Victoria answered: 10 workplace wellbeing questions leaders are asking right now
Over the past few months, I've noticed the same questions coming up again and again in conversations with leaders. Questions that I think deserve to be highlighted and answered in one place. Because if so many of the leaders I work with are asking these questions, many more people are likely thinking about them too.
Workplace wellbeing has changed over the past few years. The questions leaders are asking now are no longer simply about whether they should offer an Employee Assistance Programme or run a wellbeing week. Leaders are asking how wellbeing fits into the wider future of work, how managers can be equipped to support their teams and how they can create cultures where people can perform well without compromising their health.
At the same time, organisations are navigating some significant changes and challenges. AI is reshaping how work gets done, employees are experiencing new pressures, managers are being asked to take on greater responsibility for wellbeing and issues such as menopause, neuroinclusion and psychological safety are becoming much more prominent.
At a glance, that can feel overwhelming.
After working with hundreds of organisations, leading a mental health charity and spending years supporting leaders and managers, I don't see these as completely separate challenges.
So, in this article, I share the 10 questions I'm hearing most often, alongside some of the questions I believe leaders should be asking as we look towards 2027 and beyond.
Jump to a question:
If AI can do more of the work, which human skills should organisations be investing in?
Which human skills will matter most over the next five years?
How can we support employee wellbeing without overwhelming our managers?
What's the difference between wellbeing initiatives and creating a psychologically safe culture?
How do we create a culture where people actually ask for help?
How do we build workplaces that support every brain and every generation?
How do we know if our wellbeing strategy is actually working?
What should organisations be investing in now to prepare for the future of workplace wellbeing?
If AI can do more of the work, which human skills should organisations be investing in?
When leaders talk to me about AI, the conversation often starts with productivity.
How can we work faster?
What can we automate?
Which tasks can AI take off people's plates?
Do we need to reduce our workforce because AI can do the work now?
Those are important questions, but I think there's another conversation we need to have alongside them: what might AI be changing about the way we think and work?
The more we rely on technology, the easier it becomes to move from one task to the next without ever stopping to think deeply or sit with our thoughts. We switch between emails, Teams messages, meetings, notifications and AI-generated answers at a pace we've never experienced before.
Over time, this constant switching can affect our attention, creativity, decision-making and our ability to produce work with precision. It becomes even harder to notice when we're feeling overwhelmed, easier to accept the first answer we're given and more difficult to create the space needed for reflection, innovation and good judgement.
That's why I believe the more AI we use, the more we need interoception.
Developing interoceptive awareness can help us recognise emotions, stress signals and physical sensations, giving us greater awareness of when we're becoming overloaded or when something doesn't feel quite right. That awareness can help us make decisions that combine evidence with our own experience and human judgement rather than automatically outsourcing every answer to technology or an AI bot.
What can organisations do?
Create opportunities for employees to develop self-awareness and critical thinking as they use AI. Focus training using interoception techniques can help people develop the awareness and discernment needed to pause, think and make better decisions.
Which human skills will matter most over the next five years?
This question is closely connected to AI, but I think it deserves to stand on its own. If technology continues to change the way tasks are completed in the workplace, then organisations need to think carefully about the capabilities they develop alongside those technical skills.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that employers expect a significant proportion of workers' core skills to change by 2030. Analytical thinking remains one of the most important skills identified by employers, alongside resilience and adaptability, flexibility and agility, leadership and social influence, creative thinking, motivation and self-awareness.
If you’ve noticed, many of those capabilities are human.
Curiosity is particularly important. As AI makes information increasingly accessible, knowing the answer becomes less valuable than knowing which questions to ask. Curiosity can be the turning point behind an idea that makes a real difference to an organisation. It means challenging traditional ways of thinking and allowing our minds to wander for a moment.
Critical thinking matters because we need people who can assess information rather than simply accept the first answer presented to them. Resilience and adaptability matter because the pace of change isn't slowing down and we need to be able to move with it instead of against it.
I'd also put compassionate leadership firmly within this conversation. Compassion doesn't mean lowering standards or removing difficult conversations from the workplace. It means understanding the person in front of you well enough to lead them effectively.
And importantly, compassionate leadership isn’t just about how an individual manager behaves, compassionate leadership is about creating a whole organisational culture where people can feel supported while still being challenged, held accountable and encouraged to perform at their best.
What can organisations do?
Invest in the human skills that will become increasingly valuable as technology develops, including resilience, adaptability, curiosity, emotional intelligence and compassionate leadership. This is where practical skills-based training can complement technical upskilling.
How can we support employee wellbeing without overwhelming our managers?
This is one of the questions I hear most often, and I think it reflects a genuine tension in today's workplace. Managers are increasingly expected to juggle multiple responsibilities, yet many have never received the training or support to feel confident doing those things.
I've heard managers describe the feeling as, "Oh great, I have to deal with this now." They're worried about saying the wrong thing, making the situation worse or somehow becoming responsible for solving or not solving someone's mental health challenges.
Managers don't need to become therapists, and they don't need to diagnose or solve someone's problems. What they do need is the confidence to recognise when something has changed, have a compassionate conversation, understand the boundaries of their role, and know when and how to signpost someone towards appropriate support.
It also means knowing how to respond if a situation becomes more serious and understanding when additional support is needed.
This is exactly why manager capability needs to sit at the heart of a workplace wellbeing strategy. We can't keep asking managers to carry more responsibility for employee wellbeing without giving them the skills, confidence and boundaries to do it well.
This is the thinking and methodology behind i-act for Managers, which gives managers practical, accredited (by the Royal College of Psychiatrists), evidence-based tools to recognise early signs of poor mental health, start supportive conversations and understand when further support may be needed.
What can organisations do?
Equip managers with practical, evidence-based mental health training so they can recognise early signs, have compassionate conversations, understand their boundaries and signpost appropriately with confidence.
What's the difference between wellbeing initiatives and creating a psychologically safe culture?
Policies are everywhere. Psychological safety isn't.
I've worked with organisations that have excellent policies, wellbeing champions, EAPs, awareness campaigns and beautifully designed wellbeing resources. All of these can have an important role to play, and they do have a place, but having them doesn't automatically mean people will use them or that the wellbeing strategy is complete.
The real question is whether people feel safe enough to ask for help.
Do they feel comfortable telling their manager they're struggling?
Can they admit they don't understand something?
Can they challenge a decision or say that a workload isn't manageable?
Can they say, "I'm not coping right now," without worrying about how that might affect their reputation or career opportunities?
That's the difference between having a wellbeing initiative or strategy and creating a psychologically safe culture.
A wellbeing week can raise awareness and bring people together, and a policy can set expectations and firm foundations. An EAP can provide valuable support and a place to turn to.
Culture is created through everyday behaviour and the intentional ways we communicate, connect and respond.
Psychological safety is about creating an environment where people feel safe enough to speak up and ask for help, whilst also having the confidence to challenge without any repercussions. When people feel safe enough to contribute in any way, organisations are more likely to benefit from their ideas and innovation.
What can organisations do?
Move beyond awareness campaigns and develop the leadership behaviours that create psychological safety. Training managers to listen, communicate with empathy and respond appropriately can help turn a wellbeing strategy into everyday practice.
How do we create a culture where people actually ask for help?
It's one thing to say that your organisation encourages people to ask for help. It's another to create a culture where people genuinely feel able to do it.
People don't become comfortable asking for support because an organisation publishes a policy telling them they can.
They watch and listen to what happens when other people do it. They might even ask colleagues for their insight and experience.
They notice how leaders respond.
They listen to the language managers use and remember whether previous conversations were met with empathy or judgement.
A manager saying, "You don't have to have this figured out on your own," can make a difference. So can asking, "What would help right now?" and being prepared to listen to the answer rather than immediately offering a solution.
These conversations don't require managers to have specialist clinical knowledge. That's particularly important to remember when someone may be experiencing anxiety, burnout, menopause symptoms, grief, caring responsibilities or something happening entirely outside of work. We may never know the full story behind what someone is experiencing behind closed doors.
This is why I see psychological safety as something that needs to be demonstrated consistently rather than declared through a policy. That brings us back to leadership. Creating a culture where people ask for help isn't another initiative for HR to roll out. It's something that is built through thousands of everyday interactions and should be championed through every chain of command in an organisation.
What can organisations do?
Give managers and employees the skills and language to talk about mental health before problems escalate. Psychoeducational training can help make conversations about mental health more familiar and more productive.
How do we build workplaces that support every brain and every generation?
One of the biggest mistakes we can make when thinking about workplace wellbeing is assuming that everyone should experience work in the same way. They don't.
Different generations can have different expectations around communication, flexibility, development and leadership. Neurodivergent employees may process information, communicate or experience their environment differently. People at different stages of life can have completely different responsibilities and pressures outside work.
This doesn't mean organisations need to create a separate policy for every individual.
Instead, it means looking at workplace wellbeing support in a holistic way. That might mean considering different communication styles, offering flexibility where possible or thinking about how the physical and social environment affects different people. It might mean recognising that a younger employee and a more experienced colleague may have different needs without making assumptions about either of them.
How do we improve wellbeing without reducing performance?
The healthiest organisations don't choose between wellbeing and performance. They understand that sustainable performance depends on people's wellbeing and investing in that, means they invest in the future of their business too.
You can't continually operate people at maximum capacity and expect them to remain creative, engaged and productive indefinitely. Sustainable performance requires moments of recovery, manageable pressure, supportive leadership and a healthy workplace culture.
Improving wellbeing starts with a strategic approach:
Ask employees how manageable their workload feels.
Ask whether they feel they have enough time and resources to do their job well.
Ask what is creating the most pressure in their working day.
Ask whether they feel comfortable raising concerns when their workload becomes unmanageable.
Ask managers whether they feel equipped to recognise and respond to early signs of stress or burnout.
Ask employees whether the wellbeing support available to them is actually useful.
For organisations, these aren't simply wellbeing questions with zero outcome. They're business questions. Declining performance, disengagement, absence and employee turnover all have an organisational impact, which means investing in wellbeing shouldn't be viewed as something separate from performance.
What can organisations do?
Start with prevention. Ask employees how manageable their workloads feel, where they're experiencing the greatest pressure and whether they have the resources they need to do their jobs well, then equip managers to respond before those pressures become burnout.
Do we really need a Menopause Action Plan?
Organisations are recognising that menopause needs to be part of the wider conversation around women's health and workplace wellbeing. Not because of the legislation for action plans, but because they’re noticing the impact menopause has on some of their most skilled and valued employees.
However, I'm encouraging employers to think beyond the action plan itself.
For organisations with 250 or more employees, menopause is also becoming a more significant strategic consideration as employers prepare for the planned requirements around gender pay gap action plans from 2027. But compliance shouldn't be the only reason an organisation thinks about menopause.
Menopause can affect concentration, sleep, confidence, anxiety, physical comfort and overall wellbeing, and those experiences can have implications for how someone experiences their working life. CIPD research has also highlighted the potential impact on retention and career progression, making this much more than a niche wellbeing issue.
For me, menopause support is ultimately about creating the conditions where women can remain, progress and perform at work without feeling that they have to hide what they're experiencing or leave the workplace altogether.
That means managers need to feel comfortable having conversations that may once have been considered too personal or taboo to discuss at work.
A Menopause Action Plan can be an important starting point, but a document on its own doesn't create change. The real impact comes from what happens afterwards: how managers behave, how teams respond and whether women actually experience a more supportive workplace.
What can organisations do?
Don't stop at the document or policy. Combine menopause action planning with practical education and manager training, so people understand what menopause can mean at work and managers feel confident supporting conversations and appropriate adjustments.
What should organisations be investing in now to prepare for the future of workplace wellbeing?
If there's one thing I'd like leaders to take away from these ten questions, it's that the future of workplace wellbeing isn't about simply doing more. It's about doing what matters.
It would be easy to respond to every new challenge with another initiative, another webinar or another policy. But I don't think organisations need an ever-growing list of wellbeing activities. They need to invest in the foundations that allow people and organisations to adapt.
That means investing in prevention rather than waiting for burnout or crisis. It means equipping managers rather than continually adding responsibilities without giving them the skills to meet them. It means creating psychological safety rather than assuming people will speak up simply because a policy says they can.
It also means investing in the human skills that technology can't replace, developing inclusive leadership and recognising that different people will need different forms of support.
Workplace wellbeing needs to become part of how organisations work, rather than something that sits alongside the business strategy or being an employment perk. It should influence how managers lead, how teams communicate, how people are supported and how decisions are made.
The organisations that prepare well for the future won't necessarily be the ones with the longest list of wellbeing initiatives. They'll be the ones that understand their people, equip their leaders and create the conditions for sustainable performance.
Could your workplace wellbeing strategy do more?
If you're reviewing your workplace wellbeing strategy, planning for the year ahead or simply wondering whether your current approach is preparing your people for the future of work, I'd love to have a conversation.