What’s the problem? Risk assessment using the HSE stress management standards indicator

Psychosocial work stressors, such as excessive demands or insufficient manager support, have been consistently linked with a range of negative psychological and physical outcomes. However, to tackle stress-related issues employers need to know which are most problematic in their workplace; the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) designed the Stress Management Standards Indicator (SMSI) questionnaire specifically to help them with this vital step. It is over a decade since it was developed and forms a cornerstone of the HSE’s stress management standards, but it is still unclear what employers should actually do with the SMSI results to help them identify where the priority stress-risk factors really are. The HSE also acknowledge the limitations of a brief survey for such a complex issue and emphasise the importance of supplementing it with qualitative data from focus groups. However, many employers lack the resources or confidence to implement these (Mellor el al, 2011), so could the inclusion of open-text questions alongside the SMSI be an expedient compromise? This case study has an applied focus and uses findings from a 2014 stress-risk assessment using the SMSI in a public sector organisation; its main aims are: - 1. Compare the stress risks identified by four different approaches to interpreting the SMSI data; two using the descriptive statistics provided by the HSE’s analysis tool, and two that use additional analyses; 2. Compare the conclusions drawn by these approaches with the findings from open-text questions collected alongside the SMSI