Dear colleague,

Today is National Stress Awareness Day and we are pleased to say we can now we have been working with management for some time to develop.

We know how many of our members are affected by stress in the workplace and we’re pleased that the University have engaged with us in taking steps to address this.

We are fully aware that this isn’t a resolution to all of our workplace stressors, but communicating this Code of Practice to all staff, at every level, is a step forward in acknowledging workplace stress is an issue as well as providing useful information on how we can support our colleagues through a difficult time.

There is an article on the University of Liverpool/UCU Stress Code of Practice and a link to the document here.

A lot of work went into this locally and UCU’s National Health & Safety Official presented our Code of Practice to HESH, the National employers forum on H&S who asked if they could share it with all parties in the HE Sector as an example of best practice.

Our intention now is to ensure this very well received document is fully implemented locally and works to support colleagues already suffering from work related stress and to limit more colleagues from having to go through what can be a very debilitating illness.

Please feel free to share this with colleagues and managers. Everyone needs to know this Code of Practice exists in order for it to be fully effective.

Best wishes.

Jo.