Could the way you lead your business be affecting its greatest competitive advantage?
If you run, manage or influence a business, the decisions you make every day are shaping the health and performance of the people who work for you, whether or not you see it.
According to the Health and Safety Executive, 964,000 workers in Great Britain were suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25. These conditions accounted for 52% of all work-related ill health and 22.1 million working days lost. In the North East, more than a quarter of working-age adults are economically inactive, the highest rate in England.
For Emily Pearson, human sustainability pioneer and founder of the County Durham-based Wellbeing Lead Academy, those numbers point to something many leaders have yet to recognise.
“Every business depends on human energy, health, judgement and capability, yet we behave as though these things are infinitely renewable. They’re not. When organisations continually take more from people than the conditions of work allow them to replenish, eventually something gives, and the business feels it too.”
Emily brings more than 25 years’ experience across mental health, health and social care and workplace wellbeing. Her perspective is also personal. While building a successful wellbeing business, she was privately navigating burnout and a three-year struggle with addiction.
“I built a business dedicated to improving people’s wellbeing, yet behind the scenes I was struggling to sustain my own. It made me look beyond the individual and ask a bigger question: what are the systems around us doing to our health, and how much of that can we influence?”
That question shaped her book, Solving a CEO’s Blind Spot: Human Sustainability. Its central argument is that responsibility for whether work sustains or depletes people sits with CEOs and boards. Workload, staffing, targets, restructures and management capability are business decisions, and they shape health, culture and performance.
“We’ve spent decades saying people are our greatest asset, yet many organisations still treat wellbeing as separate from business strategy. We measure financial performance and efficiency, but rarely ask whether the way we achieve those results is sustainable for the people delivering them.”
The financial case is hard to ignore. Deloitte estimated in 2024 that poor mental health costs UK employers £51 billion a year through absence, presenteeism and turnover, with an average return of around £4.70 for every £1 invested in supporting employee mental health.
But Emily is clear that initiatives alone will not fix it.
“You cannot expect a wellbeing programme to compensate for poor management, excessive workloads or a culture where people are afraid to speak up. We have to stop trying to make people more resilient to conditions that are making them unwell, and start addressing those conditions.”
Employers already have a legal duty to assess and manage the risk of work-related stress, yet many still respond only once people are struggling.
So where should leaders begin?
“Look at the evidence. What are your absence, turnover, overtime and grievance figures telling you? Are your managers equipped to lead people? Do employees feel psychologically safe? Are you assessing stress risks and acting on what you find? And don’t assume HR can resolve this alone. It cannot compensate for leadership decisions that create unhealthy working conditions. This has to be part of how the business is led and how success is measured.”
Through the Wellbeing Lead Academy, Emily is professionalising workplace wellbeing leadership, building the strategic capability organisations need to embed health into planning, leadership and governance.
“When people become unwell, the consequences reach families, communities, public services and the economy. Human thriving and business thriving are not competing priorities. The future belongs to leaders who understand how to achieve both.”
ABOUT THE BOOK
Solving a CEO’s Blind Spot: Human Sustainability reached No. 4 in Amazon UK’s Human Resources and Personnel Management bestseller chart in its launch week.
Written for CEOs, business owners, boards and senior leaders, it combines lived experience, business research and leadership insight to show why human sustainability must sit at the centre of business strategy.
Available now in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.
Find out more at wellbeingleadacademy.uk