North East based business develops innovative solution to get ahead of mental health concerns in the workplace

The importance of maintaining good mental health in the workplace has been well publicised with employers increasingly investing time and money into supporting their workforce and making efforts to reduce the stigma attached to asking for help. Looking to completely change the current detection and support model, Opine Group (T/A Dittolo), based in Newcastle, are developing a new, innovative solution to support businesses and their employees to track, manage and mitigate the impact of mental health.

Dittolo, set up by brothers Duncan and Guy, was itself born out of adversity when, like so many others, they found their own lives severely impacted by the global pandemic after both of their careers ended unexpectedly as a result. Having a shared lived experience helped them get through the challenging times together and connected the brothers with a common purpose, embarking on a mission to make organisations great places to work and to stop problems escalating to the point where people are struggling.

Duncan Robertson, co-founder and COO said “The pandemic had such an effect on everyone’s lives, and like so many others, it had a huge impact on our mental health. The experience led us to research the wider mental health crisis and we uncovered some staggering and worrying statistics. Mental health is now estimated to cost the UK economy over £56bn every year, according to a Deloitte report. This has increased by more than 26% since 2019. We needed to understand why, with all the time and money being invested into supporting employees, the costs continue to escalate for employers and employees are not getting the support they need. We found that most support initiatives are simply too re-active. They only kick in when someone is brave enough to come forward to seek help. Unfortunately, by this time, it’s too late, it’s already had an impact on the individual and the businesses bottom line. The only way to have a meaningful effect on reducing the impact of mental health, is to develop proactive and preventative solutions.”

Despite good intentions, it can be difficult for employers to know what their employees need and there are a variety of reasons why an individual may choose not to disclose details about their mental health. Dittolo currently supports organisations by giving them much needed visibility of the current state of mental health, however, continued development of the Dittolo solution will provide organisations with early warning signs of potential risk enabling organisations to act quicker and implement preventative intervention earlier to ensure individuals get the support they need before it has an impact.

In order to get to this point, Dittolo have received support from the Rural Design Centre Innovation Project, which is set up to help local businesses develop new products and services in response to community concerns.

The Rural Design Centre Innovation Project (RDCIP) is part-funded by the North of Tyne Combined Authority and part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The project is aimed at providing support to North of Tyne based businesses to encourage the launch of new products or services in rural areas and by rurally based businesses.

Liz Gray, Senior Innovation Manager of the Rural Design Centre Innovation Project explains: “Most workplaces have schemes in place which help with employee wellbeing offering various support tools, but Dittolo goes beyond these, and puts the employees at the centre. It could become the gateway to a self-care toolkit and support mechanism. Being able to then feed-back this information to the employer once it has been aggregated means that there is no longer the need for mental health questions on employee surveys, or the need to speak to line managers. The opportunity to share best practice with other employers in the industry is massive too.”

Dittolo continues to work through the development stages, taking it beyond their current minimum viable product to the next level of providing insights to promote proactive and preventative measures.

To find out more about Dittolo and the App visit - https://www.dittolo.com/