Is workplace stress affecting your team’s safety and productivity?

Workplace stress is nothing new, but in today’s fast-paced, high-pressure working environments, it’s becoming a critical issue that affects far more than employee wellbeing. Left unaddressed, stress can undermine safety, reduce productivity, and increase the risk of costly incidents or high staff turnover.

Whether your teams work on-site, on the tools, or behind a desk, the signs of stress should never be ignored. Not only is it a legal obligation under the Health and Safety at Work Act to manage workplace risks, including those to mental health, but it’s also a fundamental part of building a safe, resilient, and high-performing workforce.

So, how exactly does stress impact safety and productivity? And what can your business do to protect your people while improving operational outcomes?

Let’s break it down.

What is workplace stress?

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines workplace stress as “the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them at work.”

Stress becomes a problem when employees feel overwhelmed, unsupported, or unable to cope with the demands of their role. And it doesn’t always come from the workload itself, it can also stem from:

• Poor communication or lack of clarity
• Unsafe or high-risk working environments
• Unpredictable shift patterns or long hours
• Conflict with managers or colleagues
• Lack of control over tasks
• Job insecurity or organisational change

When stress becomes long-term, it can lead to anxiety, depression, burnout, and even physical health problems such as high blood pressure, sleep disorders, and fatigue. The consequences don’t just stop at the individual level, they ripple throughout your workforce.

How stress affects safety at work

Stress and safety are closely connected, especially in industries where physical hazards are present. Construction, manufacturing, logistics, and field services all involve high-risk work that demands focus, clear decision-making, and alertness.

But when a worker is stressed, their ability to:

• Concentrate
• Assess risks
• React quickly
• Follow safety procedures
• …can all be compromised.

For example:

• A fatigued machine operator may miss a critical safety step.
• A stressed site manager might overlook a risk assessment or fail to report a near-miss.
• An overwhelmed team could skip toolbox talks or rush through key tasks just to meet unrealistic deadlines.

According to HSE, 17.1 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2022/23 alone. That’s not just a mental health crisis, it’s a safety issue with real operational costs.

The link between stress and productivity

While many employers worry about downtime, deadlines, and output, stress is one of the silent productivity killers in the workplace. It leads to:

• Increased absenteeism (people taking time off)
• Presenteeism (people working while unwell, leading to errors and reduced quality)
• High staff turnover, which disrupts teams and increases recruitment and training costs
• Lower engagement and morale, reducing discretionary effort and innovation

According to Deloitte, poor mental health costs UK employers up to £56 billion per year, with productivity loss making up a significant portion.

The bottom line? When your workforce is stressed, your business suffers. Taking action isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a commercial imperative.

Spotting the signs: How to identify stress in the workplace

Leaders, managers, and safety officers should be trained to spot early signs of stress in their teams. While it’s not always visible, common indicators include:

• Sudden drops in performance or motivation
• Increased mistakes, near misses, or accidents
• Changes in behaviour (withdrawal, irritability, mood swings)
• Higher sickness absence or lateness
• Complaints about workloads or poor support

It’s also important to regularly review risk assessments, incident reports, and feedback surveys to identify any underlying stressors that might be building across the business.

What you can do: Managing stress with SafeWorkforce

At SafeWorkforce, we believe every worker deserves to feel safe, supported, and set up for success. Managing stress isn’t about offering surface-level fixes, it’s about embedding the right structures, training, and culture to protect both people and performance.

Here’s how to take a proactive approach:

Embed mental health into your health and safety strategy

Stress should be treated with the same urgency and structure as physical hazards. That means:

• Including mental health in risk assessments
• Training managers to spot and respond to stress indicators
• Encouraging open communication and check-ins
• Promoting awareness through toolbox talks, posters, and policies

Our expert in-house health and safety consultants at SafeWorkforce can support with documentation, training, and culture change strategies.

Provide regular, accessible training

Stress management, mental health awareness, and resilience training should be available to everyone, from senior leaders to site teams. Digital learning can make this easier, especially for dispersed or shift-based workforces.

With SafeWorkforce, you can access tailored workplace health and safety training modules to upskill your team in recognising, managing, and supporting mental health concerns.

Support employees with practical tools

Sometimes the best support is simple, everyday structure. For example:

• Consistent shift patterns
• Clear communication around changes
• Defined workloads and deadlines
• Opportunities to raise concerns anonymously

SafeWorkforce helps you streamline internal communication, log and track wellbeing issues, and create safer working practices with fewer unknowns.

Act on data and feedback

Surveys, incident logs, and absence data can all reveal patterns that signal stress. For example, a team with high absence during peak seasons may be struggling with seasonal pressure.

SafeWorkforce’s consultancy and health and safety software solutions help you pull together workforce data, spot risks early, and plan preventative measures before stress becomes burnout.

Building a safe, supported workforce starts here

Workplace stress may not always be visible, but its impact is. By acknowledging the links between stress, safety, and productivity, businesses can take meaningful steps to protect their people and build stronger, more sustainable operations.

At SafeWorkforce, we provide health and safety services to support businesses across the UK to improve workplace wellbeing, reduce risk, and build resilient teams, through expert consultancy, compliance support, and practical training.