5 November 2026 · 17 min read

HSE's six stress areas, as a line manager meets them

On 31 October 2026 the Health and Safety Executive opened Stress Awareness Week with a list of what employers should do that week. One line on it is addressed, in practice, to whoever runs a team: "Discuss the six Management Standards areas with their teams" (HSE, press release, 31 October 2026). Health & Safety Matters ran the same list for its readers on 3 November (Health & Safety Matters, 3 November 2026), and our news story covers the call itself.

HSE's pages on the Standards are written for whoever runs the employer's assessment: a project, a steering group, a workbook with checklists. The person asked to "discuss the six areas" is usually a line manager with a ten o'clock meeting and no steering group. This is the six areas as that person meets them: what each looks like in an ordinary week, the early sign you can actually see, and one short question to put to the team.

The ten o'clock agenda

Marta runs a customer team of nine at a lettings company of about ninety people. On Monday her director forwards HSE's list with one line on top: "Can you cover this with your lot?"

She opens HSE's page. Demands, control, support, relationships, role, change. Each word heads a list of what "the organisation" should provide. None of it tells her what to say at ten o'clock to Femi, whose replies to tenants now go out before seven in the morning, or to Rosa, who was moved onto the new booking system three weeks ago and has not mentioned it since.

She has two bad options. She can read HSE's list aloud, which turns a conversation into a recital and gets nine polite nods. Or she can let the forward sit, which is where it will be by Wednesday. The useful version sits between them: six plain questions, asked about the week rather than about anybody's feelings, one at a time.

What are the HSE Management Standards?

HSE describes the Management Standards as a set of conditions covering "six key areas of work design that, if not properly managed, are associated with poor health, lower productivity and increased accident and sickness absence rates" (HSE, What are the Management Standards?). The six are demands, control, support, relationships, role and change.

The scale is why HSE keeps saying it. 964,000 workers in Great Britain had stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work in 2024/25 (HSE, Key figures for Great Britain 2024 to 2025, updated 30 June 2026).

Two things about the Standards matter to a manager more than anything else on HSE's pages.

They are about the work, not the worker. HSE defines stress as "the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them", and says stress is not an illness, but it can make you ill (HSE, Work-related stress and how to manage it). Each of the six areas is a feature of how work is arranged, and the arrangement is the part a manager can touch.

Each standard has two halves. The first is something employees "indicate": that they can cope with the demands of their jobs, that they have a say in how they do their work, and so on through the six. The second half is the same line every time: "systems are in place locally to respond to any individual concerns". The first half is how the team says things are. The second is what happens after somebody says they are not, and in a team of nine, "locally" is often you.

HSE is plain about where an employer starts. Its release for the week says that "many employers still do not realise that they must assess and manage the risks of work-related stress in the same way as other workplace health and safety risks". That exercise belongs to the employer, with HSE's own Management Standards pages and workbook. A conversation with your team is not that exercise and does not replace it. It is the part of the week where the six areas stop being headings.

Demands: is the work doable in the hours?

In HSE's words, demands "includes issues such as workload, work patterns, and the work environment", and the standard is that "employees indicate that they are able to cope with the demands of their jobs". Among what should be happening, HSE lists "adequate and achievable demands in relation to the agreed hours of work" (HSE, Demands).

In an ordinary week, demands rarely arrive as one big ask. They arrive as a Friday "quick one", a colleague's leave nobody covered, and a report that was meant to be temporary in March and is still going. Each is reasonable on its own. Together they make a week that only fits if somebody works into the evening. HSE's measure is the agreed hours, not how willing anybody is to go past them.

The early sign is work arriving at odd hours. Timestamps drift past the end of the day, and "I'll pick it up tonight" stops sounding unusual. Look at the diary rather than the face: a calendar with no gap left for the work itself is demands showing up on a screen you already have.

Ask the team: "What would you drop this week if you were allowed to?" The answer names what is there that should not be, and "if you were allowed to" puts the permission where it belongs, with you.

Control: how much say does the team have?

HSE describes control as "how much say the person has in the way they do their work", and the standard is that "employees indicate that they are able to have a say about the way they do their work". Its list includes that "where possible, employees have control over their pace of work" and that "employees have a say over when breaks can be taken" (HSE, Control).

In an ordinary week, control is lost in small decisions made somewhere else: the template that must be used, the order the work has to be done in, a rota published without anyone asked. Most come with a good reason. The cost is that nobody on the team solves the problem in front of them the way they would have.

The early sign is that "how" questions stop. People ask permission for things that used to be their call, or stop suggesting a better way because the last suggestion went nowhere. Planning gets quieter, and a quiet planning meeting is easy to take for agreement.

Ask the team: "Which part of your work would you do differently if it were your call?"

Support: when someone gets stuck, what happens?

HSE says support "includes the encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by the organisation, line management and colleagues", and the standard is that "employees indicate that they receive adequate information and support from their colleagues and superiors". The list includes that "employees know what support is available and how and when to access it" and that "employees receive regular and constructive feedback" (HSE, Support).

In an ordinary week, support is the area most likely to look fine on paper. There is a policy, an assistance line and an open door. What the week shows is whether anybody uses them: whether somebody stuck on a problem asks on Tuesday or fixes it alone on Saturday, and whether the last time anyone heard how their work was going was a review in the spring.

The early sign is problems surfacing late. You learn about the stuck piece of work at the deadline, and from somebody other than the person who was stuck with it.

Ask the team: "When you got stuck this month, what did you do, and how long did it take to get unstuck?"

Relationships: how does the team handle friction?

HSE says relationships "includes promoting positive working to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behaviour", and the standard is that "employees indicate that they are not subjected to unacceptable behaviours, eg bullying at work". The list includes that "employees share information relevant to their work", and that the organisation "has agreed policies and procedures to prevent or resolve unacceptable behaviour" (HSE, Relationships).

In an ordinary week, most friction is ordinary: a handover that drops something, a disagreement that was never settled and keeps coming back with new details. This area asks whether friction gets handled or left to harden. It also covers the rarer behaviour nobody should be asked to put up with, and that half is not a team-meeting topic. It is something a manager acts on, through the procedures HSE expects the organisation to have agreed.

The early sign is information that stops moving. People keep things to themselves, the real conversation happens in a side chat after the meeting, and the same dispute returns every few weeks wearing a different example.

Ask the team: "Is there a disagreement on this team that keeps coming back?" Ask it about the work, never about a person. If somebody answers with something that sounds like the rarer kind, thank them, take it out of the room and act on it the same day.

Role: does everyone know what they are for?

HSE says role "includes whether people understand their role within the organisation and whether the organisation ensures that the person does not have conflicting roles", and the standard is that "employees indicate that they understand their role and responsibilities". The list includes that "the organisation ensures that, as far as possible, the different requirements it places upon employees are compatible" (HSE, Role).

In an ordinary week, role trouble is two people giving one person two different priorities, each sure theirs is the one that matters. Or it is a job that has quietly grown a second job inside it, which nobody wrote down because it happened one favour at a time.

The early sign is confident disagreement about what matters. Ask three people for the team's top priority this week and count the answers. Rework at the deadline is the late version of the same sign.

Ask the team: "Has anyone been asked for two things this week that cannot both be done?"

Change: how is change landing on the team?

HSE says change "includes how organisational change (large or small) is managed and communicated in the organisation", and the standard is that "employees indicate that the organisation engages them frequently when undergoing an organisational change". The list includes "timely information to enable them to understand the reasons for proposed changes" and "opportunities for employees to influence proposals" (HSE, Change).

In an ordinary week, the phrase to keep is "large or small". A new system, a new manager, a moved team, a rumour about the next reorganisation. Rosa's booking system is a small change, and it may be a good one. What wears a person down is often less the change than hearing about it last and having no say in how it lands on their own work.

The early sign is the rumour arriving before the reason. Workarounds appear under the new way of doing things, and the old way carries on quietly underneath it.

Ask the team: "What is changing around here that nobody has explained to you?"

Signs of stress in a team, in HSE's words

HSE lists the signs of stress in a team as arguments, higher staff turnover, more reports of stress, more sickness absence, decreased performance, and more complaints and grievances (HSE, Signs of stress).

Read that list as a manager and every item on it arrives late. By the time turnover is up, people have already gone, and by the time absence is up, the work has already been hurting someone for a while. That is why each area above leans on something earlier: timestamps, a quiet planning meeting, a problem found at the deadline, information that stops moving, three answers to one question, a rumour before a reason.

HSE also says these signs "can be symptoms of other conditions", and that a manager worried about a worker showing them should encourage them to see their GP. Hold that line. Your job is the work, not a diagnosis. If somebody tells you they are in crisis, or you think they are in danger right now, the route is their doctor, and the local emergency number if it cannot wait. A team conversation is not the place for it.

How to talk through the six areas with your team

HSE has its own version of this conversation. Its Talking Toolkits "were developed for smaller organisations so they can gather data that larger organisations may gather through surveys", and HSE says they "should not be used in isolation as your only measure for preventing stress" (HSE, Stress Talking Toolkits). If your company runs no survey, that toolkit is the fuller version of what follows, and it is free.

One area a week, not six in an hour

Six areas in one meeting is a questionnaire read aloud. Take one a week, ten minutes at the start of a meeting you already hold, with the question above. Six weeks later the team has talked about all six, and nobody had to sit through a session about stress to do it.

Ask about the work, never about the person

"How are you coping?" in front of eight colleagues gets "fine". "What would you drop this week?" gets a list. The six questions above are all about the week, which is why people can answer them honestly in a room.

Say what happens to the answers, then do one thing

Remember the second half of every standard: something has to respond to what people say. In a team of nine, that is mostly you. End each ten minutes with one change you can make yourself and one thing you will take upward, and say next week which happened. A question that leads nowhere teaches the team not to answer the next one.

Questions managers ask about the HSE Management Standards

Do we have to use the HSE Management Standards?

They are HSE's recommended approach, not the only one. HSE says that if you follow it correctly, "you will be adopting an approach that is considered suitable and sufficient", and its workbook has advice for organisations choosing an alternative approach (HSE, What are the Management Standards?). Which approach a company takes, and whether it is enough, is the employer's judgement. A manager's conversation with a team is a part of it, never the whole.

Is stress an illness?

No. HSE puts it in one line: stress is not an illness, but it can make you ill. So a manager works on the six areas as conditions of the work and leaves health to the people qualified for it. If you are worried about one person, HSE's advice is to encourage them to see their GP, and that is a private conversation, never a team one.

How often should a manager talk about stress at work?

More often than one week a year. HSE's release says that "preventing and managing work-related stress should remain a priority throughout the year", and the last of the five Rs in its Working Minds campaign is "Make it Routine". Stress Awareness Week is a good place to start the habit and a poor place to end it. A session once a year is an event, and a team remembers it as one.

What if the cause of the stress sits above me?

Then your part is to describe it precisely and carry it upward. "The team is stressed" is easy to file. "Femi has replied to tenants before seven on most mornings since the summer" is not. Each standard ends on "systems are in place locally to respond to any individual concerns", and a manager who takes the week's evidence upward is that system working. Tell the team what came back, even when it was no.

How MeaningFuel fits beside the six areas

MeaningFuel is not a way of meeting HSE's Standards, and it does not measure anybody's stress. What it can do is keep some of these conversations going after Stress Awareness Week has ended and the forwarded email has been archived.

The daily insight: Well-Being, Communication and Respect

A company chooses the values and skills it wants to work on, and each working day everyone gets one short insight on one of them. Three bear on the six areas: Well-Being and Communication as skills, and Respect as a value. In an ordinary week a reader might meet a line on rest on Tuesday and one on saying plainly what you need on Thursday. It asks for no slot in anybody's diary, which matters most on the team where demands are the problem.

When one area keeps coming up: a module

A MeaningFuel module is a micro-training for a team: a short course of daily lessons, booked by a manager. Booked for a team, it invites the people on it, each person chooses whether to take part, and those who do get one short lesson each working day. A lead sees that the team is taking part, never anyone's answers. Where a module meets one of HSE's areas:

• Demands. Energy That Lasts treats burnout as a property of a team's conditions and never diagnoses a person, and between its debriefs the lead chooses one thing the team will stop, postpone or hand back, and tells whoever asked for it why. Fewer, Better Meetings is for the team whose calendar is the load: at its first debrief every recurring team meeting goes on the wall with its name, its question and its cost in person-hours. Burnout is not a resilience problem has the longer case for both.
• Role. Clear Direction practises asking "what does done look like?" until it is a habit, and sends every decision off with an owner and a date. Competing asks from different people go back to them to settle together, which is HSE's "compatible" requirements done one request at a time.
• Relationships. On the Same Side has the team choose its own norms about credit and information, then practise principled negotiation, the method Roger Fisher and William Ury set out at the Harvard Negotiation Project, on the disputes it actually has.
• Change. Change, One Step at a Time takes one real change the team is living through, sets a two-week target, and treats resistance as data about obstacles rather than disloyalty. Where the change has put jobs in question, Steady Through Uncertainty starts from what it cannot do: it cannot promise anyone's job.

Control and support have no module on this list. They live in how a lead runs the week, and the two questions above are the place to start.

What Insights would show you, and what it would not

Insights shows how much of a team takes part and how the insights land, pooled, with nobody named. Fewer people taking part than a month ago is a reason to ask the demands question. It would not tell you which of the six areas is the trouble, and it says nothing about anybody's health: a team can take part cheerfully while its diary is past full.

What it does not do

It does not assess stress, does not do the employer's part of HSE's approach, and does not treat anyone. Energy That Lasts says so in its first lesson: "This module is a team practice, not treatment: if exhaustion has reached the point of crisis, speak to your doctor, or to the company's employee assistance programme or occupational health if it has one - and if you are in danger right now, call your local emergency number." The judgement about the six areas, and the actions that follow, stay with the employer. The questions page says what else a module asks of a lead.

Back to ten o'clock

Marta does not read the list aloud. She asks one question at the start of the meeting: what would you drop this week if you were allowed to? Femi names the early inbox shift, which began as cover in the summer and never stopped. That is demands, and it is hers to move this week.

Five areas left, and five Mondays to ask about them.

• Work-Related Stress
• Wellbeing
• Managing Teams
• Health and Safety