STRESS AWARENESS MONTH 2025- HEALTH & WELLBEING COMMUNICATION

Information is provided below to assist branches when undertaking any activities for Stress Awareness Month 2025. This LTB is shared as a communication in line with planned Health, Safety and Wellbeing Activities/Campaigns for 2025.

Stress Awareness Month is an event that has been observed since 1992, it serves as a gateway to open conversations about stress, signpost people to the right support and help us all prioritise our mental health. It is promoted by numerous organisations and the NHS. The HSE published annual reporting statistics in November 2024 revealing that almost half of 1.7 million work-related ill health cases were identified as stress related, with over 776,000 workers suffering from ill-health related to stress, depression or anxiety with each person suffering taking an average of 15.8 days off work.

The Health and Safety Executive have recently been funding research into work-related stress under the title Project OSCAR (Occupational Stress Consultation and Research). The Health and Safety Executive have commissioned Affinity Health at Work, the Institute of Employment Studies, the Institute of Occupational Medicine, and the Society of Occupational Medicine to lead the Occupational Stress Consultation and Research programme. This project aims to provide HSE with the evidence base on which to make policy decisions and underpin guidance on the practical actions that employers can take to prevent and mitigate work-related stress relative to three research areas.

1. Preventing & Reducing
2. Defining & Identifying
3. Examining Barriers & Enablers to Reducing

The CWU are taking part in this research which aims to:

• Explore how the evolving model of WRS (Work-Related Stress) labelling is received and its applicability across different contexts.
• Identify how the Project OSCAR research findings can be made most useful to relevant groups.
• Gather & use suggestions on how employers and health professionals can improve current practices and what needs to be in place to support this.

This research will result in a final report in early 2026, with the aim to better identify what we know about effective interventions to prevent and reduce work-related stress, with a further sharing of new knowledge and good practice.

Stress Risk Assessments

Employers have a legal duty to protect employees from stress at work by undertaking stress risk assessments and acting on the findings. The CWU has national agreements with all the major employers on both individual and group stress risk assessments.

Members suffering the effects of stress are encouraged to approach their Union Rep, Safety Rep, Mental Health First Aider or seek help, support and assistance without delay should they need help at work, or feel in need of crisis support.

When undertaken correctly, Stress Risk Assessments can be an extremely effective tool to reduce personal stress on an individual level or workplace level.

Shared for information and use are the following embedded documents:

•       CWU Preventing Stress flowchart

•       CWU Armed forces veterans & Reservists Questionnaire

These shared documents have been used to beneficial effect within the CWU Mental Health First Aiders networks over several years and have been updated in 2025.

They are provided as information, to aid understanding of potential stressors & stress prevention routes.

• The Stress Prevention flowchart is a simple easy to understand step by step guide guide for supporting with individual stress.
• The Armed forces Questionnaire has been produced by CWU MHFAiders and Reps who are ex-Armed forces, it is designed for armed forces Veterans and Armed forces reservists as a Pre-cursor to any Stress Risk Assessment process.

Further information and useful workplace resources can be found by clicking on the links provided below.

Stress and mental health at work – HSE

Stress Awareness Month April 2025 | Mates in Mind

If you have any questions or need any further information relating to this LTB, please contact Jamie McGovern on jmcgovern@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely

Jamie McGovern, FRSPH MIIAI

Health & Safety Policy Assistant, Central Services

LTB 063/25 – STRESS AWARENESS MONTH

Attachment: CWU Armed Forces Veterans Reservists Questionnaire – v1

Attachment: cwu-preventing-stress-flow-chart-v2

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CWU LGBT+ and Allies Networking Event 

The Equality, Education and Development department are pleased to announce that a CWU LGBT+ and Allies Networking Event will be taking place on Friday 23^rdMay in conjunction with Birmingham Pride on the 24^th May.

The day is being sponsored by the Midlands Region and will be an opportunity to connect and network with other LGBT+ activists and Allies from across the union.

Day 1: The session on Friday 23^rd Maywill run from 13:00 – 17:00 and take place at CWU Offices, 47, Summer Lane, Birmingham, B19 3TH. The afternoon will include interactive and informative sessions with group discussions.

Day 2: Will include attending Birmingham Pride. Further information will follow regarding a CWU meeting point and times.

A list of hotels is set out below for those that may need to stay due to travel:

• Holiday Inn Express, Snow Hill
• Hampton by Hilton, Jewellery Quarter
• Premier Inn, Station Exchange
• Premier Inn, Waterloo Street

To reserve a place at the Networking event on Friday 23^rd May or for any queries relating to this LTB please email equality&education@cwu.org

We look forward to seeing you in Birmingham!

Yours sincerely,

Kate Hudson
Head of Equality, Education & Development

25LTB 066 – CWU LGBT+ and Allies Networking Event

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Salary Sacrifice and Minimum Wage Legislation

Royal Mail have informed us that there are circa 20,000 Royal Mail employees who have voluntary pay reductions which are paid via salary sacrifice.

The combination of this week’s increase in the minimum wage to £12.21 per hour, and the fact the Government now reviews the minimum wage after the deduction from salary sacrifice, has meant that some individuals would have been below the minimum wage.

Types of salary sacrifice deductions include the following:

• Purchasing additional annual leave
• Car lease scheme
• Insurance
• Items purchased via My Bundle
• Cycle to work scheme

In addition, specific attendance patterns such as Wallingtons which require individuals to work extra hours on particular weeks to achieve a week off, are also causing some problems as the basic pay remains the same each week despite an individual sometimes working 6 or 7 hours over the standard 37 hours full-time contract.

Royal Mail has advised us that to avoid the business breaching the law they will pay for individuals salary sacrifice items ahead of the pay rise so they are not disadvantaged.  This means that individuals who have been written to will not have any salary sacrifice reductions from their pay so that they will be above minimum wage ahead of the pay rise.

Royal Mail has said it is happy for individuals to continue to use salary sacrifice in the future but wish to review the car lease scheme to ensure that this does not result in the company breaching the minimum wage law.

Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be referred to the DGS(P) department.

Yours sincerely,

Martin Walsh
Deputy General Secretary (Postal)  

LTB 64.25 Salary Sacrifice and Minimum Wage Legislation                       

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