Companion is a new mental health tool that has been designed to reduce work-related stress and anxiety and support businesses to create a positive company culture. The application aims to offer small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) a smart and easy solution to offering support to their workforce, whilst also helping people manage their thinking, reduce stress symptoms and proactively look after their mental wellbeing.
The app offers a range of digital therapy guides in written and audio formats, inspired by proven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). All content has been designed in a digestible, bitesize format to fit in and around the busy working day, from starting out with goal setting and breathing exercises, to offering a broad range of guides including stress and anxiety management, building a positive routine, managing change in the workplace and addressing the signs of burnout.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
After experiencing work-related stress and anxiety myself, I visited psychologist Dr. Robin Hart who introduced me to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). As a product designer, I saw how a digital product, based on CBT, could help people experiencing similar problems.
Robin and I worked together to design Companion to positively impact working culture as we know it and encourage businesses to deliver a duty of care and develop a culture of wellbeing and high performance. I am also aware that it is sometimes harder for smaller businesses to offer mental health support to employees, so I wanted to create a tech tool that could be easily adopted, customised and offers employees the practical advice they need to perform at their best.
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How has the company evolved during the pandemic?
Companion has evolved over the last year, not in direct response to the pandemic but the side effects of the global pandemic on our mental health, which has helped shape the content we have created for our users. Work-related stress and anxiety has more than doubled since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, so we have looked at how we can best support our users with relevant digital therapy guides, from managing work in isolation, to juggling work/life balance at home to understanding and managing work burnout.
What can we hope to see from Companion in the future?
We hope to see Companion rolled out across SMEs nationwide, offering an expansive library of practical guides and content to help positively impact workplace culture. We want to be a part of the movement that opens up conversations on mental health in a working environment and be seen as the solution to offer support to both businesses and the individual.
