The Health and Safety in Employment Act recognises workplace stress and fatigue as hazards that can cause physical or mental harm to an employee. Stress may be caused by factors both inside and outside the workplace.

An employer is responsible for managing stressors in the workplace that may cause harm to an employee. The employer is not responsible for issues outside the workplace.  If an employee has been diagnosed as suffering from work-related stress, it is important that the doctor's certificate identifies the work concerns and so that the employer can respond to them;  in a form such as the following:

'My patient .......................... is suffering from .......................... (stress/acute anxiety disorder, depression, etc.) He/she attributes this to the following workplace factors .......................... (e.g. prolonged shift work without adequate recuperative time, prolonged hours of work, competing and unreasonable deadlines, etc.)

It would then be the employer's responsibility to investigate these issues, come to his/her own decision about the work relatedness of the problem, discuss the results of his/her findings with the employee, agree on appropriate solutions and then introduce systems to eliminate, minimise or manage the hazard to the employee.

The Department of Labour Guideline Healthy Work: Managing Stress and Fatigue in the Workplace has practical information on how to do this.