What Are the 6 HSE Management Standards?
The 6 HSE Management Standards provide a framework to help employers identify and manage some of the key causes of work-related stress. Developed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), they focus on six areas of work that, when poorly managed, can contribute to increased stress and negatively affect employee health and wellbeing.
These six areas are demands, control, support, relationships, role and change.
Understanding the standards is an important starting point, but simply knowing what they are is not enough. Employers and managers also need to consider what each standard looks like in the day-to-day workplace, where potential risks might arise and what practical steps can be taken to manage them.
Demands, Control and Support: How Work Is Experienced
The first three HSE Management Standards look closely at the work employees are expected to carry out and the environment in which they do it.
Demands covers areas such as workload, working patterns and the working environment. Problems can arise when employees consistently have more work than they can reasonably complete, face unrealistic deadlines or are expected to work long hours without sufficient recovery time.
In practice, managing demands could involve regularly reviewing workloads, ensuring deadlines are achievable, providing adequate resources and creating opportunities for employees to raise concerns before pressure becomes unmanageable.
Control considers how much say employees have over the way they work. While not every employee can have complete flexibility, giving people appropriate autonomy can help them feel more able to manage their responsibilities.
This could include allowing employees to influence how they organise their workload, involving them in decisions that affect their work or providing flexibility around working methods where appropriate.
Support relates to the encouragement, resources and assistance employees receive from their organisation, managers and colleagues.
Good support is not simply telling employees that your door is always open. Managers need to create regular opportunities for conversation, understand where employees may be struggling and know how to signpost people towards appropriate workplace or external support when necessary.
Relationships and Role: Creating a Healthy Working Environment
The next two standards focus on how people interact at work and whether they clearly understand what is expected of them.
Relationships covers positive working practices and the prevention of unacceptable behaviour, conflict and bullying.
Disagreements will naturally occur in workplaces, but organisations need clear processes for dealing with inappropriate behaviour and ongoing conflict. Managers should also understand how to recognise potential problems and feel confident addressing them rather than allowing difficult situations to escalate.
Creating a positive working environment requires more than having policies in place. Employees need to know what behaviour is expected, how concerns can be raised and that those concerns will be taken seriously.
Role focuses on whether employees understand their responsibilities within the organisation and whether conflicting expectations are avoided.
Role-related stress can develop when responsibilities are unclear, employees receive conflicting instructions from different managers or people regularly find themselves completing work outside their expected remit.
Clear job descriptions, regular conversations about responsibilities and good communication between managers and teams can all help. When roles evolve, expectations should be discussed rather than simply allowing additional responsibilities to accumulate over time.
Change: Supporting Employees Through Workplace Change
The final HSE Management Standard is change. It considers how organisational change is managed and communicated.
Change is a normal part of working life. Restructures, new technology, leadership changes, mergers, redundancies and changes to working practices can all affect employees. Even positive changes can create uncertainty when people do not understand what is happening or how they will be affected.
Managing change effectively means communicating early and clearly wherever possible. Employees should understand why changes are happening, what the process is likely to involve and how their role could be affected.
Where appropriate, employees should also have opportunities to ask questions, provide feedback and contribute to discussions.
Managers play an important role here. They are often the people employees turn to when they are worried about workplace changes, which means they need enough information and training to communicate confidently and recognise when someone may require additional support.
Turning the 6 HSE Management Standards Into Everyday Practice
The 6 HSE Management Standards provide employers with a useful framework for considering some of the organisational factors that can contribute to work-related stress.
However, managing demands, control, support, relationships, role and change should not become a tick-box exercise.
The standards are most effective when they influence everyday management practices. That means regularly reviewing how work is organised, listening to employees, addressing concerns and ensuring managers have the skills and confidence to respond appropriately.
Mental health and workplace stress training can help managers understand how these factors appear in real working environments and recognise potential problems earlier. By combining clear organisational processes with properly trained managers, employers can take a more proactive and sustainable approach to managing work-related stress.
