Introducing Working It: Can wellness apps fix us and beat staff burnout?
The Story of Money
Manuela Saragosa
4.4 • 400 Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is the podcast about doing work differently. Join host Isabel Berwick every Wednesday for expert analysis and watercooler chat about ahead-of-the-curve workplace trends, the big ideas shaping work today — and the old habits we need to leave behind.
Subscribe on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/working-it/id1591925469 - On Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5vNDHxEOc1pI1acJS7He5e Or wherever you get your podcasts.
The wellness industry is a trillion-dollar business, and the pandemic has turbo-charged it. One of the biggest trends has been the rise in employers buying their staff access to meditation and fitness apps. But does this ‘quick fix’ approach work? And are there better ways to boost wellbeing ?
Isabel talks to Lorna Borenstein, chief executive of Grokker, a corporate wellness app about the reasons why she set up the platform and how clients and her own staff use it. It’s all part of a culture of taking care of employees - a topic Lorna has explored more deeply in her book It’s Personal, offering advice to other managers on how to help staff feel better [tl;dr: talk less, listen more].We also speak to FT colleague Emma Jacobs, about the corporate care culture. She is a little more skeptical.
We would love to hear from you - email us at workingit@ft.com. You can also follow @isabelberwick on Twitter and Instagram or reach out via email: isabel.berwick@ft.com. Thanks.
Mentioned in the podcast and other interesting reading:
- Emma Jacobs’ prophetic pre-pandemic guide to workplace wellness by app: https://www.ft.com/content/d1d58aae-437c-11ea-abea-0c7a29cd66fe
- FT series, Burnout: https://www.ft.com/burnout
- Deloitte report [2020] on employee mental health showing £5 benefit for every £1 spent: https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/consulting/articles/mental-health-and-employers-refreshing-the-case-for-investment.html
- Video, Emma Jacobs on how to detox from your smartphone: https://www-ft-com.newman.richmond.edu/video/b4115321-b915-3a42-9814-ad0be4c0e7f5?playlist-name=section-0b83bc44-4a55-4958-882e-73ba6b2b0aa6&playlist-offset=206
Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The world is changing faster than ever. |
| 0:03.0 | Keep up with the Enterprise Cloud from Work Day. |
| 0:06.0 | A single system to continuously plan for every web of scenario. |
| 0:11.0 | Work Day, the finance, HR and Planning System for a changing world. |
| 0:15.0 | Hello, it's Isabelle Beric here. |
| 0:18.0 | I'm the Work and Career's Editor at the Financial Times |
| 0:21.0 | and the host of Working It, a new podcast about doing work differently. |
| 0:25.0 | It's just launched and every Wednesday we'll be exploring the latest workplace trends, |
| 0:30.0 | the big ideas about work and how to change it, and also the old habits that we need to leave |
| 0:35.8 | behind. We talk about what's really working right now and what isn't. So subscribe to |
| 0:42.1 | working it. There's a link in the show notes, and I wanted to share |
| 0:45.8 | our first episode with Behind the Money listeners. Here it is. |
| 0:49.1 | Oh my gosh, I never intended to be the founder of a company. Really, |
| 0:58.0 | entrepreneurism was not something I intended to do. I had retired after 20 years of just working my butt off in tech. I had been a really early, |
| 1:10.0 | you know, eBay employee. My mom was horrified horrified I had left this brilliant job at |
| 1:14.3 | Hewlett Packard and she thought you're gonna waste your career at a garage sale |
| 1:17.9 | that'll never work obviously mom was wrong once That's Lorna Boronstein, who started out in tech back in 2000. |
| 1:28.0 | She's had senior roles at eBay and Yahoo, and now runs a global wellness company called Grocker. |
| 1:34.0 | Lorna's the first guest on Working It is a new weekly podcast from the Financial Times about doing work differently. |
| 1:41.0 | I'm Isabelle Berrick, the F.T's work and careers editor. |
| 1:44.8 | I'll be hosting the show and talking to people who are changing how the world works. |
| 1:48.2 | I'll also be calling on my F.T. colleagues and friends, and we'll tell you what we really think about what works and what doesn't. |
... |
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