When discussing HSE systems, attention has traditionally focused on what is easiest to identify: physical hazards, personal protective equipment, procedures, training, risk assessments and technical protective measures. All of these are essential elements of safe work, but there is another part of the picture that is often harder to see and even harder to measure – the mental health of employees.
Stress, chronic fatigue, deadline pressure, lack of rest, poor communication and a prolonged sense of being overwhelmed are not simply matters of employee satisfaction. They can directly affect the way a person performs their work. In high-risk activities, the consequences of errors can be far more serious than a simple decline in productivity.
For this reason, mental health is increasingly becoming a topic that also belongs within the HSE function. Not because HSE should take over the role of psychologists or HR, but because the conditions in which people work are part of the overall risk to which they are exposed.
Mental Risks Are Not Always Easily Visible
With physical hazards, there is often a clear warning sign: a defective machine, a slippery floor, inadequate protection or a hazardous material. Mental strain is different. A problem may remain unnoticed for a long time while an employee continues to come to work, perform tasks and appear, on the surface, as though everything is fine.
That is why it is important to look at the organization of work as well. Are deadlines realistically set? Are employees expected to be constantly available? How are shifts and rest periods planned? Do people have enough time to recover between demanding tasks? How do managers respond when an employee reports feeling overwhelmed?
These are not questions that concern workplace atmosphere alone. The answers may be directly connected to work safety.
It is particularly important to understand the relationship between fatigue and decision-making. When a person is exhausted, simply telling them to “be more careful” is not enough. If work organization is such that fatigue continuously accumulates, responsibility cannot be placed solely on the individual. This is precisely where the HSE approach needs to make a difference – by looking not only at employee behaviour, but also at the conditions that contributed to that behaviour.
What Can an Organization Do?
The first step does not necessarily have to be the introduction of a large mental health programme. Many improvements can be achieved through the way work is planned and managed.
Employees need to know whom they can approach when they feel they can no longer maintain the expected workload. It is equally important that such a conversation is not perceived as a sign of weakness or lack of professionalism. If employees are expected to report physical hazards, it is logical that there should also be space to discuss factors that may affect their ability to work safely.
Managers have a particularly important role. They are often the first people who can notice changes in an employee’s behaviour, reduced concentration, withdrawal from communication or unusual irritability. Their role is not to diagnose, but to respond in a timely manner, listen to the employee and, when necessary, direct them towards appropriate support.
At the same time, responsibility must remain at the organizational level. It is not enough to offer employees a stress-management workshop while maintaining a way of working that constantly creates excessive workload. Mental health cannot be addressed solely through individual coping techniques when the causes of the problem are built into the organization of work.
HSE That Looks at the Cause, Not Just the Consequence
Modern HSE systems are increasingly moving from reacting to incidents towards identifying factors that can contribute to them. In this context, mental health is not an isolated topic, but part of a preventive approach.
An incident rarely has only one cause. Its occurrence may be influenced by an unclear procedure, insufficient training, poor communication, time pressure, lack of rest and human error. If the analysis stops at the final step and concludes that “the employee made a mistake”, an opportunity is missed to understand why the error occurred in the first place.
This is why mental health should be considered within the broader context of psychosocial risks. These may be associated with job demands, workplace relationships, the level of control employees have over their tasks, working hours, and the way an organization manages change and pressure.
The Goal Is Not to Eliminate Stress from Work
A completely stress-free workplace is probably not a realistic goal. Deadlines exist, responsibility exists, and a certain level of effort is part of almost every profession. The problem arises when stress becomes a permanent condition, when there is insufficient opportunity for recovery and when an employee begins to operate at the limits of their capacity.
It is therefore more useful to discuss sustainable working conditions than about trying to eliminate every source of stress.
A good HSE system does not only protect an employee from a machine, chemical, noise or fall. It also considers the person operating that machine, making decisions, working shifts, communicating with colleagues and maintaining concentration throughout the working day.
Integrating mental health into HSE means exactly that: broadening our understanding of safety and recognizing that a person is not merely an executor of a work task, but part of a system that can simultaneously be its greatest strength and one of its points of vulnerability.
When an organization recognizes this, prevention takes on a different meaning. It does not wait for an incident, serious conflict or complete employee exhaustion to occur. Instead, attention is directed towards working conditions and early warning signs.
This is an approach in which HSE is not simply a set of rules to be followed, but a way of organizing work so that people can perform it safely and sustainably over the long term.