The Smart Way to Beat Stress at Work

Project Information

SOMA

Grant agreement ID: 725832

DOI

10.3030/725832

Project closed

EC signature date 26 July 2016

Start date 1 August 2016

End date 31 August 2018

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Health, demographic change and well-being

Total cost

€ 2 692 472,50

EU contribution

€ 1 884 730,75

Coordinated by

SOMA ANALYTICS UG (HAFTUNGSBESCHRANKT)
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SOMA (The Smart Way to Beat Stress at Work)

Reporting period: 2017-08-01 to 2018-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Work-related psychosocial risks and stress, together with their associated negative health and business outcomes, affect a large number of European workplaces. Prolonged stress can lead to burnout and ultimately depression.
In 2013, the costs of work-related stress and depression in the EU-27 was estimated to be €617 billion annually , taking in account costs to employers resulting from absenteeism (€272 billion), loss of productivity (€242 billion), healthcare costs (€63 billion) and social welfare costs (€39 billion).
The project focuses on the early detection and prevention of work-related psychological stress resulting in negative health outcomes, such as burnout or depression.
Soma Analytics has developed a comprehensive smartphone-based system supporting mental resilience via the real-time monitoring of known stress biomarkers. The solution includes a diagnostic module (smartphone sensors use to gather and analyse stress biomarkers), an interventional module (smartphone apps used to reduce stress levels) and an analytics module (anonymous data aggregation used to identify specific HR issues such as abnormal stress levels in specific departments).
In the project Soma has validated the effectiveness of the solution in reducing stress and improving wellbeing in a large-scale multi-centre randomised controlled trial with over 1000 employees in 7 organisations in 3 European countries. The study is the largest RCT to date to investigate the effectiveness of a smartphone-based solution to prevent and manage stress at work.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

On their mission to “beat stress at work” Soma has made great progress in developing its stress prevention and management solution further and validating the solution in the largest of its kind randomised controlled trial - while creating a community of health, wellbeing and HR innovators, thought leaders and policy stakeholders.
Users benefit from a new and more user-friendly interface, increased usability, improved accuracy for the stress detection feature and an improved daily session journey resulting in a more engaging user experience that now also crosses over to the web.
Organisations benefit from extended analytics capabilities using the latest business intelligence software as well as new security and privacy features in the light of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
This new and improved solution has been validated in the largest randomised controlled trial (RCT) to date examining the effectiveness of a smartphone-based solution to manage and prevent stress and promote good mental health at work. In a naturalistic setting Soma’s solution was effective in reducing stress, improving wellbeing, increasing resilience and decreasing sleeping troubles relative to waitlist control.
The solution has also impacted hard business outcome measures. HSCNI BSO saw a decrease of 5,000 hours in mental health related absence since the introduction of Soma’s app, compared to the year before.
It takes two to successfully prevent stress and mental ill-health in the workplace – a new solution and innovative early adopters. Soma has gathered an HR innovators’ network comprising some of the most advanced and forward-thinking companies and organisations in the area of employee health and wellbeing. We have engaged with early adopters, thought leaders and policy stakeholders on different levels:
• Our series of HR innovator networking events featured distinguished experts such as Dr David Cox, Prof Adrian Williams, Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, Tom Beaumont, Karl Simons, David Beeney, Geoff McDonald, Heather Kelly, Juliet Adams, Dr Patrick Jordan and the event was rated 9.4 out of 10 for highly likely to recommend the event.
• For our new “Innovation in Health & Wellbeing” video webinar series we invited established thought leaders in applied mindfulness, sports psychology, happiness, acceptance and commitment therapy, emotions at work, corporate social responsibility, experts from the Health and Safety Executive and policy makers from the UK government’s Work and Health unit.
• We participated in UK government roundtables and workshops with Lord Stevenson, Paul Farmer (CEO Mind) and Prof Chris Whitty (UK Government Office for Science).
• We exhibited our solution at various industry events in the UK and Europe and gave key note speeches to promote awareness for mental wellbeing and health at work.
In addition we are proud to announce that this project was featured in an article in the Financial Times (“Smartphone app on track to monitor staff stress and mental health”, October 2016) and that we won the “HR Innovator 2017” award at the HR Director’s Summit in Birmingham.
In our FTSE 100 report we used the innovative methodology of semantic analysis and applied it to 20,000 pages of annual reports of FTSE 100 companies. The efforts showed that organisations that mention wellbeing in their annual reports show higher profitability. As a result Soma was featured in The Telegraph, BBC, City AM, and various online and industry publications.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Soma’s Kelaa Mental Resilience app is the only available smartphone-based, corporate stress management and prevention solution that has been tested applying the ‘gold standard’ in medicine – a randomised controlled trial. As a result the project has created high quality, scientific evidence for addressing a common and costly societal problem:
In 2013, the costs of work-related stress and depression in the EU-27 was estimated to be €617 billion annually , taking in account costs to employers resulting from absenteeism (€272 billion), loss of productivity (€242 billion), healthcare costs (€63 billion) and social welfare costs (€39 billion).
Soma’s approach to prevent stress and promote good mental health at work is unique in several ways:
• Evidence based: I this project we have demonstrated the effectiveness of the solution in reducing stress and promoting good mental health.
• Scalable and cost-effective: The solution leverages the ubiquity of smartphones and can be easily rolled-out across an organisation, resulting in cost savings related to absenteeism and presenteeism.
• Personal: Soma’s psychological interventions are personalised and take the user on a micro-learning journey. A wide variety of topics available in Soma’s database of interventions.

Expected Socio-Economic Impacts
As a result of the project Soma expects the following potential socio-economic impacts:
• Enhancing profitability and growth performance of SMEs
Soma was able to recruit employees including software developers, designers, psychologists and business developers with European backgrounds. At the same time Soma is educating and advancing the new and fast growing corporate health and wellbeing market directly benefitting other SMEs and small businesses that operate in this niche.
• Market uptake and distribution of innovations
As a result of the trial a large number of employees and employers have benefitted already from Soma’s solution in the context of early adopter pilots.
• Sustainability of health care systems
Soma’s solution aims to impact the cost of stress and mental ill-health to employers in form of presenteesim (lost productivity), absenteeism (short and long-term sickness absence) and staff turnover as a result of bad mental health. At the same time the project aims to alleviate the associated costs for healthcare systems more generally.

HR innovator award

SOMA corporate image