FRESH FEED

Workplace wellbeing has become a bigger conversation in recent years and rightly so. Organisations are more aware than ever of the impact stress, burnout, poor mental health and disconnection can have on people and performance. However, despite the increase in wellbeing initiatives, many employees still don’t feel well supported. Let’s be honest a wellbeing strategy isn’t simply about offering benefits, awareness days or wellbeing perks. Whilst those things may have value, they don’t automatically create environments where people feel psychologically safe, supported or able to function sustainably and this is where many organisations find themselves stuck. The intention is there, the investment is there, but the lived experience of work often tells a different story as highlighted in the Mental Health UK annual Report 2026. https://mhukcdn.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/15144951/Mental-Health-UK_The-Burnout-Report-2026-final.pdf Why Wellbeing Strategies Often Fall Short Many wellbeing strategies focus on visible interventions mental health apps, wellness sessions, resilience workshops, EAPs, awareness campaigns. Wellbeing is shaped just as much by the everyday experience of work itself, how pressure is managed, how people are spoken to, how mistakes are handled, whether boundaries are respected and whether support feels safe to access without judgement or consequence. Without addressing these underlying dynamics, wellbeing strategies can unintentionally become reactive rather than preventative. Support is offered once people are already overwhelmed, disengaged or struggling. Increasingly people can tell the difference between wellbeing that is embedded into culture and wellbeing that sits separately from it. A sustainable strategy has to go deeper than surface level interventions. Psychological Safety Is Part of the Foundation One of the biggest indicators of workplace wellbeing is psychological safety, not in the overused, diluted sense of the phrase, but in its actual meaning. Psychological safety is the felt sense that people can contribute, ask questions, admit mistakes or express concerns without fear of humiliation, punishment or exclusion. It allows people to engage honestly rather than defensively. Research from Harvard Business Review highlights psychological safety as one of the strongest predictors of team effectiveness, learning and performance: https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/four-steps-to-build-the-psychological-safety-that-high-performing-teams-need-today This matters because when people don’t feel safe, performance changes. People become quieter, more guarded, less likely to challenge ideas, ask for help or admit when they are struggling. Teams can begin operating from protection rather than collaboration, which often gets labelled as disengagement, resistance or poor communication. Often, what sits underneath is something more complex, a nervous system responding to stress, uncertainty or a perceived lack of safety. The Nervous System Is Always at Work One of the missing pieces in many wellbeing conversations is nervous system awareness. We often speak about wellbeing as though people operate purely from logic and conscious choice, but human behaviour is heavily influenced by whether the nervous system perceives safety or threat. When people feel psychologically unsafe, whether through chronic stress, inconsistent leadership, conflict, unrealistic demands or fear of judgement the body responds accordingly. This can show up in different ways, including withdrawal, silence, irritability, defensiveness, overworking, perfectionism, difficulty concentrating or increased emotional reactivity. These responses are not always simply attitude or performance issues. Often, they are forms of protection shaped by stress, pressure and past experiences. In some cases, previous environments, unresolved experiences or trauma can also influence how safe someone feels and how their nervous system responds in moments of challenge, uncertainty or perceived threat. Research into Polyvagal Theory and nervous system regulation continues to demonstrate the connection between stress, safety and social engagement https://www.rccs.org.uk/post/the-polyvagal-theory-understanding-the-science-of-safety-and-connection From a trauma-informed perspective, the body adapts to environments over time, people develop ways of coping, managing or staying safe based on previous experiences and current pressures. This doesn’t mean workplaces should become therapeutic spaces, nor does every reaction stem from trauma, but understanding that people’s responses are often shaped by nervous system states, not just mindset, creates a more informed and compassionate approach to wellbeing. Why Strategy Matters More Than One-Off Support A wellbeing strategy matters because wellbeing cannot rely solely on individual effort, people cannot meditate their way out of unsustainable workloads. They cannot self-care their way through environments where communication lacks clarity, boundaries are poor, or stress is constant. This is why organisations need a strategy rather than isolated initiatives. A strong wellbeing strategy creates consistency; it helps organisations move from reactive support to proactive culture building. It embeds wellbeing into leadership, communication, workload management and team dynamics. Importantly, it also creates clarity around responsibility, managers are not therapists, nor are our colleagues mental health professionals, however, everyone plays a role in contributing to environments that feel safer, healthier and more human. That role might include recognising when someone may be struggling, knowing how to approach supportive conversations with confidence and care, encouraging access to appropriate support, understanding the boundaries and limitations of their role and contributing to a culture where people feel able to speak honestly without fear of judgement. These are all practical, learnable skills and are becoming increasingly important ones. Research from Mind also continues to highlight the importance of workplace culture, management capability, and early intervention in supporting employee mental health https://www.mind.org.uk/workplace/my-mental-health-at-work/ The Cost of Ignoring It Without a meaningful wellbeing strategy, organisations often begin to see the impact in other areas, including increased absence and burnout, higher turnover, reduced engagement, communication breakdowns, presenteeism, emotional exhaustion and growing pressure on managers and teams. Beyond the business impact, there is also a very HUMAN one! People spend a significant part of their lives at work and the environments they spend time in shape nervous system health, stress levels, confidence, connection and overall wellbeing, far more than many organisations realise. In a time where people are already carrying increasing levels of stress and uncertainty, workplace culture matters more than ever. Recent research from Gallup found that employees who feel supported in their wellbeing are significantly more engaged and less likely to experience burnout. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx  Building Something More Sustainable A sustainable wellbeing strategy isn’t about perfection, nor is it about removing all stress or discomfort from work. It’s about creating conditions where people can function well enough to think clearly, communicate openly, recover appropriately and ask for support when needed. That starts with awareness, but it also requires action. It requires organisations to look beyond performative wellbeing and ask deeper questions: What does it actually feel like to work here? Do people feel safe enough to speak honestly? Are managers equipped to support conversations confidently and appropriately? Is wellbeing embedded into culture or added as an afterthought? Wellbeing is not built through perks alone, it’s built through consistency, trust, communication, leadership, boundaries and environments that support people as humans, not just productivity. That’s not just good for people, it’s essential for sustainable organisations too. If you’d like to explore some of these ideas further, including trauma-informed approaches to workplace wellbeing and how to build more regulated, responsive environments, you can find more here www.silvanagreenfield.com

The theme for Mental Health Week 2026 is ‘Taking Action.’ This topic may feel daunting, as there are innumerable barriers to us being able to actively support mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. That’s why this week we’re focussing on easy, free things you can do now to take action for mental health. 1. Mind your language: it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. As simple as it sounds, communication is a vital step toward supporting mental health in work. Building mental health conversations into your day-to-day can help to reduce stigma and foster an environment in which everyone feels able to speak up when they need support. Perhaps you might build in time to ask people how they are more often. This is especially important in remote or hybrid environments as online meetings often miss out on valuable team-building chat that would happen naturally in an office environment. You may also want to remind people of available resources in your regular team meetings or update emails - for example, reminding people of an Employee Assistance Programme, or sharing Safe In Our World’s Helplines . 2. Do what you say you’ll do: be someone your team can trust. There are several studies that suggest one of the biggest barriers to trust in workplaces is ‘corporate hypocrisy’, or the perception that leaders in an organisation may say one thing, but do another. This loss of trust can have a massive impact on team wellbeing, so consider what you’re saying or promising to your team, and how you can follow through on that. Of course, there will always be times when plans change, projects fall through, or longer periods of uncertainty where it’s difficult to communicate openly with your team. In these instances, you can still avoid perceived hypocrisy by maintaining open lines of communication: even if the update is that there’s no update , saying that alone can be enough to dissuade anxiety caused by uncertainty. Learn more about communication in our recent blog post! 3. Start small: don’t underestimate the value of informal support. Supporting your team’s mental health can feel like a mammoth task, with so many different threads to pull at. Barriers like time and budget are extremely common in all sizes of organisation, and they can prevent companies from getting mental health support started in the first place. Health insurance or an Employee Assistance Programme might be too costly, or you might not have time to write up a comprehensive mental health policy and list of resources. But you don’t have to start with these big, formal building blocks. Many small to medium organisations in the creative sectors excel at offering ‘informal’ support - things like open communication, compassionate leadership, and flexibility can have just as positive an impact on your team’s wellbeing. There are all sorts of places you can access free support, too. Safe In Our World’s Level Up Mental Health initiative is available to any company in the global games industry, and offers a wealth of free resources, training, and support that you can access at any time. This Mental Health Week, think about the small (or big!) ways you can take action to support the mental health of your teams. Think about how you can continue these actions past this one awareness week, and build them into everyday practice. Learn more at safeinourworld.org or by emailing hello@safeinourworld.com .

The world feels LOUD right now. Between escalating global conflict, political instability, economic anxiety and the constant stream of online commentary around it all, people are carrying a lot mentally before they even log into work each morning. 

You might be checking in regularly, running stand-ups, or sharing updates across the business. But if teams are still working in silos, unclear on priorities, or pulling in different directions, something isn’t quite clicking.

Spotting Capability Issues Before They Escalate

When was the last time you had a conversation at work that genuinely changed something? Not a quick check-in or a status update. Not a “how’s everything going?” that gets a polite “yeah, all good” in return, but a real conversation where something shifted. A conversation where expectations became clearer, an issue surfaced early, or someone felt genuinely heard.

Long hours culture permeates working life across much of Asia. It takes different forms in different countries, but the pattern is consistent: people work significantly more hours than their contracts require, and the expectation to do so is baked into the culture rather than written into any policy. In China, 996, working 9am to 9pm six days a week, became the defining term for this. Japan has its own deep-rooted long hours culture, one so severe that it produced the term karoshi, death by overwork. South Korea has gwarosa, the same thing. These are the extreme outcomes. But underneath them is a general norm where people simply don't leave, don't push back, and don't question whether the hours are necessary. Governments across the region have tried to legislate against it, with varying degrees of success. China's Supreme People's Court ruled 996 schedules illegal in 2021. Some Chinese companies have gone further: DJI now sends managers round at 9pm to physically clear offices, and Midea has banned employees from staying past 6:20pm. Japan capped overtime at 45 hours per month in 2019, but PM Takaichi's "work, work, work, work, and work" pledge, named the country's buzzword of 2025, shows how far the culture still has to shift. South Korea cut its legal maximum from 68 hours a week to 52, then briefly floated raising it to 69 before public backlash killed the proposal. In Singapore, the question is whether 996 norms will take root as Chinese tech firms expand their presence there, with the Straits Times recently framing it as a cultural challenge the country is actively navigating. The Crunch Connection  For those in the games and creative industries, crunch and long hours culture run in parallel, and the relationship between them matters. Crunch is a production problem. It emerges from missed milestones, scope creep, and resourcing decisions that didn't hold up. It's still very much an issue in the industry. But it's a solvable one, because the root cause is usually traceable to planning. Long hours culture is something else. It doesn't need a deadline to exist. It's the deeper norm where staying late signals commitment and leaving on time signals the opposite, and it persists even when there's nothing urgent to deliver. The danger is that the two feed each other. In a region where overwork is already the baseline, crunch doesn't stand out as an exception. It just feels like more of the same. That makes it harder to spot, harder to push back on, and harder to end. And it doesn't stop at your own teams. A significant amount of production work in APAC is done by outsource partners, often in countries where long hours norms are strongest. Your studio might have great policies, but if your external teams are working 996 schedules to hit the same deadlines, the problem hasn't gone away. It's just been moved. What global companies can do about it For international companies and studios operating in APAC, the challenge starts with understanding how people actually experience the workplace in different countries and what the accepted norms really are. You may have great policies in Europe or North America, but without cultural awareness and the right leadership locally, they won't translate on the ground. I've seen senior leaders from global HQs tell APAC teams "it's fine to work flexibly or leave early, you have our permission," and locally, nobody takes them up on it. It just isn't culturally something people do. This is a leadership problem. Not a policy problem. And it won't be a quick fix. In many APAC markets, local leaders were themselves promoted because they worked those hours. Their entire career has reinforced the behaviour you're now asking them to change. This is generational, structural work. But it starts with three things. Change what leadership rewards. If excessive hours are treated as high performance, people will keep doing it. Stop praising it. Stop making it the story of how a project got delivered. When leaders treat overwork as a planning failure rather than a badge of honour, the signal changes fast. This is also where psychological safety lives or dies. If the most senior person in the room celebrates the all-nighter, nobody beneath them will ever say "this workload isn't sustainable." The willingness to raise that without consequence is the thing you're trying to build. Change how leaders show up. Do they send emails at midnight? Do they visibly take time off? Do they leave on time? Across most of APAC, people take their cues from the person above them. The behaviour you model is the behaviour you get. Make it part of how you assess leadership effectiveness. If your leaders aren't demonstrating sustainable work patterns, no policy or programme will compensate for that. Build recovery into the plan. For studios and production teams, this means treating the period after intense delivery with the same rigour as the delivery itself. Mandatory time off after a milestone. Reduced hours for a defined period. If crunch is sometimes unavoidable, recovery shouldn't be optional. The studios that retain people are the ones that plan for both sides of the intensity cycle, not just the sprint. Until organisations reward sustainable performance over presenteeism, this culture will continue, and people will continue to endure. References BBC News - 996 work culture spreading globally Forbes - Inside Silicon Valley's 996 Culture Business Insider - 996 Work Culture, Silicon Valley Burnout Chinese Government Statement on 996 BCG - AI at Work: Is Asia Pacific Leading the Way? The Straits Times - Will 996 Culture Take Root in Singapore? Campaign Asia - 996 Debates Continue KrASIA - DJI and Midea Making Employees Leave on Time Reuters - China Tries to Call Time on 996 Culture East Asia Forum - Japan's Workhorse Prime Minister Tests Labour Limits CNN - South Korea's 69-Hour Workweek Backlash

Every boardroom in the country is currently occupied with AI. How much can be automated, and how can it be used to increase productivity? But there’s a massive side effect no one’s really talking about. The people actually doing the work? They’re exhausted. The "human" side of leadership isn't optional anymore. It’s the only thing keeping the wheels from falling off. As AI accelerates the pace of change at work, emotional intelligence is quickly becoming one of the most important leadership capabilities organisations need. When a company announces a "new AI-driven direction," the room doesn't usually fill with cheers. It’s usually a very specific kind of silence. That’s change fatigue. People are often sitting there wondering what it all means for them - whether their role will change, whether their skills will still be needed, or whether they’ll still have a seat at the table in six months. That’s where change fatigue and uncertainty start to creep in. Logic only goes so far in a crisis. You need leaders who actually get people - leaders with the emotional intelligence to recognise what their teams are experiencing, communicate honestly and support people through uncertainty. How to Lead With Empathy If AI is changing how work gets done, leaders need to focus on a few fundamentals that technology can’t replace: If things are changing and it’s going to be bumpy, just say it. Here at Fresh Seed, we advocate that transparency is a lot better than a polished corporate script. EQ is a skill, not a personality trait. It can be developed, and in a workplace where change is happening faster than ever, supporting managers to build those skills is becoming increasingly important. Efficiency is one meter. Psychological safety is another. Organisations that focus only on the technology side of change risk losing sight of culture, engagement and psychological safety - the things that actually keep people performing and staying. If a firm doubles down on the tech but ignores the people, they aren't becoming “future-ready”. They’re just becoming a place where nobody wants to stay. AI is brilliant at answering queries, but it’s useless at spotting the things that people are too afraid to ask about in an all-hands meeting. So are your leaders giving your teams space to ask questions, and are they prepared to answer? The Reality Check At the end of the day, AI is a tool. It can support a decision, but it shouldn’t be making the final call on anything that involves an actual human connection. The organisations that will thrive are the ones that combine smart technology with leaders who know how to support, understand and connect with their people. Supporting managers to lead with emotional intelligence is something we care deeply about at Fresh Seed. Our ‘ Leading with Emotional Intelligence’ training helps managers and leaders build practical skills to communicate effectively, support their teams through change and create psychologically safe environments where people can do their best work. If you're thinking about how to equip your leaders for a changing workplace, we’d love to chat - drop us a line using the button below. 

We’ve all heard that AI is here to take the "grunt work" off our plates. But if you look at the average career trajectory of almost any senior leader, they didn't start at the top.