When a Sick Note Says ‘Work-Related Stress’… with Barrister Simon Anderson

Summary

Barrister Simon Anderson argues that occupational stress should be managed as a serious workplace health and safety risk—not dismissed as ordinary pressure or treated as less real than physical injury. Stress-related harm can build over years, affect confidence and career prospects, and lead to legal claims when warning signs are ignored or employers respond insensitively.

The discussion’s central operational message for HR and managers is to respond early, understand the individual situation, and ask: “How can I support you?” Anderson says that asking this question and acting on the answer can prevent problems from escalating.

Practical Playbook for Employers and HR

• Treat a sick note citing work-related stress as a prompt to act. Ask what is causing the stress and what support could help. Avoid defensiveness, eye-rolling, or assuming the employee is exaggerating.
• Look for earlier warning signs. Examples include someone doing the work of two people, regularly working evenings or weekends, not taking holidays, reporting poor sleep or rumination, changing behaviour, or becoming visibly distressed.
• Make support individual, not one-size-fits-all. A general wellbeing initiative may help identify people who need support, but does not by itself resolve an individual’s situation or remove employer risk.
• Build regular check-ins into management practice. Anderson recommends asking about physical health, mental health, and mental health at work during one-to-ones. Managers should take time to know their employees, particularly when managing remotely.
• Conduct a stress risk assessment and follow up. The interview identifies failure to assess workplace stress and failure to ask about support as recurring ways employers mishandle cases.
• Use workforce feedback to identify broader issues. Exit interviews and anonymous wellbeing surveys can reveal patterns such as bullying, conflict, or employees leaving rather than raising a formal grievance.
• Protect privacy and avoid intrusive investigations. Do not encourage colleagues to monitor or discuss an employee’s social media while they are on sick leave. Investigations should be proportionate and relevant; the interview gives a cautionary example of surveillance that failed to establish what the employer intended to find out.
• Do not assume that being on holiday or participating in community activities contradicts stress-related absence. These activities may support recovery. Consider whether an activity is genuinely inconsistent with the reported condition rather than judging it by appearances.
• Treat psychiatric harm with the same seriousness as physical harm. Anderson’s view is that employers should identify and manage foreseeable risks of psychological injury with comparable care.

Metrics and Figures Mentioned

• Anderson estimates that about 80% of the occupational-stress enquiries he sees can be screened out immediately; of the remainder, he says only a small proportion are sustainable claims. These are his personal practice estimates, not industry-wide statistics.
• Anderson says that, in his experience, employers may be able to avoid liability in “probably nine out of 10 cases” by asking how they can support the employee and responding appropriately. This is his stated view, not a measured general success rate.
• One HR professional describes discovering a case only after nine months of stress-related sick notes and a grievance—an illustration of delayed escalation, not a prevalence figure.
• Anderson hopes that workplace practices will give psychological risk the same respect as physical risk over the next 20–25 years.
• He describes using AI to turn a 40-page judgment into a summary of 500 words or fewer.

Examples and Lessons

• Workload and early warning signs: Anderson describes an employee carrying the workload of two people who was later backfilled by two hires. The lesson is to address workload before an employee reaches breaking point.
• Holiday during stress leave: A police officer on annual leave while off sick with stress was photographed on a beach in Thailand. Anderson argues that a restorative holiday can be compatible with recovery; the employer’s leak of the story to the press harmed the employee and damaged the employment relationship.
• Surveillance of a teacher: A school teacher was followed while attending community activities on medical advice to maintain her routine and social connection. Anderson says the employer failed to ask why she was attending and describes the case as producing claims related to dismissal, occupational stress, and human rights. The lesson is to ask and investigate proportionately rather than infer misconduct from an activity.
• AI as an assistant: Anderson found AI useful for summarising a published judgment and reducing tedious administrative work. The hosts caution that it can make things up and should not be trusted as an authority on employment law without human verification.
• Legal illustration: Anderson refers to Page v Smith to support his point that psychiatric injury should not automatically be treated differently from physical injury when considering foreseeability.

Presenters and Sources

• Guest: Simon Anderson, barrister at Park Square Barristers, specialising in employers’ liability and occupational disease.
• Presenters: HR:ER hosts, including Ollie and Dawn (identified by first name in the discussion; surnames are not given).
• Legal source discussed: Page v Smith. Anderson described the examples of the police officer and Bradford schoolteacher from his case experience.