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NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Managing Stress at Work
One day, written by NEBOSH with the Health and Safety Executive, on treating work related stress as something you risk assess rather than something you hope improves. Built around the HSE Management Standards.
About this course
Work related stress is a health and safety risk, and the law treats it as one. Employers have to assess the risk of stress at work in the same way they assess any other, and the reason most organisations do not is that nobody has ever shown them how. This qualification does exactly that, in a day.
NEBOSH wrote it with the Health and Safety Executive, Great Britain's regulator, which is what makes it different from the general wellbeing training on the market. It is built around the HSE Management Standards, the six areas of work design that HSE themselves say a suitable and sufficient stress risk assessment has to cover.
It is deliberately practical and deliberately organisational. It is not counselling training and it does not ask managers to diagnose anybody. It teaches you to find the things about how work is designed and managed that are causing the harm, and to do something about those.
One day, six taught hours and an hour for the assessment, at our centres, live online, or at your own premises for a team. For most employers the last of those is the sensible one, because the conversation is more honest when it is your own managers in the room.
- What work related stress is, what causes it, and what it does to people and to an organisation
- Where the legal duty sits: why stress is a risk to be assessed rather than a matter of personal resilience
- What employers are responsible for, and what individuals are responsible for
- The HSE Management Standards and the six areas of work design they cover: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change
- How to use the Management Standards approach to carry out a stress risk assessment that would stand up
- How to design interventions that deal with the stressor rather than the symptom
- How to keep it going: measuring, reviewing and improving rather than running one survey and filing it
How completing this course helps you
- A NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Managing Stress at Work, developed with the HSE
- A stress risk assessment method you can actually run, based on the approach HSE accept as suitable and sufficient
- The ability to tell the difference between a work design problem and an individual one, and to act on the first
- Something to show when somebody asks what you are doing about work related stress
Who should attend?
Health and safety professionals, HR professionals, line managers and supervisors, occupational health professionals, and anybody responsible for people or for the risk stress creates in an organisation. No safety background is assumed.
Entry requirements. None. NEBOSH set no formal entry requirements, though the assessment is in English and they recommend a standard equivalent to IELTS 6.0 or higher. There are no exemptions from the unit: everybody takes it.
Ready to take the next step?
Choose a delivery option, compare dates and book with confidence, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
Why this rather than wellbeing training
Stress is a risk assessment, not a poster campaign
Employers have a legal duty to protect people from work related stress, and the way that duty is met is a risk assessment. HSE are explicit that following the Management Standards approach properly will meet it. Following an awareness week will not.
That is the difference between this qualification and most of what is sold as wellbeing training. It was written with the regulator, it teaches the regulator's own method, and it produces an assessment you could put in front of an inspector.
It also stays on the right side of a line that matters: this is about how work is designed and managed, not about diagnosing anybody. Managers leave able to change demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. They do not leave pretending to be clinicians.
One day, then the assessment
Six taught hours and a one hour multiple choice assessment, at our centres, live online, or at your own premises.
Built with the HSE
NEBOSH developed it with Great Britain's health and safety regulator, around the HSE Management Standards.
Take it back to work
You leave with a method for assessing stress risk in your own organisation, not a certificate and a shrug.
Course content
What you will cover
The qualification is structured around the management of health and safety and the practical application of risk assessment.
Managing stress at work
- The causes and effects of work related stress, for the person and for the organisation
- Employer and individual responsibilities
- The HSE Management Standards approach to assessing the risk
- Demands, control, support, relationships, role and change
- Designing interventions that address the stressor
- Continuous improvement, so the assessment leads somewhere
Method of assessment
How the Managing Stress at Work certificate is assessed
One assessment, taken at the end of the day, set and marked by NEBOSH.
Take part across the day
Six taught hours, built on a worked scenario rather than a lecture. Full attendance is expected before the assessment.
Sit the assessment
One hour, multiple choice, based on a realistic workplace scenario. You apply what you have learned to a situation rather than recite definitions.
Certificate
A NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Managing Stress at Work. It is a pass or fail qualification rather than a graded one.
Ways to learn
How you can take this course
Every route covers the same accredited syllabus and the same support. Pick the one that fits how your people work.
Classroom
Tutor-led at one of our centres, with everything provided.
Ask us to open a classroom date →or ask MB nowLive online
The same tutor and the same timetable, joined from anywhere.
Ask us to open a live online date →or ask MB nowAlso available
In-company training
We run this one to order, at your place or ours.
Onsite / in-company
Run Managing Stress at Work at your site
We deliver anywhere in the UK, on your dates and around your shift patterns. For six or more people it is usually cheaper per head than sending everyone to a centre, and nobody loses a day travelling.
Tell us roughly how many people and when, and we will come back with options and a price, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
What onsite includes
- The same tutor, materials and certification as our centres
- Your venue or one we arrange near you
- Dates and start times built around your operation
- One invoice and one point of contact for the whole group
- Content examples drawn from your own workplace
Managing Stress at Work FAQs
One day. NEBOSH set six taught hours plus a one hour assessment, so seven hours in total as a minimum.
NEBOSH developed it with the Health and Safety Executive, Great Britain's health and safety regulator. That is why it teaches the HSE Management Standards rather than a training provider's own model.
Six areas of work design that HSE say drive work related stress: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. Using the Management Standards approach is not itself a legal requirement, but employers do have a legal duty to assess the risk of work related stress, and HSE state that applying the approach correctly meets that duty.
One hour, multiple choice, based on a realistic workplace scenario, taken at the end of the course. It is pass or fail rather than graded.
No, and the difference matters. Mental health first aid trains people to recognise and respond when somebody is struggling. This trains you to assess and reduce the things about how work is organised that cause the harm in the first place. Plenty of employers do both, and we run both.
No. It assumes none. It is written for line managers, HR and occupational health as much as for safety professionals.
Yes, anywhere in the UK, and for a management team it is usually the better way round. The discussion is more honest when it is your own people talking about your own organisation. Tell us how many and where and we will come back the same working day.
It sits alongside the other one day NEBOSH HSE certificates. Anybody making health and safety their job usually goes on to the National General Certificate.
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