This Quarter’s 5 Topics

Around half of us can expect to develop a mental health condition by the age of 75, and for many it first shows up by our early twenties¹. Right now, more than one in five UK workers (22%), around 7.2 million people, have poor mental health, the highest level since the data series began in 2009². So the question people are quietly asking isn’t really “does my employer care?”. It’s “if it’s me next, will I actually be looked after?”

On the first question, the answer is getting better. 69% of Gen Z and millennials globally now feel their employer takes mental health seriously, up 14 to 15 points since 2024, and 72% are confident their manager wouldn’t discriminate against them for raising it³. So for most, it now feels safe to speak up.

The support behind it is patchier. 71% of Gen Z say they’ve needed time off because of stress, yet only 41% took it, and one in five of those gave their employer a different reason³. Only up to a quarter say they consistently see managers helping them set boundaries or supporting their wellbeing³. In the UK, of workers who did take time off for stress, 27% got no support when they came back⁴, and only 29% of organisations train managers to support mental health⁵.

And here’s the bit that matters most for our EVPs. When UK talent tell us what they want from an employer, work-life balance comes first (64%), and it’s also the top reason they leave (43%). But what makes that balance, in their eyes, is the work itself: a good working environment and flexible arrangements come first, with wellbeing support playing a supporting role⁶. People aren’t asking for more programmes (lovely as some of them are). They’re asking for work they can actually sustain.

In the EVP itself, that means hard proof points rather than a statement of how much we care. Say what actually happens when someone needs time off and comes back, how managers are trained to support them, and what flexibility looks like day to day, because talent tell us a good working environment and flexible arrangements are what make balance work. And remember that an EVP faces inwards too. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard people in focus groups say they had no idea what support was in place for them, and were pleasantly surprised when they found out. The best provision in the world can’t help anyone who doesn’t know it’s there.

Money is on a lot of minds right now, and it doesn’t stay at home. Money worries are the second biggest thing outside work adding to people’s stress, behind only poor sleep: 48% of UK adults say so, rising to 65% of 18 to 34s. For younger workers it follows them into work too, with 51% of 18 to 24s saying the extra paid hours, or work with another employer, they’ve taken on because of the cost of living have caused them stress⁴.

And that stress has a cost; one in five UK workers needed time off in the last year because of poor mental health caused by pressure or stress, rising to 39% of 18 to 24s⁴. Money isn’t the only pressure behind that, but it’s one of the biggest people are carrying. So if we’re not thinking about financial wellbeing, we’re missing part of what sits behind our absence figures, not just our pay reviews.

It shapes whether people join and stay, too. UK talent rank salary and benefits second only to work-life balance (58% against 64%), it’s the second biggest reason they leave (36%), and it’s where current employers fall furthest short of expectations. When people are forced to choose, pay comes first, which Randstad (and I tend to agree) reads as financial security taking precedence. Reliable pay, they say, is the foundation of feeling secure at work⁶.

So what do people actually want from us? One financial wellbeing provider’s UK research found 66% wish they could build up savings automatically from their salary, and 48% would move to another employer for better financial support⁹.

That first ask is exactly what some household names are now working on. In June, Co-op, Next and Travelodge were among the UK employers behind a new National Coalition for Workplace Savings, welcomed by the Treasury, to widen access to schemes that let people set aside small, regular amounts from their pay to cover emergency costs¹⁰. It’s practical, it shows up every payday, and it’s what people say they want.

Yet financial wellbeing still features in fewer organisations’ wellbeing activity than mental health does (68% against 89%)⁵. Deloitte’s advice to employers is to talk about financial pressure openly rather than leaving people to manage it quietly³.

Ask people what would make them walk, and flexibility is right at the top. If hybrid or remote workers lost their flexibility, 43% would start looking for another job, and 39% of UK workers would take a pay cut of 10% or more for flexible hours¹¹.

But many feel the rules have shifted from delivering to being seen. 73% believe return-to-office policies are driven by leadership oversight and visibility, and people are adapting: 38% of hybrid workers say they ‘coffee badge’, going in just to show their face for a few hours, and 30% of workers choose their office days to be seen by leaders or clients¹¹. A couple of years ago, 6 in 10 UK workers already thought being physically present improved their chances of promotion, rising to 69% of Gen Z¹².

Yet the evidence on homeworking is far kinder than the visibility instinct suggests, and it points the same way in very different workplaces. Here in the UK, organisations with people working from home are twice as likely to say it has increased productivity as decreased it (33% against 16%), and 36% say it has cut sickness absence⁵. A six-month randomised trial of 1,612 employees at Trip.com in China found the same: working from home two days a week cut quit rates by a third, with no difference in performance reviews or promotions over the following two years, and managers who’d expected productivity to fall changed their minds once they’d seen it¹³. So it’s fair to ask what all that visibility is really for.

And the watching isn’t only in person. 59% of UK workers believe their employer is monitoring their activity, from log-in times to mouse movements, 38% count it among their top concerns at work, and 82% think employers should be legally required to say when they’re doing it¹¹. It doesn’t even buy what it promises: a meta-analysis of 70 samples found electronic monitoring had no relationship with performance at all¹⁴.

Candidates aren’t anti-AI, but just 2% of UK candidates say they’re comfortable with AI in hiring as it stands¹⁵. 28% of UK candidates say they’re less likely to apply where AI screening is used¹⁶, and 29% of UK jobseekers would drop out of a process over perceived overuse of AI¹⁷. In the US, 38% have already walked away from a process because it included an AI interview¹⁵.

Part of the problem is being kept in the dark. Only 13% of UK candidates were clearly told AI would be used before their most recent AI interview, 42% of those who completed one never heard back, and UK candidates came away net 20 points more negative about the employer brand¹⁵. Ghosting was a problem long before AI, with only 38% of UK candidates hearing back from more than half the employers they apply to, but AI interviews are adding to it: the UK now has the worst post-interview ghosting rate of any market surveyed¹⁵. And the trust runs both ways: 51% of UK jobseekers use AI to tailor their CVs¹⁷, while of the 35% of employers who try to monitor that, three quarters have rejected candidates for it¹⁸.

The law expects openness too. Since February, UK organisations can make solely automated decisions more easily, as long as people are told, can challenge the decision and can ask for a human¹⁹. When the ICO spoke to 37 employers likely to be using automated recruitment tools, it found 16 were probably making solely automated decisions, often without realising, and all 16 have agreed to act¹⁹.

First, a quick recap of how we got here. In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order describing DEI as “an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system”. It revoked the 60-year-old equal employment order for federal contractors, required contractors to certify they run no DEI programmes that break anti-discrimination law, tied that certification to the False Claims Act, and told each federal agency to identify up to nine potential investigations of publicly traded companies and other large organisations²⁰. That threat has since become real money. IBM paid $17 million in April, Deloitte $21.5 million in August and Accenture $25 million in September, each to settle allegations that it used race- or sex-based goals or programmes while certifying compliance, though the Justice Department notes these are allegations only, with no determination of liability^21,22,23.

Many companies had already started going quiet. Two weeks before the order, McDonald’s retired its aspirational representation goals, paused external surveys and renamed its diversity team the Global Inclusion Team, while calling its commitment to inclusion “steadfast”²⁴. Across large US companies, the space given to DEI in sustainability reports shrank 53%²⁵. Not everyone followed: in January 2025, Costco shareholders rejected a proposal asking it to report on the risks of keeping its DEI work, with 98% of votes cast against²⁶. And attitudes have moved too. Earlier in the summer, Gallup reported that US support for same-sex marriage has fallen from a peak of 71% to 65%, driven by Republicans (down from 55% to 37%), and noted the decline has come as conservative leaders have pushed back against DEI programmes²⁷.

Talent here haven’t gone quiet on inclusion, though. 68% of UK workers say a company’s approach to DEI matters when they’re considering a new employer, nearly 60% would consider leaving if their employer rolled its commitments back, and only 3% want their employer to scale back, while 45% want it to go further²⁸. Equal opportunities is one of the five things UK talent look for most in an employer (53%), and more so for women (58% against 48% of men)⁶. And globally, around 40% of Gen Z and millennials have turned down a potential employer on the grounds of their own ethics or beliefs³.

The good news is that UK employers mostly haven’t walked away from it. In the same review, DEI coverage shrank just 11% in the UK sample, 70% of the UK companies still declare diversity targets, and nine of the 20 kept or grew their coverage²⁵. What changed is the language: “diversity” is disappearing from headings and “merit” is on the rise²⁵.

But the outcomes people are judging us on haven’t caught up. Ethnic minorities hold a record 20% of FTSE 100 board seats but just 11% of senior management roles²⁹, and last week the CMI found more than four in five UK managers can’t rule out gender bias affecting young women’s promotions, with male managers almost twice as likely as female managers to say opportunities are equal (44% against 24%)³⁰.

If you’d like to go further on where AI and inclusion meet, I dug into it in my Edition 1 deep dive.