Stress is becoming an increasingly important issue for organisations. When workplace pressure becomes excessive or continues for too long, it can affect employees’ mental and physical health, their performance and, eventually, their ability to remain at work.
For some employees, the result is stress-related absence.
Recent research shows just how significant the issue has become. Workforce State of Mind Report found that 49% of HR leaders had seen an increase in mental health absences. The report also found that 78% of employees said work stress had negatively affected their physical health, while 40% said work stress contributed to serious mental health challenges.
For employers, these figures raise an important question: are we simply managing stress-related absence when it happens, or are we identifying and managing the workplace risks that contribute to it?
What Is Stress-Related Absence?
Stress-related absence occurs when an employee is unable to work because stress has affected their mental or physical health.
Stress itself is not necessarily harmful. A certain amount of pressure can help people stay focused and respond to challenges. The problem arises when demands become excessive, employees have little control over their work or workplace pressures continue without adequate support.
Over time, this can contribute to problems such as anxiety, low mood, exhaustion, sleep difficulties and burnout. For some employees, the impact can become severe enough to require time away from work.
This makes stress-related absence different from simply having an employee take an occasional sick day. Patterns of stress-related absence can indicate that an employee is experiencing sustained pressure and, in some cases, that there may be wider workplace risks that need to be addressed.
Why Stress-Related Absence Should Concern HR Leaders
When an employee is absent because of stress, the immediate concern is usually supporting that individual and arranging cover.
But the organisational impact can extend much further.
An absent employee’s workload may need to be redistributed among colleagues, managers may need to spend additional time managing the situation and temporary cover may need to be arranged. If a stress-related absence becomes long-term, recruitment and replacement costs can also become significant.
There can also be a knock-on effect on the wider workforce.
When colleagues have to absorb additional responsibilities, their workload and pressure can increase. If this continues, the organisation may unintentionally create the conditions for further stress-related absence.
This can create a cycle:
Workplace pressure contributes to stress → stress contributes to absence → workloads increase for colleagues → pressure increases further.
The financial cost is therefore only one part of the problem. Organisations also need to consider productivity, employee morale, retention, management time and the potential impact on wider team wellbeing.
The Cost of Stress Is Not Limited to Absence
Stress-related absence is visible because an employee is away from work. However, some of the biggest costs associated with workplace stress can be less obvious.
An employee may continue working while struggling with concentration, motivation, decision-making or energy. This is sometimes referred to as presenteeism.
Someone can therefore be physically present but not functioning at their usual level because of stress or poor mental health.
There may also be increased employee turnover. When workplace pressure remains unresolved, employees may decide that leaving is the only way to protect their wellbeing. The organisation then faces the additional costs associated with recruitment, onboarding, training and the loss of experience.
This means that focusing only on sickness absence figures may give an incomplete picture of the impact of workplace stress.
HR leaders need to consider the wider indicators of organisational health, including absence, turnover, employee feedback, workload and productivity.
What Is Causing Stress-Related Absence?
There is rarely one single cause of workplace stress.
Employees can experience pressure for many different reasons, and personal circumstances can also affect how someone responds to workplace demands. However, organisations have an important role to play in identifying and managing risks that arise from work itself.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identifies six key areas that can contribute to work-related stress: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change.
High workloads and unrealistic deadlines can create excessive demands. A lack of control over how work is carried out can leave employees feeling powerless. Poor management or insufficient resources can reduce the support available to employees.
Workplace conflict can affect relationships, while unclear responsibilities can create uncertainty about an employee’s role. Organisational change can also increase stress when employees do not understand what is happening or how it will affect them.
These factors matter because they give organisations something practical to assess and manage.
Why Risk Assessing Mental Health Matters
Mental health is sometimes treated as a wellbeing issue that sits separately from Health & Safety. However, workplace stress can create risks to employees’ health, and employers have responsibilities to assess and manage workplace risks.
This is why risk assessing mental health should form part of a wider approach to managing workplace stress.
A mental health risk assessment is not about diagnosing employees or trying to determine whether someone has a particular mental health condition.
Instead, it is about identifying workplace factors that could negatively affect employees’ mental health, understanding who may be affected and taking reasonable steps to reduce those risks.
For example, an organisation may identify that a particular team is experiencing consistently high workloads, limited management support or significant organisational uncertainty. Those findings can then inform practical action.
The aim is to move from asking:
“Why is this employee off sick?”
to also asking:
“What workplace factors could be contributing to this pattern?”
That shift can make a significant difference to how an organisation approaches prevention.
Stress-Related Absence Can Be a Warning Sign
Absence data can provide valuable information about what is happening within an organisation.
If stress-related absence is increasing, HR leaders should look beyond the headline figure. Are certain teams affected more than others? Are particular managers or departments experiencing higher levels of absence? Are employees reporting excessive workloads? Has there been a period of significant organisational change?
The answers may reveal patterns that would otherwise be missed.
Other information can also help build a clearer picture. Employee surveys, return-to-work conversations, occupational health referrals, employee assistance programme data, staff turnover and employee feedback can all contribute to understanding workplace stress.
No single data source will tell the whole story. However, bringing different sources together can help organisations identify where further investigation or intervention may be needed.
Managers Can Help Identify Problems Earlier
Managers are often in a strong position to notice changes in their teams.
They may see an employee becoming increasingly withdrawn, struggling with workload, working excessive hours or taking more frequent periods of stress-related absence. However, managers should not be expected to diagnose mental health conditions or act as counsellors.
What they do need is the confidence to have appropriate conversations, recognise potential warning signs and understand how to signpost employees towards the right support.
Mental health training can help managers understand how workplace factors can affect mental health and how their own management practices may contribute to or reduce stress.
This is particularly important because employees may feel more comfortable speaking to someone outside their direct management relationship. Mental Health First Aiders can provide an additional point of contact, helping employees access support and signposting them towards appropriate professional services when needed.
The objective is not to turn managers or Mental Health First Aiders into mental health professionals. It is to make sure employees are not left without support until a problem becomes a crisis.
Prevention Should Come Before Absence Management
Supporting an employee once they are absent is important, but prevention should not begin only after someone becomes unwell.
If an organisation is repeatedly seeing stress-related absence, it needs to look at what might be happening before employees reach that point.
This means considering whether workloads are realistic, whether employees have sufficient control, whether managers have the skills to support their teams and whether employees feel able to raise concerns.
It also means regularly reviewing mental health risks rather than treating a risk assessment as a one-off exercise.
Workplaces change. Teams change. Workloads change. Organisational structures change.
The risks that existed twelve months ago may not be the same risks employees are facing today.
Turning Mental Health Risk Into Action
Reducing stress-related absence is not simply about providing more wellbeing benefits or encouraging employees to become more resilient.
Organisations need to consider the environment in which employees are working and identify the factors that could be contributing to poor mental health.
This is where HR and Health & Safety teams can work together. HR may have access to absence, turnover and employee engagement data, while Health & Safety teams can bring expertise in identifying and controlling workplace risks.
Managers and employees can also provide valuable insight into what is happening on the ground.
Together, this information can help organisations move from reacting to absence towards identifying and managing mental health risks earlier.
Start With a Mental Health Risk Assessment Course
For organisations that want to take a more structured approach, developing the right knowledge is an important first step.
The Mental Health Risk Assessment Course can help employers, managers and HR or Health & Safety professionals understand how to identify workplace factors that may affect mental health, assess potential risks and consider appropriate control measures.
Rather than waiting for stress-related absence to highlight a problem, trained professionals can develop a more proactive approach to recognising where risks may be emerging and what can be done about them.
Explore the Mental Health Risk Assessment Course →
Use Mental Health Risk Intelligence to Monitor Workplace Risks
Training provides the knowledge to assess mental health risks, but organisations also need ways to understand what is happening across their workforce.
Mental Health Risk Intelligence can support organisations by helping them gather, analyse and monitor information relating to workplace mental health risks.
This can be particularly valuable for larger organisations where risks may differ between departments, locations or teams.
Instead of relying solely on individual reports or sickness absence figures, risk intelligence can help organisations build a broader picture of where potential issues are developing and where further attention may be needed.
The combination of trained people and better workplace data can help HR and Health & Safety leaders make more informed decisions about prevention.
Supporting Mental Health Through the Health & Safety Hub
For multinational corporations and larger organisations, managing mental health risks often needs to sit within a wider health and safety framework.
The Health & Safety Hub provides a central approach to managing health and safety across organisations, helping businesses create greater consistency in how workplace risks are identified, managed and monitored.
For MNCs in particular, having the right systems and processes in place can help support a more consistent approach across different teams, locations and operating environments.
Mental health should not sit separately from health and safety. Work-related stress is a workplace risk, and managing it effectively requires the same commitment to identifying risks, taking action and reviewing whether those measures are working.
Stress-Related Absence Should Prompt Action
Stress-related absence should not simply be treated as an unavoidable cost of doing business.
When employees are repeatedly absent because of stress, it can be a sign that workplace pressures need closer attention. The longer underlying risks remain unidentified, the greater the potential impact on employees, teams and the organisation as a whole.
For HR and Health & Safety leaders, the answer is not simply to monitor how many employees are off sick. It is to understand why stress-related absence is happening and what can be done to reduce the risks contributing to it.
By developing the right skills through a Mental Health Risk Assessment Course, using Mental Health Risk Intelligence tools to support better decision-making and embedding mental health within broader health and safety management through the Health & Safety Hub, organisations can take a more proactive approach to workplace mental health.
Ultimately, the goal is not just to reduce absence.
It is to create a workplace where employees can raise concerns earlier, managers know how to respond and organisations actively identify and manage the risks that can affect mental health.
Stress-related absence can be a cost to an organisation. But it can also be a warning sign, and an opportunity to identify the workplace risks that need to change.
Not sure where to start? Book a consultancy with our team to discuss your organisation’s mental health risks and find the right approach for your workplace.