Stress Awareness Month 2025: What Employers Need to Know

• Employers have a legal duty to assess and manage the risks of work-related stress in their organisation.
• Work-related stress affects 776,000 workers in Great Britain, representing 46% of all work-related ill health cases in 2023/24.
• Stress-related absences average 21 days per person (compared to just 7 days for physical injuries).

Nearly half of all work-related ill health is caused by stress, anxiety, or depression, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, work-related stress cases drastically increased, peaking at 914,000 in 2021/22.

While the latest figures (776,000 cases in 2023/24) show a slight improvement from the pandemic peak, they remain substantially higher than pre-pandemic levels. These numbers highlight work-related stress as an ongoing issue that employers need to address for the health of their employees and business.

A major consequence of workplace stress is increased absenteeism. In 2023/24, 16.4 million working days were lost in Great Britain due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety. This makes stress the single biggest contributor to working days lost among all causes of work-related ill health.

It’s not just the number of cases, either. Stress typically keeps employees off work for longer than other types of ill health or injuries. Stress-related absences typically last 21 days, compared with 17 days for other ill-health cases and 7 days for physical injuries.

The financial impact is substantial. Analysis by Deloitte has found that poor mental wellbeing costs UK employers an estimated £51 billion a year. This figure includes costs from:

• Absenteeism (sick days taken for mental health reasons)
• Presenteeism (employees working below par due to poor mental health)
• Staff turnover (recruitment and training costs to replace those who leave)

On a national scale, poor mental health costs the UK economy £117.9 billion annually, according to a report from the Mental Health Foundation and the London School of Economics and Political Science. This figure is equivalent to around 5% of the UK’s GDP.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, employers have a duty to protect their employees from work-related harm. Legally, there is no distinction between physical and psychological harm.

This duty of care is reinforced by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which require you to assess and control workplace risks. This means conducting a specific risk assessment for workplace stress, just as you would for physical hazards.

Failing to address workplace stress could put you in breach of your legal obligations as an employer.

When Stress Awareness Month comes around, many organisations respond with wellness programmes or relaxation sessions. While these can be helpful, they resolve symptoms rather than causes.

Risk assessment offers a fundamentally different approach. The process helps you to identify and address the root causes of work-related stress. Think of it as similar to managing physical risks – you need to put measures in place to prevent harm, not just respond to it.

Every workplace has unique stress factors. Risk assessment helps pinpoint exactly what’s causing stress in your specific environment rather than applying generic solutions.

This is particularly important because stressors aren’t consistent across industries. In construction, for example, stress is often linked to the physical demands of the job (and made worse by an industry-wide reluctance to seek support). In healthcare, workers might have to consistently handle high-stakes situations with little time to recover or reflect.

The Health and Safety Executive identifies six critical areas to consider in your stress risk assessment. Understanding each domain helps you implement the appropriate control measures:

Evaluate whether the demands placed on your employees are reasonable and achievable. Your assessment should examine factors such as workload distribution, work patterns and physical environment concerns.

Examine how much say your employees have in their work. Low control is consistently linked to higher stress levels, poor job satisfaction and increased absence.

Evaluate whether employees receive adequate practical and emotional support to perform their roles effectively. Support includes access to resources, managerial guidance and necessary information and training.

Consider interpersonal dynamics, including how conflict is managed and how unacceptable behaviours are addressed. Poor workplace relationships can be a significant source of stress.

Evaluate whether people understand their place within the organisation and whether their roles align with their skills and capabilities.

Examine how organisational change is managed and communicated in your workplace. Poor change management creates uncertainty and anxiety, even when the changes themselves might ultimately be positive.

With 16.4 million working days lost annually to stress, depression and anxiety, addressing workplace stress isn’t just for compliance.

Investing in stress prevention can lead to fewer absences, lower staff turnover
and a more engaged workforce. Deloitte’s research found that employers investing in mental health can gain an average return of almost £5 for every £1 spent.

During Stress Awareness Month 2025, consider how you can move beyond awareness to implementation. With 776,000 workers still affected each year, stress management can’t be confined to one month alone – it takes a year-round commitment.

The most successful organisations aren’t those with elaborate employee assistance programmes but those that systematically identify and address the stressors in their workplace.

Carrying out a stress risk assessment will ensure your organisation is compliant and can help boost productivity and cut costs.

Our online Stress Risk Assessment Training guides you through the process, helping you identify workplace stressors and apply control measures.

We also offer online Stress Management Training for employees. It helps them
recognise when stress becomes a problem and take proactive steps to protect their wellbeing. Providing this training is a simple yet effective way to reduce stress-related risks.

With flexible online learning and built-in progress tracking, our courses make it easy to train individuals, departments or your entire organisation. Take action today to support your employees and fulfil your duty of care. Explore our mental health training courses now.