The stress of success - Succstressful?

With the climate of cut backs prevailing and those employees left being expected to cover work done by departing colleagues the issue of stress becomes increasingly important for those working in local government.

Often a lot of time is devoted to managing the departure of employees whilst those left are at a greater risk of developing stress-related conditions with the extra workload and an increased use of the internet and digital devices working outside of normal office hours. 

These dangers are often being overlooked by councils because those at risk are seen as successful employees and thus not being seen as having a potential problem.

Whilst in the short term it may not seem to make business sense to clip the wings of hard working and successful employees, councils need to be more mindful of the risks of psychological injury and to look to the possible long term effects of overwork. 

The most recent HSE report has confirmed that of the 452,000 self reported illnesses starting in 2011/2012, 221,000 were as a result of stress, depression or anxiety.  In addition, of all the work-related illnesses, injury to mental health gave rise to the most working days lost. 

In the most severe of cases, stress can manifest itself as a serious psychiatric injury such as depression.  If this occurs, a Council may find itself subject to a claim brought against it by the employee in the High Court for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The law tells us that there are no special controls that apply to a claim for psychiatric injury and the ordinary principles of employers liability apply i.e. whether and in what respect the Council was in breach of its duty to take reasonable care, whether the injury to the employee was reasonably foreseeable and finally whether the breach of duty caused the harm that was suffered. 

Whilst there is a positive correlation between hard work and success, Councils should not ignore the risks of hardworking and successful employees developing stress related conditions. We call it Succstressful. If the current trend continues, how long before Succstressful becomes a real word?

Roddy Macleod is a partner and David Miers a solicitor at national law firm Weightmans

A longer version of this feature will be published in the next issue of Local Government News. Visit  www.localgov.co.uk/lgn to register for your free copy

For more on sickness absence in local government click here: www.municipalyearbook.co.uk/my-myb/advanced-search (subscribers only). For more information about the wealth of local government data held in the Municipal Year Book, click here: www.municipalyearbook.co.uk/features