ADHD care and the growing occupational health market
ADHD is a prime example of why it’s in employers’ interest to support — financially and otherwise — their employees’ health and wellbeing.
This week we interviewed Cog ADHD, a recently launched digital health company which provides holistic ADHD therapy on a subscription basis. One of the key themes that came out of the discussion was how supporting people who have ADHD is important for productivity as well as for the individual’s health and wellbeing.
Long term sickness is a huge cost to companies as well as to the lives of their employees. As well as the lost labour from sick days, companies are spending hundreds of billions a year globally on burnout support.
At a session on the growing occupational health market at HBI’s conference in June, Alex Goldsmith, CEO of Medigold Health, one of the UK’s largest occupational health providers, said there has been a massive shift in the way executives see funding healthcare for their employees.
Whilst 10 years ago companies would typically only want to provide the statutory minimum level of occupational health cover and occupational health providers like Medigold were having to convince companies to deal with the health problems they were creating reactively, now many companies are taking a much more proactive approach to supporting their employees’ health.
“Post pandemic, there’s lots of evidence that if you spend £1 you should get back 6x or 7x. Finally businesses have listened and worked out that keeping their employees is in their interest. The pandemic and subsequent mental health crisis has changed what occupational health is,” Goldsmith said.
The interest Cog ADHD has seen from corporates echoes this.
“We’re talking to some of the biggest companies in the world. Companies are seeing burnout is a big problem, and more and more are talking about ADHD as a problem. There’s a lot of interest from tech companies who really value their ADHD employees,” Dom Longford told us.
“There’s a recognition that ADHD brains are some of the most economically valuable. A lot of data scientists, creatives, and entrepreneurs have it. ADHD is very widely accepted in a lot of the corporate world. They provide a lot of genius work. But that ADHD can spill over into burnout.”
Keep your eyes peeled for our interview with Cog ADHD next week.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Martin De Benito Gellner or call 0207 183 3779.
