What are psychosocial risks?
A key theme of the conference was around understanding psychosocial risks and how such risks might be managed. If, like me, you are not overly familiar with the term, psychosocial risks is another way of describing a set of occupational risks that have the potential for causing psychological or physical harm to employees.
Psychosocial risk factors such as a lack of autonomy, high work demands and poor relations with colleagues can undermine employees’ wellbeing and their ability to work productively and result in a propensity to workplace related stress, burnout and depression.
The point was made that certain levels of unhealthy and sustained stress/pressure have been normalised within the legal profession and there is a continuing stigma around stress and poor mental health which suggests it is part and parcel of the nature of the industry and we need to just get on with it.
Yet the work of organisations such as LawCare is challenging this long held perception and proposing that we rethink our approach to managing mental health at work.
With statistics such as the following in mind:
- 1.8 million workers suffering from work-related illness, of which 875,000 suffering work-related stress, depression or anxiety.
- Within the law specifically, 69% of legal professionals recently surveyed by LawCare experienced mental-ill health in the previous 12 months.
- £53-56 billion estimated annual cost of poor mental health to UK employers.
… it is clear that it makes good business sense, legally (employers have a duty of care to reasonably support their employees’ health, safety and wellbeing under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974), morally, financially and from a reputational perspective, as well as aiding compliance with the SRA’s regulatory requirements on creating a positive workplace environment and looking after colleagues’ wellbeing, to be proactive in safeguarding employees’ psychological as well as their physical health.
As a LawCare volunteer, I have seen first-hand that despite this, a poor workplace culture and high levels of stress and pressure remain all too common across the profession.
Practical action you can take to tackle psychosocial risks
- Know your legal obligations – employers have a legal duty to protect employees from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting upon it. Have a risk assessment in place to ensure that action is being targeted appropriately – the HSE provides risk assessment templates and examples.
- Take a risk-based approach – consider implementing the HSE Management Standards which help to identify the main risk factors for work-related stress and focus on the underlying causes and their prevention. The HSE’s Stress Indictor Tool can also be used to assist with streamlining the risk assessment element of the Standards.
- Consult with staff to understand the underlying hazards in your workplace – circulate regular pulse survey/seek anonymous feedback via the intranet to gauge morale and ask what the firm can do to improve. Use focus groups to encourage staff to speak out and make use of existing data in areas such as absences, grievances, accidents and errors to better understand the full picture.
- Train/upskill line managers to promote positive wellbeing and protect psychological health and safety at work – managers need to be able to understand and recognise the causes, signs and symptoms of stress and poor mental health at work, be able to proactively and empathetically discuss these issues with those who report to them and help to manage/share knowledge of the organisational support available. Access Legal has eLearning courses on Mental Health Awareness for Law Firms and Mental Health Awareness for Managers which are a great place to start to build up knowledge in this area.
- Consider introducing a reverse mentoring initiative as a tool to support wellbeing and inclusion – a reciprocal relationship between a less experienced mentor providing specific expert knowledge and a more experienced mentee who wishes to gain this knowledge, with the aim of turning traditional power dynamics on their head and facilitating positive change.
- The leadership team as a whole should be attuned to and vigilant of the way that staff are working within the firm, whether boundaries are encouraged between work and home life and should lead by example in terms of workplace culture, e.g. encourage taking lunch breaks and annual leave, discourage out of hours working, monitor working hours/ chargeable hours’ figures and address any issues that come up.
- Form a wellbeing steering group, which includes senior leadership to shine a light on the value the firm places on wellbeing and to help to create meaningful policies and procedures which document the firm’s approach to mental health and wellbeing.
- Sign up to the Mindful Business Charter and commit to putting it into action each day – the Charter is a practical framework based on four pillars (openness and respect, smart meetings and communication, respecting rest periods and mindful delegation) which aims to tackle and reduce avoidable stress at work and encourage signatories to be more thoughtful about the impact they have on others.
- Consider attaining the ISO 45003:2021 Certification on psychological health and safety at work which involves adhering to guidelines for managing and preventing such risks.
- Become a people-centric business where wellbeing is considered in every aspect; look after your people – encourage them to thrive and recognise the value of each individual’s strengths and skills.
The conference ended with an insight into psychosocial risk strategy in Australia. This included discussion around new legislation which aims to reinforce accountability and enhance safety practices within workplaces by placing a positive obligation on them to manage psychosocial risks.
The Executive Director of Worksafe, the state of Victoria’s workplace health and safety regulator has said “It is an employer’s legal duty to do everything they possibly can to support their workers to thrive in their roles and ensure they leave work each day no worse than how they arrived.”
Whilst Australia’s new legislation sets the bar higher than the current duty on UK employers to ensure, ‘so far as is reasonably practicable,’ the health, safety and welfare of all UK employees, the general trajectory seems to be heading this way, therefore the more proactive firms can be in this area, the better prepared they will be for what may come in the future.