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Stress and Bullying in the Workplace

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 2005 greatly expanded the 1989 Act and imposed a greater duty on every employer to provide a safe system of work for their employees. Section 8 of the 2005 Act is broad enough to impose new obligations on employers to address stress in the workplace. Employers are now required to implement safety measures necessary for the protection of safety, health and welfare of their employees in identifying hazards in carrying out a risk assessment under Section 19 of the 2005 Act or preparing a safety statement under Section 20 of the 2005 Act.

An employers duty of care includes the reasonable prevention of bullying and stress relating injuries in the work place. Likewise, it should be remembered that the employee has a duty to act in a proper manner in the work place and this is provided for in Section 13 and 14 of the 2005 Act.

Bullying in the Work Place

The 2005 Act provides that employers carry out risk assessments at their place of work in the preparation of a safety statement. This assessment should also include the risks associated with bullying. The definition of bullying is "Repeated inappropriate behaviour that undermines your right to dignity at work". It can encompass verbal bullying, physical bullying or otherwise and it may take different forms such as social exclusion and isolation, damaging someone's reputation by gossip or rumours, intimidation, aggressive or obscene language or repeated requests with impossible tasks or targets.

Whilst there is no specific legislation that deals with bullying in the work place the Health and Safety Authority have issued a code of practice for employers and employees on the prevention and resolution of bullying at work.

Stress in the Work Place

There is no specific legislation dealing with stress in the work place, however, the employer has a general duty of care to all employees within the work place. Obviously, there is a duty on the employee to inform the employer if they feel that they are stressed and need assistance in the work place.

Once again the Health and Safety at Work Act, 2005 comes into play in that employers are required to carry out risk assessments.

Employers have a statutory and common law duty of care to protect their staff against stress. The case of "Saehan Media Ireland Limited - v - a worker" is one such case where the Labour Court acknowledged work related stress as a health and safety issue and held that employers have an obligation to deal with instances of its occurrence which may be brought to their attention. Therefore, if an employer is on notice that an employee has a greater susceptibility to stress than another employee, the employer is under a higher duty as a work related stress injury is more likely to occur to this employee. This encompasses the issue of foreseeability and imposes a greater burden on the employer to ensure that they deal with employees and any stress related issues.

It is important, therefore, that employers have bullying policies and policies in respect of health and safety issues i.e. stress related claims in the work place and the HSA recommends that a bullying policy be incorporated into the companies safety statement and these policies should be brought to the attention of each and every employee before they sign their contract of employment.

This is an evolving expanding area of Employment Law and each case is required to be dealt with on its merits.

Please note that this article is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Sabrina Comerford

Solicitor

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