Management Standards Indicator Tool MSIT
Management Standards Indicator Tool MSIT overview
Creator and Context
The Management Standards Indicator Tool is the UK Health and Safety Executive's 35 item survey for assessing work related stress at an organisational level.
It was developed by the Health and Safety Executive, with the underlying research published by Cousins, Mackay and colleagues in 2004. It maps directly onto the six HSE Management Standards.
It is published under the Open Government Licence, and organisations may use it in their own surveys provided the wording, item order and scoring are unchanged.
Presenting Conditions
The tool covers the six Management Standards, which the empirically supported structure splits into seven scales:
Demands
Control
Managers' support
Peer support
Relationships
Role
Change
Administration
An anonymous self report survey taking about 15 minutes, completed by the whole workforce. No clinician, training or qualification is required.
Items use two response formats, one on frequency and one on agreement, both scored 1 to 5. Negatively worded items are reverse scored so that a high score always means good. Respondents are asked to reflect on the last six months.
Desired Audience
Employees, across any sector. It is an organisational instrument, not an individual clinical measure.
Work related stress is usually treated as an individual problem when it is very often an organisational one. The MSIT measures the six things an employer can actually change, which is why it exists and why it is framed as a risk assessment rather than a screening test.
Considerations
It is an organisational risk assessment instrument. It is not a clinical or individual measure of stress, anxiety or depression, and must not be used to make decisions about individuals.
There are no clinical cut offs. Interpretation is against national percentile benchmarks.
HSE is emphatic that survey data alone is only indicative and must be triangulated with focus groups, sickness absence and turnover data.
Anonymity is a design requirement. Demographic questions must not allow individuals to be identified.
Response rates below 50 percent make the results indicative only and should be treated with extreme caution.
Items and scoring may not be altered.
How to score the Management Standards Indicator Tool MSIT
Conducting the assessment
Employees rate 35 items on a 1 to 5 scale, anonymously, reflecting on the last six months. Negatively worded items are reverse scored.
Interpretation
Each of the seven scales is scored as the mean of its items, from 1 (poor) to 5 (desirable).
Interpretation is against national percentile benchmarks rather than clinical cut offs. HSE's analysis tool compares each scale against a national dataset and returns an interim and a longer term target, banded by percentile:
Below the 20th percentile: urgent action needed
20th to 50th percentile: clear need for improvement
50th to 80th percentile: good, but improvement needed
Above the 80th percentile: doing very well, maintain performance
Clinical Considerations
Follow the survey with focus groups. HSE is explicit that the survey alone is not enough to act on.
Report at the organisational or team level, never at the individual level.
Pay attention to the response rate. Below 50 percent, the data is indicative only.
Management Standards Indicator Tool MSIT use cases
Organisational risk assessment for work related stress
Benchmarking against national data across the six Management Standards
Identifying which organisational factors to target
Evaluating the impact of organisational change
Category
Stress Management
Research Summary
Cousins, R., Mackay, C. J., Clarke, S. D., Kelly, C., Kelly, P. J., & McCaig, R. H. (2004). Management Standards and work related stress in the UK: Practical development. Work and Stress, 18(2), 113 to 136.
Mackay, C. J., Cousins, R., Kelly, P. J., Lee, S., & McCaig, R. H. (2004). Management Standards and work related stress in the UK: Policy background and science. Work and Stress, 18(2), 91 to 112.
Edwards, J. A., Webster, S., Van Laar, D., & Easton, S. (2008). Psychometric analysis of the UK Health and Safety Executive's Management Standards work related stress Indicator Tool. Work and Stress, 22(2), 96 to 107.
Other Assessment Guides
Note on Assessment licensing
Some assessments are copyright protected and require a licence or the copyright holder's permission for clinical, commercial or digital use. Where that applies, obtaining and maintaining that permission is the responsibility of the practice or organisation using the assessment. Tacklit provides the digital administration, scoring and reporting. We do not grant, transfer or supply rights to the underlying instrument.
