Artificial Intelligence (AI) can create opportunities to monitor the mental wellbeing of their workforce, according to Steve Herbert, employee benefits, wellbeing and reward consultant.
Kicking off the second day of Health & Protection’s annual Health Summit at Tylney Hall in Hampshire, Herbert told delegates that while he was a big fan of homeworking, extended use of it can mean firms are not picking up on mental health issues of their workforce at an earlier stage.
“I had a company last year who were worried about the mental health of their employees. And they had two or three episodes of mental health amongst their employees that they thought they would have identified had those employees been in the office,” Herbert explained.
“But because you’re only seeing employees for a small window of time, you might be working with them five days a week for 35 hours a week, but you’re only seeing them on one or two Zoom calls a day,” Herbert continued.
“You’re only seeing them for a short time and they can disguise what’s going on. You can’t get a good feel for what’s happening in their lives and what’s happening to them.”
But the good news, Herbert added, was that AI can monitor wellbeing.
“AI can monitor some of this stuff for you,” Herbert said.
“So if we start getting tools in the place and on their personal phones as well as their work phones that can track what’s going on, we’re going to get a much better feel.
“So it’s going to give us the chance to get the data that we wouldn’t otherwise get and then do something with it.”