Stress Risk Assessment Checklist Template

Owned by the manager, with HR and the health and safety lead. Choose on the first task whether this is a team assessment, and how you will hear from staff, or one person’s: the tasks that fit appear. Decide before anyone is asked a question how answers and health information will be kept.

• Set up the assessment: your organisation, who is assessed, the route, the start date and the people — your organisation, the team or the person assessed, whether it is a team assessment and how you will gather staff views, or one person’s, the date it starts and the people who run each part; later tasks are assigned from these fields and every due date counts from the start date
• Check whether the person needs support today — if you are worried about their immediate safety, get help straight away; otherwise agree when you will talk properly, soon and in private
• Define what the assessment covers — the team, roles, sites and shifts included, people on leave, part-time, home-based and agency workers, the managers themselves, and any recent or planned change; for one person, their role and the work they do
• Agree who takes part and get a senior manager’s support — a senior manager who backs the assessment and gives staff time to take part, HR, health and safety, occupational health if you have it and, for a team, employee or trade union representatives; a larger organisation may use a steering group or its health and safety committee
• Decide how personal and health information is handled — survey answers anonymous and reported only for groups large enough that no one can be picked out, health details kept off this checklist and in the confidential HR or occupational health file, and who sees the findings
• Set up consultation with staff and their representatives — tell the team why the assessment is happening, what will be asked, when and how answers are kept, and involve safety or trade union representatives from the start, in finding the problems and the solutions and in checking the actions later

Applies only when the assessment is for a team. HSE says to use more than one source and look for where they agree. Use figures for the group, never a list of who was off sick and why. The survey or the Talking Toolkit conversations run in the second and third weeks.

• Map your own survey’s questions to the six areas — which questions cover demands, control, support, relationships, role and change, and what to add, or ask another way, where an area is missing
• Pull sickness absence figures for the team — levels, patterns and timing against busy periods, compared with other teams, as figures for the group
• Look at turnover and exit interview reasons — leavers over the last year against what you would expect, and any common reasons people gave for leaving
• Check the other signs of pressure — grievances and complaints, bullying or harassment cases, accidents and near misses, overtime and hours worked, and any group figures from occupational health or the employee assistance programme
• Talk to the team in the course of the work — team meetings with an agenda item on workloads, one-to-ones, and walk-throughs or talk-throughs of the busiest tasks
• Run the staff survey — open to everyone in scope, managers included, for a set period, with reminders through the representatives, and closed on the date you announced
• Hold Talking Toolkit conversations — one-to-one or small group conversations using HSE’s Talking Toolkit, covering the six areas, with notes of the issues and ideas raised and no names against them
• Analyse the survey results — the average score for each of the six areas and the lowest-scoring questions, read against the response rate; for HSE’s Indicator Tool, enter the answers in HSE’s Analysis Tool
• Bring the evidence together and mark the hot spots — where the sources agree, where they differ, and which roles, shifts or areas look most affected

Applies only when the assessment is for one person. Talk soon, in private and in working time. The conversation is about the work: the person decides how much they share, and health details stay in the confidential file, not on this checklist.

• Arrange a private conversation in working time — a quiet place and enough time in the working day, led by someone the person is comfortable with, and a colleague or representative with them if they would like one
• Explain what the conversation is for and what will be recorded — that it is about the work, what goes on this checklist, what stays in the confidential file and who will see it, and that they need not answer anything they would rather not
• Go through the six areas with them — demands, control, support, relationships, role and change: what is causing pressure, when it happens and when it does not, using open questions and taking your lead from them
• Agree what would help, starting with changes to the work — changes at the source first, such as workload, deadlines, priorities, hours or training, then support around them
• Tell them where else they can get support — occupational health, with a referral if they agree to one, the employee assistance or counselling service, their GP, a trade union or health and safety representative, and any mental health first aider
• Ask HR whether the duty to make reasonable adjustments applies — where the person has, or may have, a condition that could be a disability, the employer may have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments; HR decides with occupational health advice, not the line manager alone
• Agree a written action plan with the person — the problem, the agreed solution, the actions, who does each and by when, and the date to review the plan together
• Make the first changes and tell only the people who need to know — what changes from when, and what the person agreed others may be told
• Hold the first review meeting with the person — whether the changes are working, what else is needed, and the next date

Applies only when the assessment is for a team. Rate each area from the evidence, not from the survey alone. HSE says it does not expect an employer to meet all the standards: they are targets to work towards.

• Assess demands — workload, work patterns and the work environment: what the evidence shows, who it affects, what already helps and the risk that remains
• Assess control — how much say people have in the way they do their work: what the evidence shows, who it affects, what already helps and the risk that remains
• Assess support — the encouragement, sponsorship and resources from the organisation, line management and colleagues: what the evidence shows, who it affects, what already helps and the risk that remains
• Assess relationships — promoting positive working to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behaviour: what the evidence shows, who it affects, what already helps and the risk that remains
• Assess role — whether people understand their role and do not have conflicting roles: what the evidence shows, who it affects, what already helps and the risk that remains
• Assess change — how organisational change, large or small, is managed and communicated: what the evidence shows, who it affects, what already helps and the risk that remains
• Record the groups especially at risk and how — the roles, shifts or people whose work puts them under most pressure, such as new starters, people going through a change or anyone working alone

Applies only when the assessment is for a team. The data gives a broad picture; the people who do the work say what is behind it and what would work in practice.

• Share the results with the team and their representatives — the overall picture and the hot spots, before the focus groups, so the figures do not come as a surprise
• Run focus groups to test the findings and find solutions — small groups who check whether the hot spots are real, raise what the data missed and suggest what would work
• Look for solutions at the source first — changes that remove or reduce the cause, then help for people to deal with it, then support for anyone already affected, at the level of the organisation, the team or one person
• Collect each group’s preliminary action plan — the suggestions and recommendations from each group, ready to be combined into one plan

Applies only when the assessment is for a team. One plan, agreed with senior managers and employee representatives and shared with the team. The first actions start here, before the sign-off.

• Write one action plan for the team — for each area that needs action: the desired state, the current state, the practical solution, who takes it forward, when, how staff hear about progress, and whether it is done
• Prioritise each action and give it an owner, resources and a date — the order of priority, whether each action really tackles the issue, the resources it needs and a realistic date
• Agree the plan with senior managers and employee representatives — who agreed it, when, and any changes made
• Share the final plan and timetable with the team — what the assessment found, what will change and when, and how people will hear about progress
• Start the first actions — the quick wins first; the action plan table tracks the rest

The record is the significant findings, the groups especially at risk and the actions, with no health details. The approver chosen on the first task signs off; nothing after the sign-off can be completed until they do. For one person, write the record and ask for the sign-off once the plan is agreed and the first changes are made, usually in the second week; the due dates follow the team timetable.

• Check the policies the findings touch — bullying and harassment, sickness absence, including keeping in touch and return to work interviews, equality and reasonable adjustments, and the first aid needs assessment
• Write up the record of the assessment — the significant findings, the groups especially at risk and the actions with owners and dates; for one person, the work-related findings and the agreed plan, kept where Phase 1 decided
• Make the changes the approver asked for — the gaps or changes the approver named; then ask them to change the decision and complete the sign-off
• Sign off the assessment and the action plan — the approver checks that the evidence covers the six areas, the actions are agreed and started, any individual support is in place and the record keeps health details out, then completes this task with the decision

Check the actions are happening, ask whether they have helped, and set the next review. HSE says not to wait for a scheduled review if it becomes obvious the solutions are not working.

• Check the actions are happening — each action’s progress against the plan, with anything stalled raised with its owner
• Ask the team, or the person, whether the changes have helped — in team meetings, through the representatives or in a review meeting with the person
• Compare absence, turnover and survey results with the start — the same figures as in Phase 2, and a repeat survey if the plan includes one
• Update the record and set the next review date — what changed, what is still open, the date of the next review and what would bring it forward, such as a reorganisation, new targets or more people off sick