We are delighted that Matt will be speaking in New York as part of our US summit. We caught up with him to see how he’s feeling in the runup to the event.
Hi Matt, we are thrilled that you will be speaking at the Wellbeing at Work US Summit in March. Our first and most important question is, how are you doing today??
Just coming off our 2025 Company Kick-off, I’m feeling grateful, energized, and optimistic. I’m also very tired from a redeye back home to see the kids off to school in the morning after being away for 3 days.
As a leader based in the region, what are the main challenges you are facing when it comes to employee wellbeing and mental health?
There are four different challenges we face:
- Awareness – for individuals, it’s about being aware of what your personal challenges are and being more “in-tune” with what’s going on in your own world/body. Similarly, from the organizational/leader perspective, it’s not being fully aware of the diverse needs of the workforce and how to support them as individuals. Lastly, even when employees know where they are, they might not be fully aware of the benefits that are available to them as employees.
- Accountability – leaders being more accountable for the impact they have on their employee’s wellbeing and making the right changes to create an environment to support positive wellbeing.
- Access – specifically when it comes to mental health, there still isn’t enough access for employees to get care in a timely manner, making current conditions in a negative way.
- Affordability – for both care of chronic physical & mental health conditions, care is costly. Pushing off care to a time when it’s more affordable can have compounding negative impact on the conditions.
What strategies have you seen developing over the past 6 months, both internally and externally, that are moving the dial on wellbeing in the workplace?
- Finding better ways to facilitate “employee listening” into the experience to truly understand the individuals’ needs of everyone in the organization(s).
- Shifting away from the traditional generic “monthly health observances” to more focused, extended communication campaigns designed for action.
- Developing leaders and managers to be better coaches to their employees through dedicated training and upskilling
- Expanding the definition of wellbeing to be more holistic and personalized for everyone.
Why is employee wellbeing so important to you personally?
I struggled with wellbeing, specifically mental wellbeing in my college years. Without a clear sense of purpose or direction, I struggled and was not able to finish my freshman year. After a year off, I was able to go back and found guidance in a professor who directed me to Exercise Science as a major. Understanding how exercise and physical activity can influence mental health and change your physiology effectively changed my entire life. After graduating I found myself in a role as a health & fitness specialist at multinational financial/consulting firm, working with their employees at an onsite gym. I quickly realized that even though they put in time and effort to exercise, the conditions of their work environment wouldn’t allow them to progress and improve their personal wellbeing in unison with their professional development. I saw my struggles in them, and wanted to do more to help, which led me down the path of workplace wellbeing.
What impact is AI having in your organization and how are you managing that?
I believe AI is having a positive impact on our organization, both from an internal and external perspective. We’ve adopted some tools to help employees with their day-to-day task while reducing workload; while also exploring ways we can implement AI in our product to better promote and guide employees to the right resources and producing greater results for the individual and organization. By leveraging AI responsibly, we analyse complex data patterns to deliver hyper-personalized content aligned with user interests, behaviors, and readiness levels.
Other than AI, are there any challenges that you are seeing for the first time and how are you addressing them?
I don’t think there are any other “first time challenges” – I think most of the challenges we are seeing are iterations on previous challenges. Things like:
- Return to office mandates and flexible work arrangements
- Needs for additional support for caregivers of both aging parents and new parents
- Sustainability
- Environmental impacts on physical & mental health
- Changes in legislation and how that impacts things like healthcare
What areas do you think employers should be focused on over the next 12 months?
- We continue to see employers investing in different benefits or point solutions in the marketplace to address specific, niche challenges. Yet, utilization of the benefits/solutions isn’t great enough to drive meaningful change, causing employers and HR professionals to “rethink” how they adjust their strategies or even worse, if they should continue to invest in wellbeing. I believe the focus should be on communication strategies to help increase awareness of the solutions employers are investing in, as well as investing in technology or solutions that drive employees to the right and relevant resources.
- Employers should be focusing on coaching employees and upskilling managers to be better leaders.
- Embedding a culture of wellbeing and tying their wellness/wellbeing program metrics to the greater business initiatives and outcomes.
- Focus on building a more robust definition of wellbeing and looking at it more holistically, supporting employees through the entire employee experience as well as the full human lifecycle/experience.
Do you feel that investment in employee wellbeing in the region is increasing or decreasing and is that a direct reflection on HR leaders’ increasing ability to demonstrate effective returns of their strategies to leadership?
Most of the industry reports and surveys are suggesting that they’re increasing or will be increasing in 2025/26 after there wasn’t many changes in investments in 2024. As technology evolves and data becomes more readily available, we can show how wellbeing strategies can impact the bottom line of an organization.
How has your organization been leading the way?
Navigate does a great job of leading by example and demonstrating our company values to our clients in how we show up each day. We are focused on a positive message with a mission to empower our clients and other organization to show them how to make wellbeing work despite the negative headlines of “wellness not working” or using fear to drive action. We are actively putting more thought leadership out in the market and provide resources or materials to employers who need better guidance. We stay up to date on industry trends and explore the best ways to evolve our solutions to better service the needs of our customers/clients. We are leaning greatly into personalization of an individual’s wellbeing journey based on their readiness to change rather than a “generic” approach.
Matt will be speaking in New York at the Wellbeing at Work Summit US which takes place in New York, Austin Texas and virtually. Further details on the Summit can be found here.
