Following our recent Mental Health Week webinar, Creating a safer and healthier workplace, we received a wide range of thoughtful questions from attendees on how employers can manage mental health, stress, reasonable adjustments and tribunal risk in practice.
Many of the questions focused on the difficult balance employers have to strike: supporting employees who may be struggling, while also managing workload, performance, confidentiality and fairness across the wider team.
We have answered some of the key questions below, with a focus on practical, legally grounded steps employers can take to reduce risk, support staff appropriately and prevent workplace issues escalating into formal disputes.
How should employers balance flexibility and sick leave for employees experiencing mental health issues with the impact this can have on colleagues who may have to pick up additional work?
This is a legitimate workplace risk to consider, although employers should be careful not to frame mental health support as special treatment or as a burden created by the employee. The better approach is to treat the situation as a broader workforce planning, health and safety, and management issue.
Employers have legal duties both to support employees whose mental health condition may amount to a disability and to protect the wider workforce from work-related stress. HSE guidance says employers should assess and manage stress risks, including demands, workload, support, role clarity, working relationships and change management. Acas also makes clear that mental health issues may require reasonable adjustments where they amount to a disability, and that employers should work with employees to identify practical support.
Employers should avoid two mistakes. The first is refusing flexibility or adjustments because they may inconvenience the team. The second is simply moving the work onto other employees without assessing the impact. If a reasonable adjustment for one person creates sustained, unmanaged pressure for others, that may create a separate work-related stress risk. That should be assessed and managed also.
The main point is that supporting one employee should not mean silently overloading others. Employers need to show that they have acted reasonably, proportionately and consistently across the team. That means taking the mental health issue seriously, while also managing workload, communication and fairness for everyone affected.
What if the stress is coming from outside work, for example from very difficult personal circumstances? Is the organisation still responsible for putting safeguards in place?
Employers are not responsible for solving an employee’s personal problems, but they should not ignore the impact those problems may have at work.
The legal duty to assess and manage stress focuses on work-related stress, so the first question is whether anything at work is contributing to the issue or making it worse. HSE says employers must protect workers from stress at work by assessing the risk and acting on it. Acas also advises employers to take poor mental health seriously and handle it with the same care as physical illness.
From a risk perspective, the safest approach is to have a supportive conversation, ask whether anything at work is aggravating the situation, consider temporary support or adjustments where reasonable, signpost available help, and document the steps taken. If the employee’s mental health condition may amount to a disability, the employer may also need to consider reasonable adjustments, even if the original cause of the condition is outside work.
Short answer: the employer does not become responsible for the external cause of stress, but it is responsible for responding reasonably to the workplace impact, especially where work may be worsening the situation or where disability duties may be engaged.
How can employees or managers encourage change where senior leadership is reluctant to act on workplace mental health?
Where change is not coming from the top, the most effective approach is usually to frame the issue as risk management rather than a general wellbeing concern.
Employees and line managers can start by gathering practical evidence: workload pressures, absence trends, staff turnover, grievances, exit feedback, engagement results, recurring complaints or signs that teams are under sustained stress. That helps move the conversation away from opinion and towards identifiable business and legal risk.
Managers can also make smaller changes within their own control, such as improving check-ins, clarifying priorities, reviewing workloads, signposting support and escalating concerns to HR. If there are signs of work-related stress, these should be recorded and raised through the appropriate channels, because employers have a duty to assess and act on workplace stress risks.
From a tribunal-risk perspective, senior leaders should understand that doing nothing can be difficult to defend if problems later escalate into sickness absence, grievances, disability discrimination claims or constructive dismissal allegations. The safest message is: early action is usually cheaper, easier and less risky than waiting until the issue becomes formal.
How should employers support someone who may be self-medicating with alcohol or substances, where this is showing up as lateness, hangovers, mood changes or conduct issues at work?
Employers should approach this as both a health and safety issue and a conduct/performance issue. The safest starting point is not to diagnose or accuse, but to focus on observable workplace concerns: lateness, impaired performance, behaviour changes, safety risks or impact on colleagues.
HSE guidance says employers have a legal duty to protect employees’ health, safety and welfare, and that drug and alcohol misuse should be managed through a clear workplace policy. It also says that where an employee discloses a problem, an effective policy should aim to support them rather than move straight to dismissal.
In practice, the employer should have a private conversation, explain the concerns factually, signpost support, consider occupational health or medical input where appropriate, and keep clear records. If the employee’s condition may involve an underlying mental health issue or disability, reasonable adjustments may also need to be considered.
At the same time, support does not mean ignoring misconduct or risk. If the employee is unfit for work, creating a safety risk, repeatedly breaching policy, or refusing support while performance remains unacceptable, disciplinary or capability action may still be appropriate. Acas guidance recognises that serious incapability at work caused by alcohol or illegal drugs may be treated as potential gross misconduct, depending on the facts and the employer’s policy.
The tribunal-risk point is to avoid jumping straight to discipline without first considering the health context, while also showing that the employer took reasonable steps to protect colleagues, clients and the wider workplace. A balanced approach is: identify the behaviour, assess the risk, offer support, document the process, review improvement, and only escalate where that is proportionate.
Does an employee need to formally disclose anxiety or another mental health condition to HR, or is it enough to tell their manager?
There is no single required form of words. An employee does not usually need to say “I am disabled” or make a formal HR disclosure before the employer should take the issue seriously.
If an employee tells their manager they have anxiety, are struggling, cannot cope with workload, are not sleeping, or need support, that may be enough to put the employer on notice that further questions should be asked. The manager should not try to diagnose the issue, but they should listen, record the concern appropriately, involve HR where needed, and consider whether support or reasonable adjustments may be required.
From a risk perspective, managers should be trained to escalate these issues rather than treat them as informal chats that go nowhere. If the matter later reaches a tribunal, the employer may struggle to argue it did not know about the issue if the employee had clearly raised it with their manager.
So the safest answer is: disclosure to HR is helpful, especially where adjustments, sickness absence or medical evidence are involved, but a disclosure to a manager can still be enough to trigger the employer’s duty to respond reasonably.
What if an employee is not taking proactive steps to look after their own wellbeing, or appears to be contributing to their own stress?
Employees do have some responsibility to engage with support, communicate concerns and take reasonable steps to look after their health. Employers are not expected to fix every personal issue or remove all pressure from work.
However, from a legal-risk perspective, employers should be careful about labelling stress as “self-induced”. That can sound dismissive and may be difficult to defend if there are work-related factors involved, such as workload, poor management, lack of clarity, conflict or badly handled change.
The safer approach is to focus on evidence and process. Speak to the employee, identify what is happening at work, consider whether work is contributing to the issue, offer appropriate support, consider reasonable adjustments where relevant, and document the steps taken. If the employee does not engage, refuses support, or performance remains unacceptable, the employer may be able to move into capability, attendance or disciplinary processes, provided it has acted fairly and proportionately.
The core point is: do not assume the stress is the employee’s fault. Assess the situation, offer reasonable support, keep records, and escalate only where there is a clear business reason and a fair process.
How can organisations improve general employee happiness and engagement, beyond strict mental health or legal compliance? Is it mainly about communication?
Communication matters, but it is only part of the answer. General wellbeing is usually shaped by how work actually feels day to day: workload, autonomy, fairness, recognition, management quality, team relationships, psychological safety and whether people feel listened to.
From a legal and risk perspective, the benefit of focusing on general happiness is that it can help prevent issues escalating into stress, sickness absence, grievances or tribunal claims. Employers do not have a legal duty to make everyone happy, but they do have duties around health and safety, discrimination, working time, fair treatment and reasonable management.
So the practical approach is to combine communication with action. Ask employees what is affecting morale, look for patterns in absence, turnover and engagement data, train managers to respond early, and make small visible changes where possible. If people raise concerns and nothing changes, communication can start to feel performative.
The safest message is: wellbeing is not just about talking more. It is about listening, acting, reviewing the impact, and making sure the way work is organised is not creating avoidable stress or unfairness.
How can employers build employee resilience in a way that helps reduce stress-related absence?
Resilience can help, but employers should be careful not to make this sound like stress is mainly the employee’s responsibility. From a legal-risk perspective, resilience training should sit alongside proper workload management, good line management, reasonable adjustments and stress risk assessments.
Useful steps include training managers to spot early warning signs, encouraging regular check-ins, helping employees prioritise work, promoting breaks and recovery time, making support routes clear, and giving people more control where possible. Peer support, mental health awareness training and access to an EAP can also help.
But resilience should not be used as a substitute for fixing avoidable causes of stress. If absence is being driven by excessive workload, poor management, unclear roles or conflict, the employer needs to address those underlying risks. Otherwise, resilience initiatives may look superficial if the issue later becomes a grievance, sickness absence dispute or tribunal claim.
The safest approach is to build resilience at both levels: support individuals to manage pressure, while also reviewing whether the organisation is creating unnecessary pressure in the first place.
Do employers have to make adjustments where stress is caused by issues outside work, such as long-term illness, depression, domestic abuse or stalking? Where is the boundary of what an employer has to accommodate?
The boundary is that employers are not responsible for solving the external problem, but they may still need to respond to its impact at work.
The legal duty to manage stress is focused on work-related stress, so employers should ask whether work is contributing to the problem or making it worse. If it is, they should assess the risk and act on it. HSE says employers have a legal duty to protect workers from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting on it.
Separately, if the employee has a mental or physical health condition that may amount to a disability, the employer may need to consider reasonable adjustments, even if the original cause is outside work. Acas says a mental health problem can be a disability under the Equality Act 2010, and where an employee is disabled the employer must make reasonable adjustments. The duty arises where the employer knows, or should reasonably know, that the worker is disabled and faces a workplace disadvantage.
For issues such as domestic abuse or stalking, the employer should usually focus on practical workplace safeguards: confidentiality, temporary flexibility, changes to contact details or work location, security arrangements, time off for appointments, or signposting to specialist support. Acas has recognised that employers have a role in providing a safe environment and considering workplace adjustments for employees experiencing domestic abuse.
So the employer does not have to accommodate everything indefinitely. Adjustments still have to be reasonable, workable and proportionate. But the safest approach is to avoid saying “that is a personal issue, so it is not our concern.” Instead, ask: is there a workplace impact, is work making it worse, are disability duties engaged, and what reasonable steps would reduce the risk?
What should employers do where employees either refuse to acknowledge stress and do not want support, or where employees make extensive requests for reasonable adjustments that managers feel unable to assess without professional input?
These are two different situations, but the same principle applies: managers should not diagnose, debate the legitimacy of someone’s condition, or make unsupported medical judgments. They should focus on observable workplace impact, fair process, evidence and reasonable support.
Where someone appears stressed but refuses to discuss it, the employer cannot force disclosure. However, managers can still raise specific concerns, such as changes in behaviour, performance, absence, conflict, missed deadlines or signs that workload is becoming unmanageable. The conversation should be framed around support and work impact, not personal pressure. If the employee declines help, the employer should record that support was offered, keep the door open, and continue to monitor any workplace risks.
Where an employee is requesting significant adjustments, the employer should take the request seriously, but that does not mean every request must be accepted. Reasonable adjustments must be reasonable in the circumstances, taking account of the role, the disadvantage faced, operational impact, cost, practicality, health and safety, and whether the adjustment is likely to help.
If managers feel out of their depth, that is usually the point to involve HR and consider occupational health or medical advice, with the employee’s consent. The question should be: what is the employee finding difficult at work, what adjustments might reduce that disadvantage, and which options are workable?
From a tribunal-risk perspective, the safest position is to show that the employer listened, asked sensible questions, sought appropriate advice, considered alternatives, documented the decision, and kept the matter under review. Support does not mean handing over unlimited control to the employee, and management does not disappear because health is involved. The aim is a fair, evidence-based process that balances the employee’s needs with the needs of the role and the wider organisation.
How often should employers review a stress risk assessment or stress management policy, and how can they stop it becoming a document that just sits in a drawer?
A stress risk assessment or policy should be treated as a live management tool, not a one-off document. There is no single universal review period, but employers should review it regularly and whenever there is a material change, such as restructuring, increased workload, sickness absence trends, grievances, staff turnover, team conflict or a serious workplace incident.
As a practical minimum, many organisations should review their stress risk assessment annually, with more frequent reviews for higher-risk teams or periods of significant change. The key is not just the date of the review, but whether the organisation is using the assessment to identify risks and take action.
To keep it active, employers should link the policy to manager training, workload reviews, absence data, employee feedback, one-to-ones, return-to-work meetings and clear escalation routes to HR. Actions should be assigned to named owners, given deadlines and followed up.
From a tribunal-risk perspective, a policy is only useful if the employer can show it was implemented. If stress concerns later become a grievance, sickness absence dispute or discrimination claim, the question will be: did the employer spot the risk, act on it, monitor the outcome and keep records? A policy in a drawer will not be much help. A documented process of review, action and follow-up is much more defensible.
What should employers do if reasonable adjustments are made for employees with mental health issues, and other employees then ask for the same flexibility or support?
Employers should distinguish between reasonable adjustments required because someone may be disabled and general flexibility or wellbeing support available to the wider workforce.
If an employee has a mental health condition that amounts to a disability, the employer may have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments to reduce the disadvantage they face at work. That does not automatically mean every other employee is entitled to the same arrangement. Equality law sometimes requires different treatment when it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim: e.g. removing barriers for disabled people at work.
However, employers should handle this carefully. If colleagues see adjustments as favouritism, resentment can build and team stress can increase. The answer is not to withdraw support from the person who needs it. The answer is to communicate clearly, while preserving confidentiality, that workplace adjustments are considered case by case and that anyone who needs support can raise it through the proper process.
There may also be adjustments that could sensibly become broader good practice, such as clearer deadlines, better workload planning, more predictable communication, or flexible start and finish times where the role allows. If something benefits the wider team and does not create operational problems, employers can consider making it more generally available.
From a tribunal-risk perspective, the safest approach is to have a clear adjustments process, apply it consistently, document the reasons for decisions, review the impact on the wider team, and avoid informal deals that appear arbitrary. Supporting someone with a mental health condition does not mean management loses control. It means decisions need to be reasonable, evidence-based and properly explained.
What can an employer do if it has already explored support, adjustments and other options with an employee, but the issue is still not improving?
If an employer has genuinely exhausted reasonable support, it may be appropriate to move into a formal capability, attendance management or disciplinary process, depending on the issue. The important point is that this should be the end of a fair process, not the starting point.
Before escalating, the employer should check that it has:
- spoken to the employee properly
- considered whether a health condition or disability may be involved
- sought occupational health or medical advice where appropriate
- considered reasonable adjustments
- reviewed whether adjustments have worked
- explored alternatives such as amended duties, phased return, flexible working or redeployment
- warned the employee clearly about the possible consequences
- documented each step
If there is still a genuine business issue, such as unsustainable absence, inability to perform the role, refusal to engage, serious conduct concerns or no reasonable prospect of improvement, formal action may be justified.
From a tribunal-risk perspective, the safest position is to show that dismissal or other formal action was proportionate, evidence-based and only taken after less severe options had been considered. Employers do not have to keep a role open indefinitely or accept permanent underperformance, but they do need to show patience, consistency and a properly documented process.
How should a smaller organisation manage other employees’ reactions or complaints when one employee has reasonable adjustments, such as flexibility, different start times or workload changes?
Smaller organisations can find this especially difficult because adjustments may be more visible and the impact on colleagues can be felt quickly. The starting point is confidentiality: employers should not disclose someone’s health condition or the reason for an adjustment without permission.
What employers can say is that workplace support is considered case by case, in line with business needs and legal obligations, and that anyone who needs support can raise it through the same process. That helps avoid the impression that informal special arrangements are being made.
At the same time, employers should not ignore the impact on the wider team. If colleagues are taking on extra work or feeling unfairly treated, that should be reviewed as a workload and management issue. The solution may be to reprioritise work, adjust deadlines, bring in temporary help, rotate duties, or make some flexibility available more generally where possible.
From a tribunal-risk perspective, the safest approach is to keep the individual’s circumstances confidential, document the reasons for the adjustment, review whether it remains reasonable, and separately assess whether the arrangement is creating stress or unfairness for others. Reasonable adjustments should support the employee without leaving the rest of the team to absorb unmanaged pressure.
Can an employer ask someone to turn their camera on in a meeting if they feel uncomfortable or stressed?
Yes, an employer can usually ask employees to turn their camera on where there is a legitimate work reason, such as participation, supervision, collaboration or client-facing expectations. However, if an employee says having the camera on makes them anxious, stressed or unwell, the employer should not simply insist without considering the reason.
The safer approach is to ask what the difficulty is and whether a practical compromise would work. For example, the employee might keep the camera off for larger meetings, use camera-on only for certain one-to-ones, use audio only, join with camera on briefly at the start, or agree different expectations depending on the meeting.
If the issue is linked to a mental health condition that may amount to a disability, the employer may need to consider this as a reasonable adjustment. That does not mean the employee can never be asked to use a camera, but the employer should consider whether the requirement is necessary, proportionate and workable.
From a tribunal-risk perspective, the risk comes from applying a blanket rule without considering individual circumstances. A clear policy, flexibility where appropriate, and a documented conversation about alternatives will usually be more defensible than simply saying “camera on is mandatory.”
Can unwell remote workers be required to attend business away days or in-person events, or should employers provide a hybrid option?
An employer can usually require attendance at in-person meetings or away days where there is a legitimate business reason. However, if an employee is unwell, experiencing stress, or has a mental health condition that may amount to a disability, the employer should consider whether requiring attendance is reasonable in the circumstances.
The safer approach is to ask what the barrier is and consider practical alternatives. That could include remote attendance, attending only part of the day, joining key sessions online, providing breaks, changing travel expectations, or postponing attendance until the employee is well enough.
Employers do not have to make every away day hybrid automatically, but they should avoid blanket rules that ignore individual circumstances. If remote participation is practical and would allow the employee to engage without worsening their health, it may be a sensible adjustment.
From a tribunal-risk perspective, the key is to show that the employer considered the request properly, weighed the business need against the employee’s health position, explored alternatives, and documented the decision. Forcing attendance without that assessment could create unnecessary risk, especially if the employee’s condition is known.
If an employee shares mental health concerns with their manager, can they ask for that information not to be shared? What if an inexperienced manager panics and escalates it?
Yes, an employee can ask for confidentiality, and managers should take that seriously. Mental health information is sensitive personal data, so it should only be shared where there is a proper reason, and usually only with those who need to know, such as HR, occupational health, or another appropriate manager.
However, confidentiality is not absolute. A manager may need to share limited information if support, reasonable adjustments, absence management, safeguarding, health and safety, or legal compliance are involved. In a mental health emergency, where there is a risk of serious harm to the employee or others, the ICO says employers should share necessary and proportionate information without delay with appropriate emergency services or health professionals.
The best approach is for the manager to be clear at the start: “I will keep this as confidential as possible, but I may need to involve HR or appropriate support if we need to put measures in place or if there is a serious risk.” That avoids making promises the organisation cannot keep.
From a tribunal and data protection risk perspective, managers should be trained not to panic, gossip or share details unnecessarily. They should record the concern carefully, escalate through the proper channel, share the minimum necessary information, and explain to the employee what is being shared and why.
