Exhibitor Press Releases

For decades, organisations have understood their responsibility to protect people from physical harm at work. Risk assessments, control measures, near-miss reporting and safe systems of work are well-established parts of organisational life.

What is changing, and changing fast, is the recognition that emotional safety is not separate from Health & Safety. It is part of it.

The Health and Safety Executive has been increasingly clear: employers have a legal duty to prevent harm caused by work-related stress. This is not a wellbeing aspiration. It is a duty of care.

Yet many organisations still approach emotional health reactively intervening only once people are already struggling, off sick, disengaged or burnt out. The challenge now is to move upstream.

To ask a different question.

Not what is wrong with people? But what is happening  or has happened in their lives, and their workplaces?

Why this shift is happening now? The data is no longer ignorable.

Work-related stress, anxiety and depression are now the leading causes of work-related ill health in Great Britain. Last year alone, 16.4 million working days were lost due to stress-related conditions, according to the Health and Safety Executive’s 2025/26 Business Plan.

The HSE has been explicit: organisations must move beyond reactive support and take preventative action, embedding good practices into everyday business operations. This includes helping people recognise early signs of stress, regulate emotions during challenging moments, and support one another more effectively at work

In other words, emotional safety is becoming a core control measure, not a bolt-on initiative.

Emotional safety is not “wellbeing” One of the biggest barriers organisations face is language

When emotional health is framed as “wellbeing”, it is often seen as optional, individual, or peripheral, something for lunchtime yoga sessions, apps, or resilience tips. And as helpful as these things can be;

Emotions are not a lifestyle choice.

Emotions influence:

·       attention and concentration

·       decision-making and judgement

·       communication and teamwork

·       perception of risk and hazard

If someone is overwhelmed, anxious, or operating in survival mode, their ability to notice hazards, speak up, or report near-misses is compromised.

Psychological safety is not a “soft” outcome. It directly predicts:

·       whether people raise concerns

·       whether near-misses are reported

·       whether unsafe practices are challenged

Without emotional safety, hazard reporting collapses. Seen this way, emotional safety is not simply wellbeing. It is fundamental to safe work.

The hidden depth behind stress, anxiety and burnout

Many workplace responses still treat stress, anxiety and burnout as individual weaknesses to be managed. Managed once people are already struggling.

But these experiences do not arise in isolation.

They are shaped by:

• workload, autonomy and job design
• management culture and values
• relationships, belonging and connection
• life circumstances, loss, caring responsibilities and financial pressure
• earlier experiences people carry into work

When we reduce emotional distress to a label, we strip away context and meaning. We stop being curious. And we miss the opportunity to prevent harm.

A more helpful question is not “How do we fix this person?”

It is “What pressures, experiences and environments are interacting here?” “What role do we play in those climates and environments?”

Why knowledge and awareness matter

One of the most powerful, and overlooked, preventative tools is emotional literacy.

When people understand:

·       how stress responses work in the body

·       how threat affects thinking and behaviour

·       how compassion and connection regulate the nervous system

·       how everyday interactions can escalate or de-escalate emotional states

·       How we are affected by the things that happen, or have happened to us;

They gain agency.

This is not about turning managers into therapists or employees into clinicians. It is about giving people the knowledge skills and awareness, combined with the support and encouragement, to respond to what is happening early, and approach their concerns with care rather than panic or avoidance.

Research consistently shows that compassion, towards ourselves and others, switches off threat responses and restores the optimal biological functioning of the autonomic nervous system. Slow breathing, present-moment attention, and supportive social interaction are not “nice ideas”; they are biological regulators.

This is where prevention lives.

An Emotional First Aid approach

Emotional First Aid (EFA) treats emotional safety in the same way we treat physical safety: as something everyone needs to understand, and everyone can contribute to.

EFA is not therapy. It does not diagnose or treat. It is a practical, human approach that helps people:

·       understand their own emotional responses

·       recognise early warning signs

·       regulate emotions in real time

·       support one another without trying to “fix”

·       create cultures where people feel safe to speak up

·       At its heart is a simple but often forgotten truth:

The first aid is for you.

Because, when individuals feel safer in themselves, they are more likely to connect, co-regulate, and act with clarity, even under pressure. When teams feel emotionally safer, organisations become more resilient.

Moving forward: safe and connected workplaces

The future of Health & Safety is not about adding more policies.

It is about changing how we see people. From problems to be managed, to humans with bodies, feelings and lives.

Organisations that take emotional safety seriously are not lowering standards, they are strengthening them. They are creating environments where people can think clearly, act responsibly, and look out for one another.

There is no Health & Safety without emotional health and safety.

The question is no longer whether organisations need to act, but how proactively they are willing to do so.