Opportunities for recommended mental health strategies to reduce stress at work

Human resource management is undergoing a profound change in digital transformation: HR departments are expected to build a compelling employee experience and redesign entire talent practices. Achieving this requires tackling the mental health problems at both individual and workplace levels including proactively managing mental health of the employees. To meet such demanding transformations, interactive technologies to mitigate workplace related risk factors could offer a huge potential. However, they are currently underexplored. In this position paper, we explore four research themes that could be addressed in a research agenda in the area of user experiences and wellbeing at work: 1) personalized, in-time stress management therapies, 2) the application of health recommender systems to tailor interventions to employees, 3) the involvement of professional coaches to enable employees to explore recommendations outside therapy sessions, and 4) personalized gamification mechanics to increase employees’ adherence to both recommended therapies and tracking data.