NIKKI COLLINSON-PHENIX
ADVISORY
Creator of Pressure Literacy®
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Your legal duty, in plain English
Under UK health and safety law, every employer has a duty to protect their people from stress at work. That means assessing the risk of work-related stress and acting on what you find, in the same way you would for any physical hazard.
It isn't a wellbeing nice-to-have. It's the law, and it applies to a business of ten just as much as an organisation of ten thousand.
Most organisations measure the symptoms
Most stress risk assessments lean on what's easy to count. Absence rates. Staff survey scores. How many people rang the assistance line. Those tell you stress is there. They don't tell you where it's coming from, who's carrying it, or what to change.
So the form gets filled in, the box gets ticked, and the pressure carries on exactly where it was.
The six areas HSE asks you to look at
HSE's Management Standards cover six areas of work that, if they're not managed well, can lead to stress:
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Demands: workload, work patterns and the working environment.
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Control: how much say people have in the way they do their work.
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Support: the encouragement and resources people get from the organisation, their manager and colleagues.
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Relationships: positive working, and how unacceptable behaviour is dealt with.
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Role: whether people understand their role and aren't pulled in conflicting directions.
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Change: how change is managed and communicated.
Every one of them is a place pressure builds quietly, long before it shows up as a sick note or a resignation.
What work-related stress is costing you
964,000 UK workers are suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety, and it accounts for 22.1 million lost working days a year, 62% of all days lost to work-related ill health (HSE, 2025).
In your business, that looks like sickness absence, good people leaving, output and productivity slipping, mistakes creeping in, and morale quietly draining away. And if you knew about a risk to your people's health and didn't act on it, that's a position no business owner or board wants to be in.
How the Pressure Gauge gives you real evidence
The Pressure Gauge Diagnostic shows you where pressure is building across your organisation, who's carrying it, and what's causing it. It's independent, the diagnostic instrument is anonymous and interviews are confidential, so you get the truth, not the polite version.
It doesn't replace your stress risk assessment. It gives it real evidence: a clear picture of where to act, in a report your leadership team or board can actually use. So you can show you haven't just assessed the risk. You've understood it, and acted on it.
Pressure is a governance issue
Every serious risk in your organisation gets measured and managed. Financial risk gets audited. Cyber risk gets a team. Fire risk gets assessed and signed off. The pressure on your people deserves exactly the same seriousness.
Leaders can already read a balance sheet and a risk register. Pressure Literacy belongs right alongside them. It's a governance capability, not a wellbeing bolt-on.
I'm 100% not here to criticise. I am here to partner with you.
I'm one hundred percent here to help you and your organisation do better, once we've got clarity on where you are right now. But I won't sugar-coat what I find, because softening the truth is exactly how organisations end up losing their best people.
I'm here to support you in uncovering the truth, with maybe a few uncomfortable conversations, to become a better leader and to support the positive growth of your business.
I've got you.
Questions leaders ask about work-related stress
Do small businesses need a stress risk assessment?
Yes. The duty applies to employers of every size. HSE's Management Standards are free to use and a good place to start.
We already run a staff survey. Isn't that enough?
A survey can show you that stress exists. It rarely shows you why, or where it starts. That's the gap the Pressure Gauge fills.
What's ISO 45003?
International guidance on managing psychological health and safety at work. It's voluntary, not law, but it's a useful framework, and the evidence from the Pressure Gauge can feed into it.
Is stress about work, or about people's lives outside work?
Often both. People don't all start the day in the same place. Your duty is about the work, but understanding what people carry in with them changes how you read everything else.
Is this legal advice?
No. I'm not a lawyer. For questions about your legal obligations, speak to HSE, an employment lawyer or your health and safety adviser. What I give you is clear evidence of where pressure really sits in your organisation.
Ticked the box, but not sure you've found the cause?
Let's talk. No commitment, no sales pitch. Just clarity.
Pressure never disappears.
It either becomes visible and readable, or it becomes expensive.
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