Stress risk assessment: the HSE Management Standards, step by step
For employers in England, Scotland and Wales: what the law requires, the six areas of work HSE asks you to look at, how to survey your staff, and how to record and review what you find.
Every employer in Great Britain must assess the risk of work-related stress and act on what it finds. HSE’s Management Standards set out a five-step way to do it, and an assessment that follows them correctly counts as suitable and sufficient.
| What | Where things stand |
|---|---|
| The duty | Assess the risks to your employees’ health, stress included, and act on the findings: the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3. |
| Who it applies to | Every employer, whatever its size. With five or more employees, you must write down the significant findings. |
| When to review | When there is reason to think the assessment is out of date, or after a significant change at work. |
| HSE’s method | The Management Standards: six areas of work, assessed in five steps. |
| The staff survey | The free 35-question Indicator Tool, or its online version, the Stress Indicator Tool. |
| Where to start | Our free template gives you the structure. |
In 2024/25, work-related stress, depression or anxiety affected 964,000 workers in Great Britain and cost 22.1 million working days, 62% of all the days lost to work-related ill health, according to HSE’s statistics of November 2025.
What the law requires
The duty to assess stress comes from the general duty to assess risks to health, and HSE says it covers work-related stress.
- Assess the risks. Every employer must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to its employees’ health and safety at work (the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3(1)). HSE says employers have a legal duty to protect employees from work-related stress by assessing the risks and acting on them.
- Write it down. With five or more employees, record the significant findings and any group of employees the assessment shows to be especially at risk (regulation 3(6)).
- Keep it current. Review the assessment when there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid, or after a significant change in what it covers (regulation 3(3)).
- Protect health so far as is reasonably practicable. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sets the general duty to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees, so far as is reasonably practicable (section 2).
The Management Standards aren’t law. HSE says an assessment that follows them correctly is suitable and sufficient, and its equivalence checklist lets you test another method against them. In Northern Ireland, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 set the same duty, and HSENI publishes the guidance.
The six HSE Management Standards
The Management Standards cover six areas of work design. When an organisation manages them poorly, HSE links them to poor health, lower productivity and higher accident and sickness absence rates.
| Area | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Demands | Workload, work patterns and the work environment. |
| Control | How much say people have in the way they do their work. |
| Support | The encouragement, sponsorship and resources from the organisation, line managers and colleagues. |
| Relationships | Promoting positive working to avoid conflict, and dealing with unacceptable behaviour. |
| Role | Whether people understand their role, and whether the organisation avoids giving them conflicting roles. |
| Change | How the organisation manages and communicates change, large or small. |
How to do a stress risk assessment: HSE’s five steps
- Identify the risk factors. Use the six Management Standards. Start with problems that affect groups of employees: HSE says removing a cause of stress, or reducing its impact, works better than managing many individual cases.
- Decide who might be harmed and how. Look at the data you may already hold: sickness absence, productivity, staff turnover and exit interviews, disciplinary and complaint data, accidents and near misses, occupational health and employee assistance figures, and what staff tell you in appraisals, team meetings and conversations. Use more than one source. A staff survey adds to these.
- Evaluate the risks. Talk the findings through with a representative group of employees, to check the issues are the right ones and to agree solutions with them. HSE suggests focus groups of 6 to 10 people, with employees and their representatives helping to design the actions.
- Record your findings in an action plan. Give each action a priority, an owner, the resources it needs and a realistic date. Senior managers and employee representatives should agree the plan, and you should share the final plan and timetable with staff.
- Monitor and review. Check the actions happen and whether they work, using staff feedback and the absence, turnover and productivity figures you started with. Act quickly on anything that isn’t working. HSE suggests repeating the staff survey periodically, for example once a year.
Surveying your staff for a stress risk assessment
HSE’s Indicator Tool asks 35 questions about working conditions across the six Management Standards. Its analysis spreadsheet turns the answers into an average score for each area, from 1, poor, to 5, achieving the standard, for everyone or for groups such as teams and sites. An online version, the Stress Indicator Tool, collects answers anonymously; HSE Books offers it. The survey guidance adds five points:
- Survey everyone, senior managers included, without assuming who is under pressure.
- Cover all six areas if you write your own survey, and fill any gaps.
- Report results only for groups large enough to keep every answer anonymous.
- Treat the results as the start. Compare them with your other data, and share them with the board, staff and their representatives.
- Size it to your organisation. A survey may not be proportionate for a smaller organisation that can gather the same information another way.
For questions beyond stress, such as engagement, culture and exit surveys, see our staff survey questions guide.
Individual stress risk assessments
When one person tells you work is causing them stress, or before they return from stress-related absence, assess their work against the same six areas, agree changes with them, and set a date to review. HSE expects a way to handle individual concerns under each Management Standard, and advises dealing with causes that affect a group through the organisation-wide assessment.
Free stress risk assessment template
A Word template that takes you through HSE’s five steps, sent to your inbox. You fill in your own teams, findings and actions. It covers:
- Scope: the teams, sites and roles it covers
- Who you consulted, and how
- The six Management Standards areas, with what to look at in each
- What your data and staff survey show for each area
- Who might be harmed, and how
- An action plan with owners, resources and dates
- Review dates, and what prompts an earlier review
- A page for one person's assessment
- Sign-off
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Common questions
Is a stress risk assessment a legal requirement?
Yes. Every employer must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to its employees' health and safety under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and HSE says that includes work-related stress. With five or more employees, you must record the significant findings.
What are the HSE Management Standards?
Six areas of work design that HSE links to poor health, lower productivity and higher accident and sickness absence rates when an organisation manages them poorly: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. The five-step approach uses them to assess the risk of work-related stress.
Do I have to use the HSE Management Standards?
No. They aren't law. HSE says an assessment that follows its approach correctly is suitable and sufficient. If you use your own method, its equivalence checklist helps you test it.
What is the HSE stress indicator tool?
A staff survey of 35 questions about working conditions across the six Management Standards. Each area gets an average score from 1, poor, to 5, achieving the standard. HSE Books also offers an online version, the Stress Indicator Tool, which collects answers anonymously.
Do I need a staff survey for a stress risk assessment?
No. HSE calls a survey one source of information, and says it may not be proportionate for a smaller organisation that can gather the same information another way, such as team meetings and one-to-one conversations.
What is an individual stress risk assessment?
An assessment of one person's work, for example when they tell you work is causing them stress or before they return from stress-related absence. Use the same six areas. HSE advises starting with the organisation-wide assessment, because removing a cause of stress works better than managing many individual cases.
How often should you review a stress risk assessment?
The law sets no fixed interval. Review it when there is reason to think it is no longer valid, or after a significant change such as a restructure. HSE suggests repeating staff surveys periodically, for example once a year.
Who is responsible for a stress risk assessment?
The employer. HSE's approach involves senior managers, employees and their representatives, who should agree the action plan, and asks you to share the final plan with staff.
Does the duty apply in Northern Ireland?
Yes. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 set the same duty, and HSENI publishes the guidance.
References
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999: regulation 3, risk assessment
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974: section 2
- HSE: What are the Management Standards?
- HSE: Do I have to follow the Management Standards approach?
- HSE: Step 1, identify the risk factors
- HSE: Step 2, who can be harmed and how
- HSE: Surveys
- HSE: Step 3, evaluate the risks
- HSE: Step 4, record your findings
- HSE: Step 5, monitor and review
- HSE Books: Stress Indicator Tool
- HSE: Work-related stress, depression or anxiety statistics in Great Britain, 2025 (20 November 2025)
- HSENI: Managing work-related stress and mental well-being
General information, not legal advice. It reflects our understanding of the law and official guidance as of November 2026, so check the sources above for the current position.