PAS 1010:2011 Guidance on the management of psychosocial risks in the workplace
A Publicly Available Specification (PAS) is a sponsored fast-track standard driven by the needs of the client organizations and developed according to guidelines set out by BSI.
Key stakeholders are brought together to collaboratively produce a BSI-endorsed PAS that has all the functionality of a British Standard for the purposes of creating management systems, product benchmarks and codes of practice. After two years the PAS is reviewed and a decision is made as to whether it should be taken forward to become a formal British Standard.
When seen in the context of developments in the prevention of stress at work, this PAS doesn’t go far enough in the bottoming out what is needed. There are some ingredients for preventing psychological distress at work, but the approach continues to be mainly therapeutic – first have a problem, then solve it. There is some attempt at identifying the cultural context makes a different but this is handled in such a superficial way as to be seen to be an ‘add on’ rather than central to the prevention process. We are all influenced by the context in which we find ourselves, and behave according to our understanding of the context and the expectations placed on us at the time as we perceive others perceive them.
Manager behaviour doesn’t seem to dominate any aspect of the guidance, yet, at its simplest, controlled communities, such as workplaces, are controlled by managers. Their behaviour is crucial. The HSE/CIPD/IiP understood this with sponsoring research on the behaviours to help implement the HSE Management Standards – still not deep enough, but on the right lines. The IHM Manager’s Code (www.ihm.org.uk) has the behaviours that promote wellbeing and performance, that leads to preventing the incubation of stress, and is where the focus for psychosocial interventions starts.
There is a massive risk of continued under performance in the workplace unless this PAS is revised. All it may take is a re-shaping as there are glimpses of what should work, such as focusing on organisation, workforce and individual, which echoes the MAS approach to Managing my Organisation, Managing My People and Managing Myself, but the PAS itself isn’t structured in this way, and needs to place the purpose, values and cultural imperatives before anything else. Most of the PAS is unfortunately typically bureaucratic, when the subject demands flexibility and adaptability. There does need a change in mindset about this subject – we will not prevent distress until we have managers who understand that high performance comes from the sensation of engagement that is close to psychological flow. This is where we need to aim, and not deviate until we get there.
I am not sure who has written the comment above, but whoever it is, s/he has definitely either not read PAS1010 or managed to misunderstand it. Prevention is the essence of PAS1010. If it wasn’t, this guidance wouldn’t have been supported by the HSE, the European Agency for Safety & Health at Work or the World Health Orgqanization.
PAS1010 has been developed on the basis of a long standing and ongoing European programme in the area of psychosocial risk management and work-related stress prevention (www.prima-ef.org). This programme has also been supported by all key organisations and stakeholders at European level (and not only).
Does your comment aim at misguiding the readers? Because I have no other way of interpreting it…
For anyone who would like to find out more about PAS1010 and how it can be implemented to manage psychosocial risks and prevent work-related stress, please get in touch with me.
One of the approaches to preventing stress is to focus on the behaviours of managers. For an example we can use the comment above/below of one of the authors of PAS 1010 to show what this means. I’m not intending to show fault, merely an indication of impact, so that readers can understand the position I hold. The key aspects of the comment appear to be:
a) questioning who made the original comment about PAS 1010 and to question whether he/she had read it – this being a challenge to the intelligence and integrity of the original blogger, a common feature amongst managers who wish to belittle the employee that causes distress in others. In this case, it was obvious who made the original blog – me.
b) challenging whether the original blogger understood PAS 1010 – again, another common observation when one person seeks to dominate the other, and, by implication, seek to control the situation, and show their superiority over the other person. Being aggressive towards the employee in this kind of manner only serves to dis-engage the employee. It’s not to be recommended as a strategy.
c) invoking of higher authority – in this case referring to some ‘long standing’ organisations – the implication being that individual critique in the context of several worthy organisations must be wrong – another common approach for managers wishing to dominate the situation – ‘you (the individual) must be wrong because the employer says so’- type of approach. No one can speak on behalf of organisations as a whole unless mandated to do so; it’s a very common mistake, and serves to dis-engage the employee from taking shared responsibility for the success of the organisation and its projects.
d) suggesting that the original comment has some sinister intent (‘misguiding readers. – I have no other way of interpreting it’) – another common behaviour amongst managers seeking to humiliate and isolate the errant employee and to show others that the manager is correct and the employee is not, and, even, Heaven Forbid, undermining the employer. Stating that there is no other way of interpreting ‘it’, rather suggests a closed mind – another common feature amongst some managers, and an indication of lack of resilience – a key feature for coping with adverse events and the people behind them.
It is this type of representative behaviour that PAS 1010 needs to address to have a real impact on psychological distress at work. The irony that an author of the PAS, that is intended to set standards, demonstrates the type of behaviour that needs to be addressed, will not be missed on readers. It, also, sadly, tends to support the position I take that the PAS has missed an opportunity to address the root causes of psychological distress, and I refer, once more to the Manager’s Code for the IHM that tries to do exactly this. See http://www.ihm.org.uk
So, what would we suggest?
In a situation where a manager demonstrates the adverse behaviours that provoke an event that can place people at risk of psychological distress we need to alter the thinking of the manager. One of the coathooks for doing this is to encourage managers to think constantly about encouraging commitment and trust between the manager and the employee as this can lead to social engagement. Social engagement is an antidote to stress. In this illustration, an author of the PAS would think in terms of encouraging the blogger to become engaged with her to moderate the opinion of the blogger, not by offering a defensive approach that seeks to demonstrate the unworthy contribution of the blogger but by encouraging the blogger to think again about the subject using some of the content of the original blog as a starting point. Using the assertive message framework is helpful here, as it is based on the principles of a) never stating the other person is at fault (as this simply dis-engages the other person) and b) create a favourable context within which the message is placed, by first, working out the best possible reason why the original blogger made the comments he did – ‘I know you are very engaged in seeking to improve the standards on stress management and improve the working lives of people at work’…then go on to identify the feelings that cause the commentator to respond – ‘I feel challenged/upset/bewildered/bemused by your observations’….then go on to explain the behaviour of the original blogger that caused the feeling – ‘You observe that the PAS appears to be inadequate, when I was determined to raise standards’ ….then go on to explain what you would like to do next – ‘I would like you to engage with me in helping to make the implementation of the PAS easier for managers to adopt’. No stress caused, and an attempt to engage the blogger in contributing to making the situation better. I would feel valued, involved and the commentator would be in control.
Unless and until we can change the thinking of managers (and others) we shall not improve the management of stress at work.
Dear Derek,
Thank you for your long and detailed reply. However, I don’t think you have addressed the issue at hand. Your initial comment presents the opinion that PAS1010 is not based on prevention and does not aim at engaging managers and promoting a collaborating effort at the workplace to deal with psychosocial risks and work-related stress. Do you still believe this?
It is one thing to offer comments for improvement (e.g., Manager’s Code for the IHM) and another thing to blast the whole standard in an unfrair manner. And especially given the long effort invested to develop it not only by individuals but by key organisations.
I still think your comment does not do justice to PAS1010 and its aim and content. To be fair here, you might have a lot to say about my first response and show that in your view it was inappropriate but neither was your initial comment, in my view. If you seek a constructive approach, this is certainly not what the first comment indicates by entirely blasting PAS1010.
Stavroula
Thank you for responding. I greatly appreciate this discussion, and admire your passion for the PAS and the subject.
If my comments come across as being unfair, then, of course, I apologise for presenting the comments in a way that provokes that reaction. I did say it may only need tweaking.
The PAS contains all the words. I read it and re-read it from two perspectives – one, a chief executive and two an organisation health psychologist with a passion for the primary prevention of psychological distress at work.
The first thing that hits is the references to all the other documents and interests. The second is the emphasis, at the beginning, that this is part of a health and safety policy, repeated at different stages in the document.
Whilst a health and safety policy is crucial, for managing psycho-social risks the emphasis should be else where. To date, I haven’t yet come across a health and safety expert that commands the attention for anything psychological. They command attention for physical risks. I have spent time with top level health and safety committees in some pretty interesting organisations (including HEIs) with members from the main Board or Governing Body, and they have no impact on the main Board for anything other than physical risks. If a sub-group is held to be the driver, as the PAS suggests, they become the champions and have to persuade the quick fixers, as I call them (ie Board Directors) just as much as people like me have to persuade them, and that is difficult and often not effective for this type of challenge. Interestingly, in a list in the PAS of who should be interested in the PAS, supporting people are joined in the same list as managers without any comment or qualification. Organisations are controlled by managers – everyone else is the supporting cast to help managers control their working communities to produce whatever they are set up to do. Managers reading the list will think it’s someone else’s responsibility.
By not focusing on standards for organisation culture, and standards for effective manager behaviour, I think the PAS has missed the point. Whilst these features are in the PAS they seem lost to me, after reading the driver is a health and safety policy. I also feel that, whilst, again, the words are there but not central planks, wellbeing directly linked to performance is not made a central plank for the standards – sure it is mentioned as a by-product of everything else, but, to convince Board Directors that this is important stuff, psychological wellbeing means improved performance, not just the mitigation of risk.
The bureaucratic nature of the PAS may be important for some purposes, but for embedding appropriate thinking in a managers’ mind, they will think about the completion of this or that and not about the need to think constantly about gaining commitment and trust with their staff – all the time, as an essential component of their role as controllers of communities of workers. We know that only about 30% of all managers have any training at all, and that a higher percentage have never been trained in managing people – this is the problem that has to be addressed.
There are some serious challenges we face in engaging Board Directors with the reality that stress prevention starts with them, and their behaviours that form the cultural context that others adopt. When you observe I haven’t addressed the issue, I have through responding to your comments – the issue is the behaviour of managers, and the influence on their behaviours that culture provides, and this is primary prevention, and where the focus needs to be to have any lasting impact. The fact you responded in the way you did is precisely the type of reaction and response that we have to change for any risks to be mitigated in the workplace. We are the principal cause of psychological distress, and, therefore, we have to change. I’ve talked to a few clients about the PAS 1010 and whether they have read it, and their response. It’s not a popular subject, and getting to Boards is like pulling teeth and takes a long time. Anything that opens doors is really valued, not just to let people like me in, but, clearly, because it will change the working lives of thousands, millions even. Does the PAS 1010 do this? That’s the test. And that’s the main point of the whole adventure to me. Do all these reports really hit the target? The most common response I’ve heard from Board level Directors is – yes, it’s important, but not at this level – the very level that is most important.
Psychological wellbeing and performance should, in my mind, be a key part of the corporate strategy for every single formal organisation that exists, set in some kind of stone, like the Johnson and Johnson credo, if you like, that is used as the agenda, or part of the agenda, for every single Board meeting, and manager meetings, and reported on. Placing the PAS with the health and safety policy, offers the opportunity for Boards not to have it central to their success and prosperity, regardless of how we might feel about that.
There’s lots of interesting stuff in the PAS, lots of words that are important, and I congratulate you on putting it all together. It just needs tweaking.