Mental Health Awareness Week: Taking control of workplace wellbeing
May 15, 2026
This week marks Mental Health Awareness Week across the UK, with this year’s theme focusing on ‘Action’ – taking action to support your own mental health and that of those around you. With 22.1 million UK working days lost to work-related stress and anxiety last year (Health and Safety Executive), prioritising workplace wellbeing is an essential for all business owners and employees.
NHS and ONS statistics also show that over the last three decades, the share of adults reporting common mental health conditions has climbed from around 15% in 1993 to 22% in 2024, with this rise highlighting the prevalence of why understanding and support are so important.
On the last ‘Female Founders’ series of our podcast, OxTalks, mental health expert and Founder of ‘The Missing Link’, Olga Zilberberg, shared her expertise on why workplaces need to support their staff with their wellbeing, as well as making space for neurodiversity and creating the conditions to ensure all employees are able to thrive when they come to work.
Olga set up The Missing Link to work with organisations, going beyond surface-level diversity initiatives and designing content that supports them and their employees in each individual circumstance, with a mission statement that ‘one size does not fit all’.
From neurodiversity and inclusive hiring to the power of a simple check-in, in the episode Olga shares how her own lived experience and the established nature of high stress and burn-out in her chosen industry led her to change careers – and go on to pursue a career built on understanding mental health, neurodiversity and creating psychological safety.