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Fast Company
13 hours ago
- Business
- Fast Company
I'm an emergency physician turned corporate leader. Here's how I led our team after a employee's suicide
My plane had just landed. I was anxious to get to the office after the departure of our team leader, a reduction in force culling hundreds of jobs just days before, and an organizational move to an unfamiliar part of the enterprise. As my team's senior ranking member, I needed to help process everything together. I turned on my phone to a deluge of texts. 'Please call as soon as possible,' my colleague wrote. 'Is everything okay?' I responded. 'No,' she replied. I called her as the plane taxied my crammed flight to the gate. 'Priya,' she said, 'Ashley died. She took her own life.' The words echoed in my head—strange sounds that made no sense and didn't feel real. Ashley had been a valued member of the team, a well-loved and developing leader whose deep empathy, perpetual curiosity, and strong work ethic were constant reminders of the nature and value of our role within the company. I didn't quite believe what I was hearing. Sobbing from the other side of the line pulled me back. I instantly donned the mantle of doctor. I had to help my friends and colleagues through this—and separate my own emotion from what needed to be done. It was going to be my job to tell the rest of my team. As an emergency physician, I was the one who told people their loved ones had died. I never expected to do the same in corporate America. And despite working for a healthcare company, I'd soon learn I'd have to do it with little support. The systems I was used to in the hospital were not in place here. Every Company's Duty We live in volatile times. Suicide rates in the U.S. spiked 36% over the past two decades, with nearly 50,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Across the country, job stability is tenuous, risking employer health insurance coverage. Mental health services are beyond capacity. Amid billions slashed in mental health funding and threats to Medicaid coverage, the situation will likely worsen. These tragedies impact the workforce, though precisely how depends on the level and caliber of systems-level organization and preparedness. Even in healthcare companies, clinical expertise and informed leadership can be systemically lacking. When I ran into this absence of coordinated systems, I used skills honed in the emergency department—through treating gunshots, heart attacks, and COVID-19—to help my team. But what if corporate America turned lessons from emergency medicine into a systems-level approach to suicide? We might turn tragedy into psychological safety—improving employee loyalty, productivity, and longevity—to the benefit of the business. Here's how. 1. Build a Coordinated Team and Established Process When a patient presents to the emergency department in a critical state, the team springs into action. The doctor, nurses, and emergency techs focus on the patient, while security, social work, and pastoral care workers support loved ones. In crises, everyone has a role. Under high-pressure circumstances, a single decision could result in death. Protocols such as American Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and American Trauma Life Support (ATLS) standardize our approaches and maximize opportunity for survival. Large companies should adopt crisis management protocols describing who and how they'll support employees after suicide and other workplace traumas, instead of avoiding such in hope that suicide would be a rare event. Delineating processes, roles, and responsibilities mitigates variation and disorganization while enabling prompt response and engagement. That's fundamental because failing to quickly address a suicide can increase misinformation, distrust, and anxiety. 2. Communicate Immediately and Clearly After communicating with her family, I wanted to tell my team about Ashley face-to-face, just as I would in the emergency department. I also wanted to secure resources should anyone need support. On the cab ride from the airport, I engaged our human resources team and asked for crisis counseling on-site. I reserved a private space on campus for the entire team to gather. Out of respect and dignity not only for Ashley but also for the team as a whole, it was critical that the news was shared in a safe space from a trusted source. Hearing such through the rumor mill would undermine the honor I held central to the process. Human resources teams and leaders should model dignity and respect—and not be the source of word-of-mouth spread. Death-telling is an evidence-driven process that includes a few key actions: gathering loved ones together, providing resources, and meeting people where they are, which means immediately setting context, using clear words such as died, and allowing time and space to process the information. A few hours after I got to the office, it was time. Given the recent reduction in force, I had to stave off my team's top-of-mind fear. 'First,' I said, 'our jobs are secure.' Then I told them Ashley had died. 'We don't know all the details,' I said, 'but we know she died by suicide.' I fell silent, giving space for the shock and emotion that followed, while my own heart broke for everyone. As a close-knit team, sadness shrouded all of us, settling into the room. The air felt heavier. The silence was replaced by gasps and tears. After some time, I made a simple promise: 'I'm here for anything you need. We'll get through this together.' 3. Provide Visible and Tangible Support Suicide is a contagion. Exposure may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts, behaviors, and depression. In the aftermath, companies typically provide information about employee assistance programs or counseling services to help people cope with grief. But merely pointing to resources rather than providing them can make the people processing shock feel overwhelmed. They may perceive it as absent support. Postvention is a process designed to quash the contagion. It alleviates the effects of stress, helping survivors through immediate, short-term, and long-term responses. Visible and strong workplace leadership, with a willingness to discuss and serve as an ongoing resource, is effective in postvention efforts. But when leaders neither acknowledge nor offer safety following the suicide of an employee, that void can feel dehumanizing and propagate stigma. 'If an organization cannot talk about suicide,' experts have noted, 'it cannot properly support those impacted by it.' Silence from leaders and HR can feel deafening—further undermining survivors' sense of psychological safety and spurring feelings of isolation and neglect. Leaders who support collective mourning, through memorials or gathering events, connect people while dispelling stigma. 4. Help Managers Through It As we began grieving, I did everything I could to give the team space and permission to care for themselves. I cleared noncritical work and nonessential meetings and absorbed parts of their workload. As a physician, I knew each person would have different needs, based on their beliefs, cultural norms, and behaviors. High-pressure postventions usually fall to direct managers, who often have minimal to no training. They may overlook their own trauma and grieving process while tending to the needs of the team and the business. While strict hierarchical structures pervade corporate culture, leaders, including those in HR, should break rank amid crises. They should reach out beyond their direct reports to support the larger team. The better trained and available HR leaders are, the more they can alleviate the pressures on any one manager. 5. Debrief, Learn, and Improve Organized debriefings with leaders to review processes, execution, and opportunities for improvement are standard practice in medicine and for first responders. This not only allows for continuous quality improvement, but also provides an opportunity for various members to voice their personal experiences. Time and space from an acute event brings clarity and refinement. Following the suicide of a colleague, an organized debriefing supports the long-term aspect of the postvention. This is a collaborative exercise, anchored in safety and humility and based in learning and a drive to improve. Through honest feedback and critical evaluation, processes can be honed and the company can benefit as a whole. Helping Employees Heal From Crisis At a time when systems across the U.S. appear to be crumbling, corporate America has a valuable opportunity to assimilate humanity and empathy. Through processes and protocols, organizations can navigate crises by nurturing compassion, vulnerability, and shared healing. That's essential to employee wellness—which is, in turn, essential to engagement and productivity. But systems can't solve everything. Medicine's most refined processes can't prevent the guilt that plagues most survivors of suicide. I still struggle with the questions. Had I seen Ashley in the emergency department rather than the workplace, could I have spotted a warning sign and intervened? Had I fully understood how deeply the reorganization disrupted her sense of safety, what might I have done to mitigate it? I'll never have all the answers. I have only the lessons learned from a tragedy no leader wants to endure but for which every leader must prepare. Ashley left an indelible mark on all of us, both in life and in her absence. The shock and grief may never be gone, and a disappointment in company culture may linger. But our team got through the crisis together—just as I'd promised.
Fast Company
27-05-2025
- Health
- Fast Company
Why your workplace wellness program isn't reducing stress—and how to fix it
Companies are spending more than $65 billion globally on corporate wellness, offering everything from meditation rooms and resilience webinars to nap pods and self-help apps. Projections suggest this market will exceed $100 billion by 2032. And yet burnout is worse than ever. Post-pandemic, 77% of U.S. employees report experiencing workplace stress, according to the American Psychological Association, and 82% say they're at risk of burnout. Experts blame collaboration overload, digital fatigue, and blurred work-life boundaries. Even artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, intended to streamline work, can amplify pressure by raising expectations for speed and output. This disconnect exposes a hard truth: More wellness spending doesn't mean better employee well-being. If anything, it masks the root of the problem. The Corporate Wellness Paradox The more companies invest in wellness, the worse employees seem to feel. Is wellness spending the cause of burnout? Probably not. But it's clearly not preventing it either. So why are both rising in tandem? 1. Wellness as a deflection, not a solution. The 10 most dangerous words in business: Burnout is an organizational problem that needs an organizational solution. Too often, companies outsource that responsibility—handing out mindfulness apps rather than asking why employees need them in the first place. Like blaming the canary instead of clearing the toxic mine, we focus on individual resilience instead of fixing the system. 2. Perks that miss the point. Wellness perks like yoga sessions sound good, but they don't address what's actually broken: unsustainable workloads, poor management, lack of autonomy, and toxic cultures. These programs treat symptoms, not causes. It's like handing out umbrellas in a flood and calling it disaster relief. 3. Branding over behavior. Wellness is often treated as a recruitment asset —front and center in job postings and Mental Health Awareness Month campaigns, but rarely integrated into how work actually gets done. If wellness isn't embedded in deadlines, resourcing, and manager training, it won't move the needle. The result? While 81% of employers say their well-being programs are effective, 61% of employees disagree. That gap signals a deeper issue: performative wellness that looks good on paper but fails in practice. 4. The illusion of progress. Companies often equate the presence of wellness programs with progress. But few measure what matters: burnout rates, psychological safety, and team performance. When wellness becomes symbolic, it can obscure the deeper structural problems driving stress. How Companies Can Improve Their Workplace Wellness Programs If traditional wellness programs aren't solving the problem, what will? Start by shifting from symbolic gestures to structural change. The most effective strategies don't focus on fixing individuals—they fix the systems creating burnout in the first place. Here are five ways to start. 1. Measure what matters. Don't confuse participation with impact. It's one thing to track completion rates; it's another to measure real behavioral outcomes. Metrics like absenteeism, turnover, psychological safety, and employee net promoter scores offer a far clearer picture of employee well-being than satisfaction surveys ever could. 2. Ask better, validated questions. Move beyond generic surveys. Use research-backed questions from sources like Mental Health America, having employees rate statements such as: My work stress affects my mental health. My manager provides emotional support to help me manage my stress. These surveys reveal insights about workload, leadership, and organizational culture—three of the strongest predictors of workplace mental health. 3. Rethink ROI. The best wellness investments aren't flashy—they're foundational. Fair compensation, job security, schedule flexibility, and a culture of respect aren't perks; they're prerequisites for a healthy, high-performing workplace—and exactly what workers want. These elements do more to buffer against chronic stress than any app or wellness challenge ever could. 4. Train managers as mental health allies. People don't leave jobs—they leave bad bosses. Train leaders to recognize burnout, normalize open conversations, and model healthy boundaries. Research shows managers influence employee mental health more than therapists. That's a leadership skill companies can't afford to ignore. 5. Design work differently. Instead of pushing employees to 'build resilience,' ask how your organization might reduce the need for it. Redesign roles, expectations, and collaboration norms to create environments in which people don't have to constantly recover from their jobs. We Don't Need More Wellness Programs—We Need Better Workplaces If companies frame wellness as a benefit instead of a responsibility, they'll keep spending billions while burnout grows. The real opportunity isn't in launching the next app or hosting another webinar. It's in rethinking how we design work itself.
CNA
08-05-2025
- Business
- CNA
Peloton raises 2025 revenue forecast, counts on video subscriber growth
Fitness company Peloton Interactive raised its 2025 revenue forecast on Thursday, banking on an increase in subscriptions for its instructional videos to offset slowing demand for its exercise equipment. Peloton, which makes equipment such as spin bikes and treadmills, has been pivoting away from hardware to transition into a software-first company. Its turnaround strategy involves pushing subscriber growth for live and on-demand workout content to accompany its products. It has also focused on boosting its B2B portfolio by attracting more corporate wellness clients to offer the fitness company's products and services at workplaces. This quarter marks the first earnings result with new CEO Peter Stern at the helm. Stern, who was previously responsible for Ford's subscription-led digital services business as well as Apple's Sports and Fitness+ segments, has been tasked with making the shift at Peloton. The company now expects 2025 revenue to be between $2.46 billion and $2.47 billion, reflecting an increase of $7.5 million at the midpoint of its previous forecast range. It also increased the lower end of its full-year forecast for connected fitness subscriptions to 2.77 to 2.79 million, from 2.75 million previously. However, this still reflects a year-over-year fall of 7 per cent. It expects 2025 adjusted core profit in a $330 million to $350 million range, compared to an earlier forecast of $300 million to $350 million. For the third quarter ended March 31, the company reported a loss per share of 12 cents, smaller than a loss of 45 cents last year. It reported revenue of $624 million, down 13 per cent but higher than Street estimates of $621.3 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Peloton raises 2025 revenue forecast, counts on video subscriber growth
(Reuters) -Fitness company Peloton Interactive raised its 2025 revenue forecast on Thursday, banking on an increase in subscriptions for its instructional videos to offset slowing demand for its exercise equipment. Peloton, which makes equipment such as spin bikes and treadmills, has been pivoting away from hardware to transition into a software-first company. Its turnaround strategy involves pushing subscriber growth for live and on-demand workout content to accompany its products. It has also focused on boosting its B2B portfolio by attracting more corporate wellness clients to offer the fitness company's products and services at workplaces. This quarter marks the first earnings result with new CEO Peter Stern at the helm. Stern, who was previously responsible for Ford's subscription-led digital services business as well as Apple's Sports and Fitness+ segments, has been tasked with making the shift at Peloton. The company now expects 2025 revenue to be between $2.46 billion and $2.47 billion, reflecting an increase of $7.5 million at the midpoint of its previous forecast range. It also increased the lower end of its full-year forecast for connected fitness subscriptions to 2.77 to 2.79 million, from 2.75 million previously. However, this still reflects a year-over-year fall of 7%. It expects 2025 adjusted core profit in a $330 million to $350 million range, compared to an earlier forecast of $300 million to $350 million. For the third quarter ended March 31, the company reported a loss per share of 12 cents, smaller than a loss of 45 cents last year. It reported revenue of $624 million, down 13% but higher than Street estimates of $621.3 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.
