Workplace Wellbeing & Psychological Risk Management
Looking After Your People Goes Beyond Physical Safety.
Supporting healthier, safer workplaces through evidence-based wellbeing strategies, stress risk management, and psychological safety - because your people's mental health matters as much as their physical health.
What We Do
Work-related stress, anxiety, and poor mental health are now among the leading causes of sickness absence across the UK. The Health and Safety Executive recognises stress as a significant occupational hazard - one that employers have a legal duty to assess and manage, just as they would any physical risk.
At Harlequins, we support organisations in taking workplace wellbeing and psychological risk seriously - not as a tick-box exercise or a wellbeing app nobody uses, but as a genuine, structured part of how you manage your people and your risk. We help you understand where the pressure points are in your organisation, what's driving them, and what practical steps you can take to address them.
This is an area where we have particular depth of experience, including within healthcare settings where psychological risk, compassion fatigue, and the emotional demands placed on staff require a thoughtful and sector-informed approach.
Why it matters
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to assess all significant risks to their employees — and the HSE is clear that psychosocial risks, including work-related stress, fall within that duty.
The consequences of failing to manage psychological risk are significant:
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High and increasing rates of stress-related absence
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Reduced productivity, engagement, and retention
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Increased likelihood of errors, accidents, and incidents
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Grievances, employment tribunal claims, and reputational damage
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Regulatory scrutiny — particularly in healthcare settings under CQC frameworks
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Beyond the legal and operational case, there is a straightforward human one. People spend a significant proportion of their lives at work. The least any employer owes them is an environment that doesn't damage their mental health.
Services we provide
HSE Stress Indicator Tool & Staff Engagement: We facilitate the use of the HSE's Management Standards Indicator Tool - a validated survey instrument that measures employee experience across the six key stressors identified by the HSE: demands, control, support, relationships, role, and change. The results give you an evidence-based picture of where stress risk exists in your organisation.
Stress Risk Assessment Development: Using the findings from staff engagement and our own organisational assessment, we develop a tailored stress risk assessment that identifies the key risk factors, the populations most affected, and the controls needed to manage and reduce risk.
Wellbeing Strategy Development: Beyond risk assessment, we support organisations in developing a coherent, practical wellbeing strategy - one that addresses both the causes of poor wellbeing and the support available to staff when they're struggling.
Manager Training - Mental Health Awareness & Psychological Safety: Equipping your managers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to recognise the signs of stress and poor mental health in their teams, have supportive conversations, and signpost appropriately - without overstepping or creating dependency.
Speak Up & Confidential Reporting Support: We can support organisations in establishing or reviewing confidential reporting mechanisms that give staff a safe route to raise concerns - including about their own wellbeing or the wellbeing of colleagues.
Our approach
We take a genuinely human approach to this work. Psychological risk management done badly can feel intrusive, performative, or even counterproductive. Done well, it builds trust, reduces stigma, and creates the conditions in which people can raise concerns early - before they become crises.
We work closely with HR, occupational health, and senior leaders to ensure our approach is integrated and joined up — not another standalone initiative that sits separately from how the organisation actually runs.
Everything we do in this space is grounded in the HSE's Management Standards framework and current evidence on effective workplace wellbeing practice. We're practical, we're sensitive to organisational culture, and we're honest about what works and what doesn't.
Additional Support
Psychological risk management connects closely with other areas of our work, including:
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Health and safety audits with specific focus on wellbeing and psychosocial risk
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Incident investigation where stress or psychological factors have been contributory
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Retained Competent Person support covering your broader duty of care obligations
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DSE assessments - closely linked to remote working stress and musculoskeletal risk
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Staff training across a range of health and safety topics
