ImproveMID: Experts in mental health in the workplace

With its software, ImproveMID offers a comprehensive solution for employers to record the workload of employees. Ina Haug, co-founder of ImproveMID, explains in an interview how her solution recognizes mental stress and strengthens employee health.

How would you explain your solution to a healthcare professional in three sentences?

“We have developed software to analyze mental health in the workplace. Using an anonymous online questionnaire (approx. 15 minutes), not only the objective workloads are recorded, but also how these affect the well-being of employees. The dashboard allows companies to see at group level which work factors are the most stressful and how they affect burnout risk, performance and retention.”

ImproveMID Analysis Dashboard

What problem motivated you to found the company?

“We want mental stress and its consequences to become tangible for companies and employees. Mental illness in the workplace has risen by 56% in the last 10 years and yet very few people dare to talk openly about it when they are stressed and feel exhausted. With our analysis, we make mental stress visible and show companies how they can take responsibility for the mental health of their employees. We raise awareness of mental illness and thus create a working environment in which people are mentally well - and if not, then they should at least be able to talk about it.”

How do you convince a pharmaceutical company, health insurance company, insurance company or other potential customer to set up a pilot project with you?

“We are not a classic consulting service provider, but have a data-driven and automated tool that ties up few resources in the company and at the same time enables an in-depth analysis of workload through the application of data science. Thanks to an intelligent questionnaire system, only the questions that are necessary for the respective employee are asked. At the same time, the questions are asked discreetly and stigmatized values, such as a risk of burnout, are calculated using statistical forecasting models without employees having to answer prejudiced questions.

Stress is considered at group level and the anonymity of individuals is preserved (+ GDPR-compliant), enabling a high participation rate (average participation rate of 80%).

Thanks to our background in business psychology, we can take both sides into account and thus derive recommended measures for the benefit of both employees and companies.

Mental health is very abstract for many - we manage to make the consequences for companies tangible.”

Who are your current customers (groups) and who are the potential customers?

“Our customers come from a wide range of industries and are mainly SMEs. They range from large manufacturing companies and IT companies to the intensive care unit of a university hospital.

Ultimately, our customers can be any company in Germany that is committed to the mental health of its employees and has to comply with the legal requirement for a mental health risk assessment.”

Where do you see yourselves in 3 years and how can 5-HT support you?

“In 3 years, we see ourselves as an established company that has consolidated itself as an expert in mental health in the workplace. By continuing to work with partners to implement measures following the analysis, we want to be an all-in-one solution that makes mental health a matter of course in companies.

Through 5-HT, we hope to expand our network to include customers and partners.”

ImproveMID Team

You took part in the 5-HT X-linker “Innovation in occupational health management” in June 2024. What is your impression of the event and what have you gained from participating (so far)?

“The event was helpful in making new contacts and strengthening existing ones. The speakers' contributions were inspiring and gave a good insight into the direction in which the healthcare industry can and should develop. Getting to know the solutions of the other start-ups was very exciting and it is encouraging to see how much innovative power there is in the healthcare sector.”