Stress awareness month 2026: supporting wellbeing in the workplace

What is stress awareness month?

Stress Awareness Month is a UK-wide campaign led by the Stress Management Society, designed to:

• Raise awareness of stress and mental health challenges
• Encourage open, stigma-free conversations
• Promote practical strategies to improve wellbeing

The 2026 theme, #BeTheChange, focuses on:

• Small, consistent actions that improve workplace culture
• Supporting colleagues proactively
• Embedding wellbeing into everyday management practices

For employers, this creates a clear opportunity to demonstrate leadership, strengthen culture, and reduce organisational risk.

The scale of workplace stress in the UK

The latest Health and Safety Executive (HSE) statistics (2024/25) reinforce the urgency:

• 964,000 workers suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety
• 409,000 new cases in the past year
• 22.1 million working days lost
• 52% of all work-related ill health cases linked to stress
• 22.9 days lost per case on average

These figures highlight a critical reality: stress is now the single biggest driver of workplace ill health in Great Britain.

From a business perspective, this translates directly into:

• Lost productivity
• Increased absence costs
• Management time pressure
• Greater legal exposure

Review workload and demands

• Ensure workloads are realistic and achievable
• Avoid conflicting priorities and unclear expectations
• Provide clarity on roles and responsibilities

Encourage open communication

• Create safe environments for raising concerns
• Train managers to have effective wellbeing conversations
• Maintain regular one-to-one check-ins

Lead by example

• Demonstrate healthy working behaviours at leadership level
• Encourage boundaries, breaks and realistic expectations
• Reinforce that wellbeing is a shared responsibility

Carry out stress risk assessments

Focus on the HSE Management Standards:

• Demands
• Control
• Support
• Relationships
• Role
• Change

A structured stress risk assessment is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate compliance and reduce risk.

Clear expectations and consistent processes

Uncertainty is a significant driver of workplace stress. High-performing organisations remove ambiguity by:

• Setting clear role expectations and performance standards
• Ensuring policies and processes are applied consistently across teams
• Providing structured onboarding and ongoing guidance
• Aligning objectives so employees understand what “good” looks like

Clarity reduces anxiety, improves accountability and enables employees to focus on delivery rather than second-guessing expectations.

Strong communication and visible leadership

Culture is shaped by what leaders say — and, more importantly, what they do:

• Leaders communicate regularly, transparently and with intent
• Business changes are explained clearly, reducing speculation and uncertainty
• Senior leaders remain visible and accessible, not removed from day-to-day realities
• Managers are equipped to have confident, constructive conversations

Where communication is strong, trust increases — and stress linked to uncertainty reduces.

Recognition and meaningful feedback

A lack of recognition is a common, but often overlooked, contributor to disengagement and stress:

• Regular acknowledgement of contribution and progress
• Balanced feedback that supports development, not just performance correction
• Celebrating both individual and team success
• Linking effort to outcomes and organisational goals

Employees who feel valued are more engaged, more resilient and more likely to sustain performance under pressure.

Involving employees in decision-making

Control is a key factor in reducing workplace stress. Organisations that actively involve employees benefit from:

• Greater ownership and accountability
• Better quality decision-making through frontline insight
• Increased engagement and trust
• Reduced resistance to change

This does not require consensus on every decision — but it does require genuine consultation and listening.

Treating mental health as a core business priority

The most effective organisations move beyond compliance and position wellbeing as a strategic priority:

• Mental health is discussed openly and without stigma
• Wellbeing is considered in workload planning, not just after issues arise
• Managers are trained to identify and respond to early signs of stress
• Data (absence, engagement, turnover) is used to inform action

This approach shifts wellbeing from reactive support to proactive risk management and performance enablement.

From initiative to operating model

The most successful organisations recognise a simple truth: “culture is not what is written down — it is what is consistently experienced.”

When wellbeing is embedded into:

• Leadership behaviours
• Management capability
• Day-to-day processes
• Decision-making frameworks

…it becomes part of the organisation’s operating model, not an add-on.

And that is where the real impact lies, not just in reducing stress, but in building engaged, resilient and high-performing teams.