mental health – Oliver Pickup

Go Flux Yourself: Navigating the Future of Work (No. 6)

TL;DR: June’s Go Flux Yourself includes how AI is after our weekends, why it should be renamed ‘alien intelligence’, the growing loneliness epidemic (and rising demand for AI girlfriends), and the enrichment of hanging out with old people …

Image created on Midjourney with the prompt “a young man looking lonely with only his headphones and tablet on in the style of a Henri Bonnard painting”

The future

“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

Author Joanna Maciejewska posted this on X in late March, and it’s been repeated or paraphrased at many of the tech conferences I’ve attended, as a journalist or speaker, in June – because it’s so right.

The science-fiction writer called out the “wrong direction” of AI. I thought of her clever line when I heard historian and best-selling author (of Sapiens and other brilliant books) Yuval Noah Harari’s keynote at the Future Talent Summit in Stockholm on June 18.

He warned starkly about the potential consequences of AI adoption, particularly in the financial sector. Harari cautioned that the rise of AI could eliminate weekends and other crucial rest periods.

“In Wall Street, markets close on Friday and open again on Monday; weekends are baked into the system because financiers need rest – but now, if they rely on AI agents, they don’t,” Harari explained. “This means there is an increasing pressure to abolish rest in more and more places.”

He stressed the need to halt this trend. “We have to resist it if we want to keep our sanity and our health, but the pressure against us is immense.”

I participated in about a dozen technology and future-of-work-related events in June, and it strengthened my view that in the excitement of AI, humans are increasingly – and alarmingly – an afterthought.

It’s 22 years since then-United States defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to a question about the supply of weapons by Iraq to terrorist groups, said: “There are known knowns – things we know we know. There are known unknowns – some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know, we don’t know.”

There are unknown unknowns with the development of AI, but there are known knowns that are not being addressed. Indeed, as Harari’s clear logic shows, as AI systems become more sophisticated, there’s a risk that humans may be expected to match their 24/7 availability, potentially eroding long-established practices of rest and recuperation. Forget about the four- or even three-day week.

Harari also argues that we should reconsider the very meaning of AI. In his view, AI doesn’t stand for “artificial intelligence”, but rather “alien Intelligence”. This shift in terminology reflects a profound insight into the nature of AI’s development. “As AI evolves, it is becoming less artificial and more alien,” he stated in the keynote. “AI is evolving an alien type of intelligence – neither human nor even organic.”

This concept of “alien intelligence” underscores a critical misunderstanding of how we evaluate AI progress. Many debates centre around when AI will reach human-level intelligence, but Harari suggests this metric is fundamentally flawed – it’s like people are, lemming-like, falling into the Turing trap (see more here on that).

“People often make the mistake of evaluating AI by the metric of human-level intelligence,” Harari said. “It’s like trying to define and evaluate aeroplanes by the metric of bird-level flight. When will aeroplanes fly like birds? Never.”

Instead of progressing towards human-like cognition, AI is developing in ways entirely foreign to human thought processes and behaviours. This alien nature is further emphasised by the incredible speed at which AI learns and changes – an utterly inhuman pace.

This reframing of AI as “alien intelligence” offers a fresh lens through which to view the rapid advancements in this field, encouraging a more nuanced and perhaps more accurate understanding of where AI technology is heading – and, most importantly, where it is likely to leave humans.

The present

“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”

This famous line is from Eleanor Rigby, a song released by The Beatles 58 years ago, on August 5, 1966, the week after England’s men won the football World Cup. The first televised World Cup took place in Switzerland only a dozen years earlier. (As an aside, some 140 goals – at 5.38 per match – were scored as West Germany triumphed for the first time. How things have changed, hey, Gareth?)

First came television, then computers, followed by social media, and now artificial intelligence (AI) – technology excitedly marketed as enlightening, enabling, educating, empowering, and connecting us. But has it done the opposite?

There was indeed a grim coincidence that London Tech Week and Loneliness Awareness Week fell on the same seven days in mid-June. One could argue that the cutting-edge technology celebrated during the former may contribute to the social isolation addressed by the latter. And, looking to the future, it seems that we are becoming more lonely.

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report, released that same week, offered sobering insights. While media attention focused on record-equalling (but still miserably low) global workforce engagement (23%) and the massive economic cost of disengagement ($9 trillion annually), another troubling statistic emerged: one in five employees worldwide report feeling lonely daily.

This statistic deserves careful consideration: 20% of the workforce experiences daily loneliness – namely, a profound sense of sadness stemming from a lack of social connections or companionship. Further, Gallup’s research revealed an unsettling correlation: those who work entirely remotely, thanks to advanced technology, report the highest levels of loneliness.

The theme for Loneliness Awareness Week was “random acts of kindness”. It’s harder to fulfil that goal if you are holed away at home, with no need to commute or physically interact with anyone other than those you live with.

It’s worth clarifying the impact of loneliness on one’s health. Here are some statistics from Loneliness Awareness Week:

Loneliness is as harmful as obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Loneliness is likely to increase your risk of death by 26%.
Loneliness and social isolation have been linked to a 30% increase in the risk of having a stroke or coronary artery disease.
In total, 45% of adults feel occasionally, sometimes, or often lonely in England. This equates to 25 million people.
Disconnected communities could be costing the UK economy £32 billion every year.

While these numbers are all depressing, it’s this one that concerns me the most: 16-29-year-olds are twice as likely as those over 70 to experience loneliness.

It’s a subject close to the heart of Scott Galloway, serial entrepreneur, provocateur, and professor of marketing at New York University Stern School of Business (who, almost exactly two years ago, called me “full of sh1t). At a recent Wall Street Journal conference, Galloway said young people’s time spent out of the house is a forward-looking indicator of their success. Ironically, it sparked a reaction from hordes of the young people he was talking about on … TikTok.

At the start of this year, I heard Galloway discuss this topic, albeit briefly – as the session was titled Can AI be contained? “The biggest threat we’re not discussing enough is loneliness,” he said. “We’re raising a generation of young men who, due to fewer economic opportunities, changes in dating dynamics, and slower maturation, are retreating into AI-created relationships. They’re choosing the low-risk comfort of artificial companionship over the challenges of real human connections.”

He continued: “This trend is creating a cohort of socially unskilled young men who are disconnecting from society. Instead of facing the risks and potential rejection involved in job hunting or dating, they’re opting for faux relationships with increasingly sophisticated algorithms. While the media hypes up various AI threats, the real dangers are more subtle: AI-enhanced misinformation that improves daily, and the increasing loneliness as people choose low-reward algorithmic relationships over genuine human interactions. The true richness of life lies in real relationships, but many are opting for the easier, artificial alternative.”

It’s certainly true that AI companions are surging in popularity, with a staggering 225 million lifetime downloads on the Google Play Store alone, according to research from software company SplitMetrics published in March. However, a striking gender disparity has emerged: AI girlfriends are overwhelmingly preferred, outpacing their male counterparts by a factor of seven.

The study, which examined 38 AI chat apps offering virtual companionship and dating functions, uncovered a 49% growth in the sector since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022. This translates to 74 million new users, predominantly men, turning to AI for romantic and social interactions.

This data paints a clear picture: young men are increasingly drawn to the allure of risk-free, always-available AI girlfriends. As the father of two young children, the eldest being a (currently FC24-obsessed) boy, I’m deeply worried about the long-term social implications of this trend.

More generally, though, I hear stories lamenting how children are not physically interacting with one another enough. For example, a teacher friend recently took a coach load of pupils on a ski trip to the French Alps. He expected the bus trip to be full of high jinx, as was the case when we were teens. But, he described the experience as “bittersweet”, because as soon as the kids were on the coach, they popped in their earbuds, switched on their tablets, and zoned out of reality. While easy for him to manage, it was depressing that no one was talking.

A lawyer mum I met at a future-of-work symposium told a similar story. Her outgoing daughter, keen to meet new people, recently went on a ski trip, only to find that in the evenings, everyone else her age wanted to stay in their rooms and look at their screens rather than bond over fondue. Talk about pisted off.

The past

Last year, Dr Vivek H. Murthy, the United States Surgeon General, issued an “advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community” in a document titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.

He wrote: “If we fail to [stop the rise in loneliness], we will pay an ever-increasing price in the form of our individual and collective health and well-being. And we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country. Instead of coming together to take on the great challenges before us, we will further retreat to our corners – angry, sick, and alone.”

Since 2017, I have been a “befriender” for Linking Lives UK, a charity that pairs volunteers with isolated older people. It’s been incredibly rewarding. The hour or two a week I spent with Terry, my original “friend”, who would have turned 100 next year, was illuminating – I was fortunate to be provided with a unique glimpse into another time.

We were matched due to our love of jazz. We traded music stories, although his were of significantly higher value. For instance, he was in the crowd at a packed Wembley Stadium when Louis Armstrong played in a boxing ring. Terry recalled that the great American trumpeter was accompanied by a one-legged tap dancer, Peg Leg Pete.

Given Terry was born in 1925 – the same year that British explorer Percy Fawcett disappeared in the Amazon and John Logie Baird successfully transmitted the first television pictures here in the capital – we had plenty to discuss, and I had much to learn. As a technology and business journalist, it was always educational to see how people lived (happily, for the most part) without screens, bings, pings, and other distractions.

I read the eulogy at Terry’s funeral a couple of years ago, and I often think of him, and his troubles getting to grips with tech – trying to help him speak to an automated banking system, for example. He taught so much, and all he wanted in return was not to be lonely.

Me and Terry in 2018

Statistics of the month

Some 88% of global workers are currently worried about losing their jobs (Edelman Trust Barometer 2024).
However, 81% of office workers think AI improves their job performance (SnapLogic).
By 2030, about 27% of current hours worked in Europe (and 30% of hours worked in the United States) could be automated, accelerated by generative AI. Further, Europe could require up to 12 million occupational transitions – double the pace observed before the COVID-19 pandemic (McKinsey).

Stay fluxed – and get in touch! Let’s get fluxed together …

Thank you for reading Go Flux Yourself. Subscribe for free to receive this monthly newsletter straight to your inbox.

All feedback is welcome, via oliver@pickup.media. If you enjoyed reading, please consider sharing it via social media or email. Thank you.

And if you are interested in my writing, speaking and strategising services, you can find me on LinkedIn or email me using oliver@pickup.media.

Go Flux Yourself: Navigating the Future of Work (No. 4)

TL;DR: April’s Go Flux Yourself considers the value of values, the importance of physical and mental health, and expresses concern that 90% of the internet’s content will be created by AI in 2025 …

Image created on Midjourney with the prompt “a painting in the style of Matisse that shows the benefits of running”

The future

“There is so much power in understanding what your values are — they can help you make decisions, guide your career, and even live a happier life.”

This wisdom comes from Irina Cozma, a career and executive coach. She wrote these words in a piece titled “How to Find, Define, and Use Your Values” that appeared in Harvard Business Review just over a year ago.

This month, I’ve been reflecting on my personal values and those of Pickup Media Limited. This introspection led me to Cozma’s guidance. Her approach is simple yet profound: start by listing 10 things that are important to you, then narrow it down to three. Once you have your top trio, rank and define them. Try it.

I found it an enlightening exercise. It helped me firm up five values for Pickup Media Limited, which needed refining after almost a decade of a hotchpotch approach to the company’s services and no considered thought about SEO or social selling. (Watch this space!)

The (work-in-progress) tagline is: “Understanding human-work evolution in an increasingly digital world.” And the business values, which build on my personal values, are (currently) listed as follows:

Seeking and sharing true understanding
Connecting for good
Human-focused
Improving – physical and mental – health
Community-spirited

These might need sharpening up, granted, but you get the idea. Already these are helping to frame how I look at my products and services. More than that, these values allow me to recalibrate, and kind of re-tune my antenna to what’s important to and interests me and, by extension, the business.

With this in mind, I was pleased to see that the upcoming Mental Health Awareness Week 2024, which takes place from May 13 to 19 in the UK, focuses on body and mind fitness. Indeed, the theme is: “Movement: Moving more for our mental health.”

In the last 13 months, I’ve run more than ever before, clocking over 800 miles. This has coincided with my sobriety. The extra time and focus gained from not drinking have evolved me as a person, and made me much more self-content, confident, and – according to my children – “less moody”. Cheers!

April was an incredible month for runners in the UK. Not only did the London Marathon exceed previous years – 44 Guinness World Records were broken, £67 million was raised for charity (at the time of writing), and over 53,000 people finished the 26.2-mile course – but a couple of weeks earlier, Russ Cook (aka “Hardest geezer”) completed his almost 10,000-mile, 352-day odyssey running the length of Africa.

The 27-year old from Worthing took up running as an escape from drinking and gambling vices. Four years ago, he broke the record for the quickest marathon while pulling a car. It took him four minutes under 10 hours. Hardest geezer has certainly earned his sobriquet.

Elsewhere, reality TV celebrity Spencer Matthews announced this last week that he will run 30 marathons in 30 days across the Jordanian desert in a bid to break another record. He has spoken about using exercise for good and closing the drinks cabinet. “I’m interested in understanding how far I can push myself,” he told Lorraine Kelly on her eponymous show. “It’s not too long ago that doing any running of any kind would have been difficult.” (For more on this please listen to the latest episode of Upper Bottom.)

It’s incredible what people can do with a little physical movement. Starting is often the most challenging part, which is why initiatives like Couch to 5K are so brilliant.

Perhaps it’s too simplistic to say people are more health-conscious than before the coronavirus crisis. Yet one can’t ignore that over 840,000 applications have been received for the London Marathon 2025 ballot, bettering last year’s record of 578,000. (I’ve thrown my lycra running hat into the ring.)

During the pandemic, I interviewed Andrew Scott, professor of economics at London Business School and author of The 100 Year Life and – this year – The Longevity Imperative. His core message, which has propelled me, is: “Invest in your future self by eating and drinking less, and moving more.” It’s simple, when you put it like that. I suppose it’s like the value of good values.

From now on, I’ll be approaching my work using these business values. And in May, I’ll be busy speaking, hosting roundtables and panels across the UK. First, in London, I’ll be discussing hot human-work evolution topics at a business school.

Also in the capital, I’m moderating a closed session for a new client that explores the future of remote work by discussing the strategic transformations necessary for organisations to drive long-term success. This is a subject I’m passionate about – I wrote about my fears around the entrenchment of a two-tier workforce due to the Flexible Working Bill in my April column for UKTN (and I use the same argument in a debate piece in tomorrow’s City AM).

Later in the month, I’ll be at DTX Manchester, leading a session exploring the value of artificial intelligence in the modern workplace. If you will be at Manchester Central on May 22 please come and say hello. With some 90% of all online content likely to be generated by AI next year, according to some experts, being more human in the digital age has never been more critical.

The present

Investing in a Garmin watch has helped my running – I set a personal best in the London Landmarks half-marathon in early April, no small thanks to Garmin coach. The gadget provides a welter of data – including one’s “body battery”. This morning, I began the day on 87% battery. I must catch up on my sleep this evening. But others might not be so lucky.

What to make of the news emanating from South Korea about Samsung? The electronics giant has recently announced that it will make executives work six-day weeks following its worst financial results in a decade. As more progressive companies push ahead with four- or even three-day working weeks and have found productivity improving, this diktat is wrongheaded and, I suspect, will be counterproductive. How will Samsung attract and retain top talent?

Meanwhile, 82% of employees globally are at risk of burnout this year, according to the HR consulting firm Mercer, and only half of employers design work with wellbeing in mind. How can people move more, and improve their mental and physical health, if they are chained to their desks? This isn’t even standing still; it’s going backwards.

Worryingly, different research indicates that people are suffering in silence. In the United States, 43% of workers say they are experiencing burnout, but almost half (47%) are hesitant to discuss burnout issues with their bosses, finds the latest Workforce Monitor survey from the American Staffing Association and Harris Poll. (Notably, 29% of respondents said their ideal schedule was a full return to the office, while 39% wanted a hybrid work model.)

The past

Two years ago, I interviewed Brian Kropp, then group vice president and chief of research for Gartner’s HR practice, about burnout. He argued that overworking can have hazardous consequences. The combination of sloppiness and anxiety triggered by tiredness will likely cause problems at work. “When you feel stressed and worried, the surface area of your brain literally shrinks,” he said. “It is a natural defence mechanism to absorb less information and pain.”

Employers must be mindful and look after their staff, including leaders, Kropp continued. “When we are drowsy, we tell people to use caution when operating a vehicle or dangerous machinery. So when employees are tired, we should not ask them to operate the heavy machinery of our business.”

After extensive research, Kropp concluded that organisations that “show a sense of caring” will triumph. Ultimately, it’s what humans have always done. He cited late American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead’s theory that we have, as a species, worked together to accomplish something bigger for thousands of years.

The skeletal remains of an early human that showed a healed femur – upper leg – bone highlighted to Mead the inherent compassion we humans possess. The person in this example was allowed to rest and recover from a painful injury and not left for dead.

“The best caring, human organisations have realised employees can’t run at 100% for 100% of the time,” Kropp added. “We have to create time for breaks, moments of rest and recovery. The best organisations are increasingly thinking about ‘pre-covery’, which enables your employees to build up a wealth of reserve before you reach a challenging moment.”

In an increasingly digital and demanding world, employers must remember the fundamental human need for rest, recovery and movement – because when we take care of employees’ physical and mental well-being, we enable them to bring their best selves to work and, collectively, achieve something greater.

Statistics of the month

Of the 82% of global employees who are at risk of burnout this year, according to Mercer, factors cited included financial strain (43%), exhaustion (40%), and excessive workload (37%).
There were 672,631 UK applications for 2025 London Marathon, with 50.33% from men, 49.03% from women and 0.64% from non-binary applicants.
Gartner predicts that “independent workers” will make up around 40% of the global workforce by 2025.

Stay fluxed – and get in touch! Let’s get fluxed together …

Thank you for reading Go Flux Yourself. Subscribe for free to receive this monthly newsletter straight to your inbox.

All feedback is welcome, via oliver@pickup.media. If you enjoyed reading, please consider sharing it via social media or email. Thank you.

And if you are interested in my writing, speaking and strategising services, you can find me on LinkedIn or email me using oliver@pickup.media.

How to lead and manage stressed-out workforces

No organization can say it has nailed hybrid working.

To help navigate the journey ahead, WorkLife selected nine recent statistics to show the direction of travel, identify the most prominent likely obstacles, and offer advice from experts on how employers can overcome them.

Four were featured in this piece and the remaining five are here. These include:
– 70% of C-suite executives in the U.K. feel burnt out
– 79% of global employees are not engaged at work
– 85% of global business leaders with hybrid workforces are not confident employees are being productive
– 43% of hybrid workers don’t feel included in meetings
– U.S. workers have, on average 18 hours of meetings a week – but almost one-third are deemed unnecessary

The full version of this article was first published on Digiday’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in December 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

Under pressure: Why bosses are struggling more than ever

With the dark clouds of a global recession gathering and workers enveloped by a sense of dread and job insecurity, it’s easy to overlook the plight of those in the eye of the storm: the big bosses. And new data indicates that leaders around the globe are struggling like never before.

The latest Future Forum Pulse report — a survey of almost 11,000 workers across the U.S., Australia, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. published in October — found that executives’ sentiment and experience scores had sunk to record lows. Compared to a year ago, execs reported a 15% decline in the working environment, a 20% drop in work-life balance, and a 40% increase in work-related stress and anxiety.

The results shared by Future Forum, Slack’s research consortium on the future of work, were mirrored in workplace culture and recognition firm O.C. Tanner’s 2023 Global Culture Report, which involved 36,000 workers from 20 countries. “We found that leaders are 43% more likely to say that work is interfering with their ability to be happy in other areas of their lives,” said Robert Ordever, the organization’s European managing director.

The saying that “a happy worker is a productive worker” is particularly relevant to those in a position of power. “When leaders don’t thrive, their employees, teams, and organizations won’t either,” added Ordever.

The full version of this article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in October 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

Why it’s time to redefine ‘organisational resilience’ in the modern workplace

How should we define “resilience” in the business context of today?

In his latest book, best-selling author Bruce Daisley argues that the concept of resilience urgently needs an upgrade for the post-pandemic world.

Daisley, former vp of Twitter in EMEA, contends that resilience has negative connotations akin to grit and graft. He believes this should be replaced by the more well-rounded science of fortitude, the name of his new book.

But there are others who aren’t ready to sideline “resilience” as the appropriate definition for the kind of characteristics business leaders and employees need to show in order to thrive at work.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in October 2022 – to read the complete piece, please click HERE.

WTF is Pleasanteeism?

You’ve heard of presenteeism, but a new and arguably even more troubling related term is now entering the business lexicon: pleasanteeism.

As businesses chisel their hybrid-working strategies, employees are being forced back into offices. And while many relish the opportunity to converse and collaborate with colleagues in person, for some, this cheery attitude belies underlying fears about returning to work, money troubles, and mental health woes. As a result, people are suffering in silence.

“Pleasanteeism is the sense that we always have to display our best self and show that we are OK regardless of whether we’re stressed, under too much pressure, or in need of support,” said Shaun Williams, CEO and founder of insurance firm Lime Global, who invented the term in August 2021.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in May 2022 – to continue reading please click HERE.

Badly managed return-to-office plans will fuel a ‘well-being crisis’ doctors warn

Doctors are lining up to warn U.S. and U.K. business leaders that they face a “well-being crisis” if they fail to improve the mental health support for employees returning to the office.

While people’s mental health has suffered in general over the past two years, the return to office is adding some new stressors to the mix. Employers must respond in kind, and actively listen to staff in order to provide the right support, or they’ll risk a backlash, say health experts.

A Slack-commissioned study of 1,000 knowledge workers in the U.K., launched in May which is Mental Health Awareness month, revealed that 73% of employees have experienced exhaustion in the last year. And almost half (49%) of respondents highlight associated costs with office working, such as travel and food, as stressors — at a time when 87% of British adults are reporting a rise in their cost of living, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This article was first published on DigiDay’s future-of-work platform, WorkLife, in May 2022 – to continue reading please click HERE.

Why occupational health is now a top priority

Ethics aside, supporting the physical and mental health of employees creates a win-win scenario in the post-pandemic workplace, but there are challenges to providing better support

The coronavirus crisis has squeezed the life out of so much we previously took for granted, at home and at work. Things have changed, irreversibly. Many people express both a heightened appreciation of life and respect for mortality. But how does this translate to occupational health?

As organisations begin to coax their employees back to the workplace, the expectation that employers should support the mental and physical health of staff, particularly in a workplace setting, has been dialled up in the past year.

To instil confidence in employees that a return to work is safe, many companies provide COVID-19 rapid lateral flow tests, promise better ventilation, rigorous cleaning programmes and gallons of hand sanitiser. But is it enough? Should businesses take more accountability for their workers’ health?

According to employee benefits provider Unum’s Value of Help study, published in December, 86 per cent of UK employers have changed their approach to staff health and wellbeing because of the coronavirus situation.

Moreover, 95 per cent of the 350 employers surveyed revealed the pandemic has “impacted their need to make employees feel more protected”, says Glenn Thompson, chief distribution officer at Unum UK. “Whether it is from individuals, communities or organisations, 2020 has brought the value of help and support to the front of all our minds,” he adds.

Dr Robin Hart, co-founder of Companion, which offers mental health support tools, is pleased organisations are showing a greater willingness to look after staff. “A lack of focus in this area historically has seen an increase in lost revenue and diminished productivity,” he says. “Attitudes have had to change in a very reactive way due to the pandemic. In reality, it’s accelerated a process which would have played out anyway, eventually.”

Win-win scenario

Besides, supporting staff health and wellbeing creates a win-win scenario. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) data shows that in the 12 months to March 2020, when the first lockdown came into force, approximately 828,000 workers, the equivalent of 2,440 per 100,000 people, were affected by work-related stress, depression or anxiety. This absenteeism resulted in an estimated 17.9 million working days lost. In the previous year, the cost of workplace injury and ill health was calculated by HSE at £16.2 billion.

“Nobody’s health should be worse at the end of a shift than it was at the start,” says Dr Craig Jackson, professor of occupational health psychology at Birmingham City University. “If it is poorer, then there is something morally, ethically and legally wrong in that workplace.”

He believes there is a newfound respect for occupational health departments. “The excellent, proactive work undertaken by many professionals in preparing COVID-secure workplaces – assessing staff return to workplaces, COVID screening, testing, tracking and tracing – will lead to people realising occupational health is not just somewhere to go to when you are ill and unable to work,” he says.

Jackson acknowledges “supporting staff better than before does involve additional time and costs”, but argues such spending is a good investment. This is backed by research from Deloitte, published last year, that estimates for every £1 spent by employers on mental health interventions, they gain £5 back in business value.

“Not only is there a strong moral case for employers to look after staff health, but it makes good business sense, too,” agrees Oliver Harrison, chief executive of Koa Health, provider of mental health programmes. “Healthy workplaces attract the best talent. They also avoid the negative impact of illness on productivity, measured in staff turnover, absenteeism and presenteeism.”

Wellbeing challenges

From a legal standpoint, organisations have a statutory obligation to protect their staff from physical and mental harm. However, Elena Cooper, employment consultant at Discreet Law, reports that “a large number of employees are taking advantage of what they perceive to be their employer’s duties around mental health”.

She asks: “We know a caring and supportive employer is a good employer, but where do you draw the line between being a profit-making entity and a nanny state?” With the prospect of businesses having to afford time off to long-COVID sufferers in the coming months, if not years, it’s a pertinent question.

Ethical and legal debates aside, organisations face other pressing challenges to improve staff wellbeing. “One of the greatest barriers is ensuring healthcare support tends to the needs of all who work within a company,” says Bob Andrews, chief executive of private medical cover provider Benenden Health.

“There is often a disconnect between what employees want to see from a health and wellbeing programme and what businesses offer. Also employees are not the same and therefore a one-size-fits-all approach is outdated and ineffective.” He advises using a range of tools, including mental health apps, as well as low-cost human management.

Luke Bullen, chief executive in the UK and Ireland at Gympass, which seeks to improve wellbeing through exercise classes, spots another issue. “One of the major challenges for a post-pandemic workforce is going to be the hybrid workplace,” he says. “How do employees ensure their wellbeing strategy works just as well for those working at their tables as though working in the office?” Empowering staff to “tailor the wellbeing offering” is critical, he suggests.

Spurred by events of the last 12 months, occupational health will surge in importance in the coming years. “By 2025 I expect it to be available anywhere, anytime, thanks to digital advancement,” predicts Paul Shawcross, clinical lead of occupational health services at physiotherapy provider Connect Health. His company employs an artificial intelligence-chatbot as a method of referral that “triages the patient to the right support for them, 24 hours a day, seven days a week”.

Whether it is bot therapists, wellbeing apps or human professionals, employers need to prioritise occupational health in the post-pandemic workplace. Support, of any kind, is what staff truly want and need right now.

This article was originally published in Raconteur’s Future of Healthcare report in March 2021

Compassion now vital as mental health crisis looms

Is there any wonder, in this eerie and uncertain period, which began abruptly and has destabilised social and economic structures, the mental health of people is collapsing? With millions across the country struggling to cope at the dawn of the coronavirus epoch, and prospects appearing bleak, what can organisations do to support employees?

Worrying stats abound. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), published on July 17, indicate almost two thirds (65 per cent) of Britons “feel worried about the future”. Mind, a mental health charity, found in late June that almost a quarter of adults (22 per cent) with no previous experience of mental health say it is now poor, or very poor.

Worse, the numbers are increasingly dispiriting. In the week ending July 5, for instance, 27 per cent of us thought that the current situation was “making my mental health worse”, according to the ONS. The following Sunday, on July 12, it had risen to 30 per cent. In the same timeframe the percentage of people “feeling stressed or anxious” jumped from 58 to 68 per cent, alarmingly.

A lockdown lasting over a third of 2020 has tested the emotional limits of everyone, and broken many. Isolation from friends and family, coupled with a dark cloud of doubt stretching to the horizon, have taken their toll. At the end of June, the Mental Health Foundation revealed that one in ten people in the UK “reported having had suicidal thoughts or feelings”.

Workplace wellbeing was critical before coronavirus

“The stressors for people during lockdown have been extensive,” says Dr Samuel Batstone, a consultant clinical neuropsychologist. “As such, you would expect a general increase in mental health issues and greater severity of symptoms.”

Dr Batstone argues because our brain anatomy is “essentially the same” as it was thousands of years ago – when fight, flight or freeze responses were short term and typically concerned with physical threats – our minds are failing to deal with “more abstract threats, like a pandemic”.

He continues: “In the developed world we seldom face a physical threat. However, we have replaced this stressor with numerous other, more abstract threats such as deadlines, money, peer pressure, relationships, social media and 24-hour news channels. The problem is that our biological evolution – regarding brain structure and function – has not kept up with this social evolution.”

Sir Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Manchester Business School, concurs that our brains have failed to keep pace with the helter-skelter of modern life.

“The issue of mental health was a big one in the workplace before the coronavirus outbreak,” he says, pointing to a Health and Safety Executive study that showed 57 per cent of working days lost between 2017 and 2018 were due to “stress, depression or anxiety”. More recently, in January, Deloitte calculated that poor mental health costs UK employers up to £45 billion each year.

Counting the cost of collapsing mental health

And then the exponential spread of coronavirus began. Businesses that previously realised the importance of employee wellbeing, and had established support systems, have been better placed to help employees with the coronavirus fallout. Others have improvised well, and technology has enabled frequent contact, despite mass home working.

“Good organisations have ensured that line managers have direct contact on a one-to-one basis with each of their direct reports, from shop floor to top floor,” Professor Cooper says.

Many companies have sought out digital solutions. For example, American startup Humu uses artificial intelligence to sift through employee surveys to discover behavioural aspects and improve their overall wellbeing, while Kooth Work and Rightsteps offer good – and inexpensive – options for businesses to assist the mental health of staff.

Dave Lewis, principal at employee health and wellbeing specialists Rightsteps, says: “We’ve seen a surge in businesses – particularly SMEs – turning to us during lockdown as they’ve sought urgent support for their employees. Getting access to scalable, affordable and effective wellbeing solutions sooner rather than later is key to preventing the escalation of issues and minimising the impact on the business.”

Renate Nyborg, general manager in Europe of meditation platform Headspace, agrees. “The pandemic has forced organisations to expand their staff support rapidly,” she says. “Since mid-March, we’ve seen a 400 per cent increase in requests from companies seeking support for their employees’ mental health.”

Organisations turn to digital solutions

While all employers have a duty of care to protect the health and safety of their employees, Lynne Connolly, global head of inclusion and diversity at investment company Standard Life Aberdeen, believes organisations should go above and beyond for their staff. “Irrespective of legal obligations, as an ethical employer we want to help colleagues deal with mental health issues and have a range of interventions and resources at hand to provide active support,” she says.

“These range from the traditional – such as having someone to talk to – through to an app that tests a user’s emotional wellbeing and takes them on a journey to help them take control of their emotions. That same app acts as a pathway to professional counselling.”

Indeed, Moneypenny data shows that it’s good to talk: the average length of a call increased by 22 per cent during lockdown. “We crave human contact,” suggests Joanna Swash, chief executive of the outsourced-communications company.

Chinwagging aside, she showed impressive innovation to keep team morale high at the start of the pandemic. “We quickly introduced new initiatives, such as online yoga, meditation and exercise classes, as well as virtual lunches – with food delivery vouchers sent to employees’ homes – and much more,” says Swash, hinting at an evolution of wellbeing perks.

Similarly, at global workforce communications platform SocialChorus, co-founder and chief strategy officer Nicole Alvino implemented “distancing days”. She explains: “We decided that one day a month would be a company holiday, for the rest of 2020.”

In the coming months – possibly years – with a global recession looming, Alvino believes “empathy needs to be the foundation” of an organisation’s support for employees. “And this doesn’t require a capital investment,” she says. “For companies who can allocate resources, access to counselling services, meditation programmes and physiotherapy are impactful investments in your people.”

This sentiment chimes with Nyborg of Headspace. “Getting the best out of a workforce is difficult if leaders don’t empathise with employees and strive to understand pressures they might be facing,” she adds. “Moving forward, employers need to manage with compassion, transparency, and flexibility.”

This article was originally published in Raconteur’s Employee Experience report in July 2020