cause of the stressor.
• 6. Create an action plan. Each action needs an owner, a realistic target date and a method of checking whether it worked. Communicate the findings and explain what will happen next.
• 7. Monitor and review. Check completion, speak to workers and look again at relevant data. Review sooner after a significant change, a cluster of concerns, stress-related absence or evidence that controls are not working.

What do effective controls look like?

The best controls address the source of the pressure. Wellbeing apps, resilience training and an employee assistance programme may provide useful support, but they do not compensate for an unmanageable workload, poor behaviour or a badly controlled change programme.

• Demands: rebalance workloads, clarify priorities, review staffing or remove unnecessary deadlines.
• Control: involve workers in planning tasks and give appropriate flexibility over how work is completed.
• Support: train managers, schedule meaningful check-ins and make routes for help clear and credible.
• Relationships: address conflict early and apply bullying and harassment arrangements consistently.
• Role: clarify responsibilities, authority, reporting lines and competing instructions.
• Change: explain why change is happening, consult early, provide realistic timescales and keep people updated.

Should you use a staff survey?

A survey can identify patterns, but it is only one source of information and not the finished assessment. HSE’s Stress Indicator Tool uses 35 questions mapped to the six Management Standards. Its free version is available for organisations with up to 50 workers, but it requires at least 10 responses to protect anonymity. For organisations with fewer than 10 workers, HSE recommends its Stress Talking Toolkits instead.

Whatever method you use, feed the findings back to workers. Silence after a survey damages trust and makes future participation less likely. Explain what was found, what can be changed, what cannot be changed immediately and when progress will be reviewed.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating stress as an individual weakness rather than examining work-related causes.
• Using a generic template without speaking to the people who do the work.
• Running a survey but failing to investigate the results or create actions.
• Offering only counselling, wellbeing benefits or resilience training while leaving the stressor unchanged.
• Recording confidential medical detail in a general workforce assessment.
• Giving every issue a high, medium or low score without explaining the evidence or required control.
• Creating actions without owners, deadlines or a review of effectiveness.

What should the finished assessment contain?

Keep the record usable. It should show the scope, people consulted, evidence considered, significant stressors, groups who may be affected, existing controls, further actions, action owners, target dates and review arrangements. Where an individual is affected, keep their confidential action plan separate from the organisational assessment.

The document is not the control. The value comes from honest consultation, proportionate decisions and following the agreed actions through to completion.