WPP Health Practice Partners with BioBeats for World Mental Health Day

To celebrate World Mental Health Day (10th of October), WPP Health Practice has launched a new partnership with health tech startup BioBeats.

A smart wearable will provide a pilot group of volunteer WPP Health Practice employees with personalised insights and solutions via an app designed to reduce stress and improve mental health. The project will also deliver anonymised and aggregated data to WPP Health Practice, helping to plan for future wellbeing and mental health support for employees.

The app collects physiological and psychological data, including heart rate variability, and then uses AI to learn about how activities, interactions and environments affect mental wellbeing. It then offers personalised support and advice to each user. It is supported by researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Pisa.

Positive mental health initiatives, such as in-house psychotherapists, Mental Health First Aiders, complimentary yoga and flexible working* are already in place some of the key WPP Health Practice offices.

Claire Gillis, International CEO of WPP Health Practice, says “This partnership allows us apply evidence-based behavioural science to an increasingly critical area for any agency or company; – mental health. We’ve been successfully operating wellbeing pilots around our networks and are keen to combine these initiatives with the latest health tech solutions. Importantly for an international group, this project offers the potential for us roll out more personalised mental health support at scale. It also gives us insight into how we can make further improvements. As the lines between work and our personal lives continue to blur, I have no doubt that health tech corporate platforms such as BioBeats will change the way we invest in workplace wellbeing.”

BioBeats CEO and Founder David Plans: “WPP Health Practice has already started to roll out developed initiatives to workplace wellbeing and will be able to use BioBeats data to further prioritise its resources to target meaningful areas. As we all move towards the future, and the definition of what it means to ‘work’ evolves, data on employee mental health and wellbeing will form an integral part of any successful corporate strategy.”

Over the course of three months, an international pilot team (in London, Milan, and Sydney) will use the app to receive real-time intelligence about their wellbeing as well as personalised insights and support. BioBeats will also feed aggregated and anonymised data back to WPP Health Practice and split the results into actionable areas the company can invest in.