Stress Indicator Tool (SIT)

The Stress Indicator Tool helps you understand the causes of work-related stress and take action to protect your people and your organisation.

It is an online 35-question survey centred around the six key areas of word design: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. 

Workers complete the survey anonymously, giving honest feedback on their experiences and perceptions of stress at work. The results can be used as part of the risk assessment process in HSE’s Management Standards approach. 

There is an additional set of questions, developed with the University of Hull, for people who work partly or fully from home. This covers stress, anxiety, and depression and reflects changes in working practices and technology.

Employers have a legal duty to protect workers from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting on it. This is the same duty you have to protect people from other health and safety risks. 

Work-related stress affects performance, productivity and morale. The latest research from Deloitte shows that on average, every £1 invested in employee wellbeing can deliver a £5 return through reduced absence and turnover.

Stress Indicator Tool licence options

Supporting resources and getting started

We provide a wealth of supporting resources to help you build a foundation for your Stress Indicator Tool. These include making the case presentations, stakeholder management guidance, example correspondence and publicity materials. These will guide you in setting up a successful survey and help to increase engagement with your workers.

• Read supporting resources
• Making your case presentation (PDF)

How it works

• Create an account for free or purchase a licence for your organisation's size (no. of workers).
• Build the Stress Indicator Tool by following the steps, customising the demographics, adding your organisation's branding and getting it ready for circulation.
• Collect responses by sharing the link with your workers, knowing that all data is anonymous and GDPR compliant.
• Analyse the results to highlight priority areas and benchmark your performance against others in your industry.
• Move forward by discussing the results with your workers, plan interventions and track improvements year-on-year.

Key benefits

• Evidence-based assessment – it is built on the HSE Management Standards, ensuring alignment with recognised best practice.
• Comprehensive insight – it helps organisations identify the root causes of work-related stress across the six areas of work design.
• Worker voice – it provides a structured and GDPR-compliant way for workers to share their views and experiences anonymously.
• Action-focused reporting – automated reports summarise results, highlight priority areas, and offer recommendations for improvement.
• Improved well-being and performance – by addressing stress factors, organisations can reduce sickness absence, increase engagement, and enhance productivity.

• Compliance support – helps employers meet their legal duty to assess and manage risks to workers’ health and well-being, while also supporting accreditation to standards such as ISO 45001 and ISO 45003.

• Multiple languages – the survey is available in multiple languages to ensure workers can provide feedback in their preferred language.
• Exclusive HSE benchmarking – results can be compared internally over time or against other organisations to track progress and benchmark performance.

Trusted by organisations globally

Organisations in the UK and globally are proactively using the Stress Indicator Tool to measure their performance against the HSE Stress Management Standards. It is used and trusted by organisations of all sizes, across all industry sectors. Customers frequently report to us that, because of using the SIT, they have achieved greater engagement and commitment to health and safety from employees, have reduced sickness absence, reduced costs and have demonstrated better support and leadership.

"We invested in the Stress Indicator Tool as it is a ready-made tool that we could adapt to our organisational needs but with a good solid research base behind the reporting."

"We have been looking at the topic of stress for some time, and even created our own stress tool but it was hard to implement, having a HSE version gives us more weight to demonstrate the importance of managing stress."

"We wanted to baseline stress in the organization using the management standards and the Stress Indicator Tool was the perfect way to do it."

"We have been using the Stress Indicator Tool for three years now and it has allowed us to monitor the wellbeing of our employees and shape our response based on the trends identified each year. With the tools ability to break down data be region/ job role etc. this has allowed us to run targeted wellbeing campaigns and we have now improved our score in every factor prior to the previous year."

"I have used the Stress Indicator Tool in the last two businesses I have worked at, I would recommend everywhere I go to work."

"The Stress Indicator Tool is great to get an unbiased opinion from your staff as to areas that you are performing well in and those that can be improved. The report building and ability to quickly analyse and report on data using many different and customisable demographics is excellent. The platform is also easy to use for all involved."

Read full case studies (PDF)

Licence pricing

The prices outlined allow administrative and user rights to the Stress Indicator Tool (all prices are excluding VAT). The initial cost includes system set-up and configuration, and the first year of support and maintenance. The licence permits use of the tool according to the appropriate number of workers employed by the organisation. Should the number of workers increase, or if you want to expand the licence to cover other parts of the organisation, you will be required to upgrade to the next band.

Note: The home and hybrid working question-set requires an existing license to the Stress Indicator Tool and cannot be used independently.

• Demo: Book online
• Email: hseorders@tso.co.uk
• Phone: +44 (0)1603 972959

Related information

• Managing work-related stress
• HSE Stress Management Standards
• White Paper (PDF)
• Background and development of the Home and Hybrid Tool