Blue Monday: Interview with Steph Hind, Co-Founder of Heka

PA Life’s feature writer interviewed Steph Hind, the Co-Founder of Heka, an employee benefits platform designed to help all manner of organisations service their employees with flexible, tailored wellbeing offerings. We explored the topic of ‘Blue Monday’ with Hind, who shared her perspective and top tips for navigating this challenging day and the wider issues affecting mental wellbeing in general.

Is Blue Monday a PR Stunt, or does this draw attention to issues in the workplace?

Blue Monday typically falls on the third Monday of January and is often dubbed the “most depressing day of the year.”Coined in 2005, the concept of Blue Monday is based on a combination of factors. The most common contributors to many feeling ‘blue’ include post-holiday financial strain, dark winter days, and the New Year’s resolutions you vowed to stick to, starting to slip away.

PA Life has challenged the concept of Blue Monday, arguing that it draws from the ongoing mental health challenges employees face year-round. Critics contend that condensing mental health awareness into a single day risks oversimplifying the persistent nature of workplace wellbeing issues.

However, Hind offers a different perspective. While acknowledging the commercial aspect of Blue Monday, she emphasises that it serves as “a timely reminder of the importance of mental health awareness — not just on one day but throughout the year”. For her, Blue Monday represents an opportunity for employers to assess the wellbeing of their teams and the organisational structures they have in place to support each individual, as well as how these can be improved. She argues that the broader business landscape needs to evolve its approach to wellbeing support, recognising that each employee faces unique challenges and will respond differently to various forms of assistance.

How does investing in employees’ wellness benefit organisations?

As Heka’s report – The Employee Benefits Gap – illustrates, championing positive employee wellbeing is in the organisation’s best interest. Hind highlighted how closely employee wellness is tied to business success, pointing out that creating a positive work environment is crucial to business performance. She explains, “When employees feel happy and supported, they thrive and do their best work”. Prioritising wellness at a company level has positive knock-on effects, including the reduction of employee sick days, a more positive workplace culture, heightened engagement and productivity, and a significant increase in a business’s ability to retain its employees over the long term.

How have the challenges of the new year affected employees?

As employees navigate the start of a new year, they often face overwhelming pressure from New Year’s resolutions, ambitious targets and demanding KPIs. These mounting expectations extend beyond their day-to-day responsibilities, creating a need for supportive solutions.

The role of employee benefits can prove imperative to counterbalancing workplace pressures at the start of the year. Heka is just one such example of a modern benefits platform. Equipped with thousands of benefits from hundreds of different brands, Heka enables each individual to find and select personalised benefits that can help support their unique challenges. Taking a health-based approach to each available offering, benefits range from services helping struggles with sleep, exercise accessibility, nutrition, specific male and female health concerns, or financial guidance, to name a few examples.

Steph emphasised that the breadth of offerings across modern benefits platforms is the only surefire way employers can be confident in their approach to employee wellbeing. Working with modern benefits solutions, employers can find assurance in the fact they are offering flexible, private, accessible wellbeing options designed to suit both in-office and work-from-home employees.

You don’t need to have it all at once

On a personal level, Steph, who shared her ‘CEO secrets’ with the BBC back in 2021, discussed how Heka has helped her manage the pressures of running a business with her most important role, raising two children. Hind openly expressed the struggles with PA Life, detailing how, in her own wellness journey, she learned that sometimes it’s not possible to have everything at once, but “this does not mean you can’t have it all over a period of time.”

Steph not only Co-founded Heka but she is also a avid user of the platform. Steph notes how Heka has enabled a more proactive approach to personal wellbeing, from assistance with her marathon training to a massage when she needs to relax. Within this, Steph advocates for organisations to allow employees to choose their wellbeing support at a time that is right for them. Steph continued, highlighting that as individuals, our wellbeing approach is “all about being realistic, we don’t need to be super humans and have it all at once.”

Steph nods to the technology within modern benefits platforms to deliver previously untapped levels of personalisation. Behind the Heka platform, AI technology is leveraged to learn each user’s preferences, journeys, and support recommendations, guided by activity on the platform and a set of intuitive goal-setting questions.

Steph concludes by detailing that, for some organisations, Blue Monday may spell a singular day of consideration. However, companies that understand the importance of wellbeing support year-round, both at a personal and organisational level, stand to reap greater rewards.

For more interviews and insights on how to support your employees this Blue Monday and beyond, visit our website and follow us on Instagram for ongoing discussions on workplace wellness