Free Stress Tools
On this page, you can download and/or access a range of free stress tools (scroll down to access all the tools).
Managing Stress Risks at Work:
Best Practice Checklist Tool for Line Managers (*New)
This simple checklist tool can be used by managers and those who support them. It's designed to help identify current gaps in management skills, behaviours and knowledge. Development Interventions such as management development and coaching can help plug these gaps, thereby minimizing risk and moving the organization towards best practice in managing stress at work.
The checklist has been divided into four key areas:
Best Practice Checklist Tool for Line Managers (*New)
This simple checklist tool can be used by managers and those who support them. It's designed to help identify current gaps in management skills, behaviours and knowledge. Development Interventions such as management development and coaching can help plug these gaps, thereby minimizing risk and moving the organization towards best practice in managing stress at work.
The checklist has been divided into four key areas:
- Awareness – questions highlighting the level of management awareness about work-related stress and the associated risks
- Preventing stress – questions related to management actions, skills and behaviours known to help prevent stress at work
- Monitoring stress – questions related to actions that enable early identification of stress problems at work
- Responding to stress problems – questions related to how managers respond once stress problems have been identified
HSE Management Standards: Stress Risk Assessment Tool and Manual
Below you'll find the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) [Management Standards] Work-Related Stress Indicator tool and its associated manual. Even if you don't use this stress risk assessment tool in this form, it's good practice to include these questions in your stress survey because that way you can ensure you're asking questions about all the main causes of work related stress. This 35-item stress questionnaire has been used by hundreds of thousands of working people, so there are excellent benchmark data and the scale has been found to have good validity and reliability.
Below you'll find the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) [Management Standards] Work-Related Stress Indicator tool and its associated manual. Even if you don't use this stress risk assessment tool in this form, it's good practice to include these questions in your stress survey because that way you can ensure you're asking questions about all the main causes of work related stress. This 35-item stress questionnaire has been used by hundreds of thousands of working people, so there are excellent benchmark data and the scale has been found to have good validity and reliability.
| hse_stress_indicator_tool.pdf |
| hse_stress_indicator_tool_manual.pdf |
HSE Management Standards: Analysis Tool, Manual, Checklist and Action Plan
This free spreadsheet tool enables you to input and analyse stress data gathered with HSE's Stress Indicator Tool. It's not a trivial task to use this tool and there are some known technical issues. For example, using it with later versions of excel (post 2003) can cause problems. If yours is a larger organization, you'll need to weigh up whether it is really cost-effective in terms of staff time to do your survey manually in this way or to use a commercial tool and service provider who will have automated tools and report generation to do it all for you.
This free spreadsheet tool enables you to input and analyse stress data gathered with HSE's Stress Indicator Tool. It's not a trivial task to use this tool and there are some known technical issues. For example, using it with later versions of excel (post 2003) can cause problems. If yours is a larger organization, you'll need to weigh up whether it is really cost-effective in terms of staff time to do your survey manually in this way or to use a commercial tool and service provider who will have automated tools and report generation to do it all for you.
| hse_management_standards_analysis_tool.xls |
| analysis_tool_manual.pdf |
| stress_risk_assessment_checklist.pdf |
| hse_action_plan_template.pdf |
Stress Management Competency Indicator Tools
This is a very different kind of stress assessment tool, which was developed following 4 years of research by Occupational Psychologists. The research was funded by HSE, CIPD and Investors in People. The tools are designed to provide managers with feedback on the skills and behaviours that prevent and reduce stress (and can cause stress). You can download pdf and excel versions of this tool and an analysis tool for 360 feedback to line managers on another page (scroll down the page to access all the tools). You can also access the research papers and information booklets for HR and line managers on that page. You can find general information about this approach on our stress management competencies FAQ page.
This is a very different kind of stress assessment tool, which was developed following 4 years of research by Occupational Psychologists. The research was funded by HSE, CIPD and Investors in People. The tools are designed to provide managers with feedback on the skills and behaviours that prevent and reduce stress (and can cause stress). You can download pdf and excel versions of this tool and an analysis tool for 360 feedback to line managers on another page (scroll down the page to access all the tools). You can also access the research papers and information booklets for HR and line managers on that page. You can find general information about this approach on our stress management competencies FAQ page.
Work Positive Tools
Work Positive was launched in Scotland in 2002. It was developed by Psychologist, Rebecca Lancaster, for use in Scottish workplaces to assess and manage stress risks at work. Scotland has been at the forefront of workplace health promotion for many years. Numerous Scottish organizations have used Work Positive to help them address stress issues as part of their Scottish Healthy Working Lives Award scheme (formerly the Scotland's Health at Work Award scheme).
After the launch of the HSE Management Standards in 2004, the HSE question set was integrated into Work Positive, which now contains HSE'S 35 stress questions along with another set of questions examining wider organizational issues linked to workplace well-being. This includes one open question to generate qualitative data (comments). The Work Positive tools can be downloaded below.
Work Positive was launched in Scotland in 2002. It was developed by Psychologist, Rebecca Lancaster, for use in Scottish workplaces to assess and manage stress risks at work. Scotland has been at the forefront of workplace health promotion for many years. Numerous Scottish organizations have used Work Positive to help them address stress issues as part of their Scottish Healthy Working Lives Award scheme (formerly the Scotland's Health at Work Award scheme).
After the launch of the HSE Management Standards in 2004, the HSE question set was integrated into Work Positive, which now contains HSE'S 35 stress questions along with another set of questions examining wider organizational issues linked to workplace well-being. This includes one open question to generate qualitative data (comments). The Work Positive tools can be downloaded below.
| work_positive_questionnaire.pdf |
| work_positive_analysis_tool.xls |
| work_positive_analysis_manual.pdf |
| work_positive_benchmarking_tool.pdf |
| work_positive_action_plan_template.pdf |
| work_positive_analysis_tool_tutorial.zip |
| work_positive_alternative_stress_risk_assessment.pdf |
If you know of any other good, free stress management tools that could be included here, please contact us.