Small businesses employ nearly half of private-sector workers in the U.S. That includes those repair shops, farmers, construction contractors, and restaurants which are keeping the economy afloat. As well, small businesses accounted for 88.9 percent of overall job growth from 2023 to 2024. And often, its these small local startups that also drive innovation that changes lives.

But here’s the hard truth: success comes at a high price for many entrepreneurs. Working around the clock, not having time to sit down to eat a meal or exercise, and missing out on sleep can all be part of getting a business off the ground and keeping it running. And while they work superhuman hours, small business owners are still people like the rest of us. To be healthy and happy, they need sleep, exercise, a good diet (including staying hydrated), and finding time for socializing.

For many small business owners, the day starts early—sometimes really early—but before that comes the sleep that’s needed to keep functioning. Sometimes, especially during peak seasons, it is tempting to just push through the night to get things done, but that doesn’t always help people get ahead.

The phrase “burning the candle at both ends” hits home. Robert Roy Britt, author of Make Sleep Your Superpower, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all about why a good night’s sleep really does matter. “I’ve worked in a family business, launched my own business, managed crews small and large, and spent time in a corporate C-suite, and the one resource that was always scarce for me was sleep,” said Britt. “Hindsight and science have taught me that efficient and effective sleep is vital to effective leadership, in small business or otherwise.”

Britt went on to explain why that seven to eight hours of slumber should be a business owner’s priority. “Think of higher-quality sleep as an investment in your success, like purchasing more efficient systems or hiring smarter people.” The payoff is more productive time when you’re fully rested and awake to take on business challenges.

When it comes to self-care for these self-starters, sleep should be a priority. Another top one is physical activity. The business owner is often the first one in and the last one out, and as for taking a break? Who has time to walk away, let alone get on a bike for a ride or head out for a run?

Yet Forbes highlights a number of good reasons to make time to exercise while building a business. First is the mindset of recognizing that physical activity is preventative medicine. By doing regular exercise, you are telling your body that it needs to stay resilient.

In fact, engaging in regular exercise stimulates a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). The BDNF protein supports the growth and connections between neurons in the brain known as neuroplasticity. It is these new and different pathways that help us learn and adapt to new situations, which is what steering a business requires.

Exercise helps build our problem-solving capabilities, improve memory, and reduce stress levels by lowering cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that is produced by adrenal glands to respond to stress to help us keep things together physically, but can come with a price of increased blood sugar, weight gain, and high blood pressure. Exercise helps lower these levels. The other key benefit is that regular exercise can also lead to improved mood, better sleep, and more energy through the day, all of which are invaluable for entrepreneurs who are in the early stages of business development or those aiming to scale their business.

And if exercise provides a boost to mood and mental acuity, a diet that includes whole foods is what helps sustain the results. What you eat provides the building blocks that go into every cell of the body and factors into your immune response, including how quickly you heal from an injury. Eating a balanced diet with lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats can better fuel how we get through the day.

The real challenge is eating whole foods and avoiding the all-too-easy processed foods, especially if there are only a couple of minutes to grab lunch. This can be especially difficult for entrepreneurs who face grueling schedules filled with early mornings, late nights, and back-to-back meetings.

A Michigan State University article points out the relationship between what is in our gut and the central nervous system, connected through diet. “According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the microbiome is the collection of all microbes. This includes bacteria, fungi, viruses and their genes, which naturally live on our bodies and inside us. The foods you eat have a direct impact on your mood, cognitive function and mental health.”

There is also a correlation between eating processed, low-nutrient food and increased rates of depression and anxiety. The bottom line is that a healthy diet can improve your concentration and attention span.

Ways to avoid the fast-food trap? Plan ahead. Prepare weekly meals at home and keep the good food close, with high-nutrient snacks like almonds, fresh fruit, and hummus and crackers close at hand.

Another thing we know we should do but often forget is to stay hydrated. In our coffee culture, enjoying a hot cup of joe throughout the day is a popular habit, but caffeine only gives you a short-term boost. Experts agree that water should be your go-to fluid, because it supports the body’s processes. As Time magazine points out, staying hydrated is an investment in your most important asset—your brain. Even mild dehydration can lead to brain fog and fatigue. Before every Zoom call or meeting, try to drink some water, and keep a bottle at your desk or behind the counter where it provides a visual cue to reach for it.

Taking care of the body is the foundation of a healthy approach, but the mental and emotional sides need proper care as well. Are you getting together regularly to unwind with friends and family? Making time for socializing can have long-term benefits for mental and physical health, and in many ways, this is not all that surprising. We have evolved to work together in social units to get things done and stay safe. The little things we do when we are around people—like listening, reading body language, and processing how to respond—are both stimulating and health-promoting.

Certainly, managing all the ups and downs that come with starting and running a business can take their toll. That’s why having people in our lives to provide a sounding board can go a long way toward overall mental health.

“People are often surprised by the literature that shows a correlation between social contact and enormous health benefits,” says Dr. Amit Shah from the Mayo Clinic. “We hear so much about the risks of obesity and smoking, but loneliness and social isolation are just as much of a health risk,” he explains. Getting out of business mode takes intention, so schedule it. Make a plan for keeping in touch with your friends and relatives and follow through.

We can’t kid ourselves that starting a business isn’t an all-encompassing venture, but a good entrepreneur is also a good planner. So applying that mindset to staying healthy can be the difference-maker for your business’s long-term success.

The post When Good Habits Pay Off<p class="company">Self-Care for Self-Starters</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

But between the great recession, COVID-19, and the rise of the Internet, retail has gone from change to even more accelerated change. It’s not that people aren’t shopping any more—they absolutely are—but the way they are doing it is very different. The department stores at the malls, even the malls themselves, are no longer the only game in town, and people are looking beyond going to the store to get what they want. It’s as easy as scrolling a smartphone to find exactly the product that you are looking for.

So now that we are halfway through the 2020s, what do people want when they shop? What does a great shopping experience look like? While where people go to shop has changed, regardless of the venue or even whether it is real or virtual, for shoppers, it often boils down to two important elements: convenience and accessibility. They want to find the product they want with little fuss. They want the product to be as good as or better than advertised, and when they find it, they want the action of purchasing to be seamless and quick. The big difference is that they want all this on their terms, wherever they are, in the way that works best for them.

When it comes to the in-store, human experience, it’s often the employee working in the store that makes or breaks the sale. If shoppers have a question, they want the person answering to have knowledge about the product and understand where they are coming from so that the employee can provide them with tailored suggestions. This not only makes the consumer feel special; they also begin to trust the employee and the store.

It’s also not surprising that convenience and accessibility come into play here. People want to talk to staff members who are available for them and get answers to their questions right away. An interesting example of how this plays out can be found at the local hardware store. In the U.S., the Ace Hardware chain of smaller stores, about 7,000 to 10,000 square feet on average, has stolen a lot of the thunder from the big hardware players like Home Depot. These smaller stores, situated right in communities and selling much more than nuts, bolts, and paint, are resonating with the evolving shopping psyche of today’s rushed consumers, according to industry watchers. Each store carries about 25,000 to 30,000 unique products.

While the big box stores cater to the contractor or the homeowner doing remodeling work, these kinds of projects have slowed and now those big retailers are seeing declines. Ace, meanwhile, benefits as people continue to take on more modest projects. Michael Brown, a partner in consulting firm Kearney’s, tells CNN about this trend toward smaller and more intimate retail experiences. “It’s an interesting phenomenon,” said Brown. “Ace is your local customized, intimate hardware store where I can go in, get something very quickly, talk to people that I know.” Brown also notes how the stores are close to home and easily meet his project needs. “They’ve built a unique niche and their stores are also bringing a local flavor to them.”

This an important pivot from past convention. People are less willing to go out of their way to go to a store to get something, so it had better be a worthwhile venture. Convenience is dominating many aspects of shopping.

Another point to think about when it comes to today’s consumers is that they want to feel more knowledgeable than ever before. Scouring comparative websites and doing research are the new norm for shoppers, especially for larger ticket items. People will often come in knowing the pros and cons of a product and what the competition has on offer.

This is where shopping and the rise of the Internet intersect. People have instant access to pricing, reviews, and information about most any given product. Now that all this information is literally at our fingertips, it’s the big themes of convenience and accessibility which e-commerce must deliver on. This means end-to-end fulfillment—if you want that waffle iron at three in the morning, you should be able to find out why one online retailer’s is better than the rest, order it, pay for it, and have it on your doorstep shortly, making one-click access important. And none of this works without seamless delivery. If the customer doesn’t ultimately get the item they want delivered to their door in a timely manner, it is a failure. And that will impact how they perceive the experience and ultimately the brand behind it.

There is also the tricky and costly reality of returning items, a balance between trying to protect the business from receiving damaged or phantom returns while refunding customers as quickly and conveniently as possible. Capital One Shopping Research notes that nearly 123 million Americans will go clothes shopping online this year. Within that number, one out of every four of those items will be returned. That means billions in lost revenue for retailers, not to mention packaging waste, fuel waste, shipping costs, and frustration all around.

This is probably one of the biggest sticking points with e-commerce. How do people try something on? Ever since clothing stores first opened, people have tried on items to make sure they were satisfied with what they were about to buy. How does that work when you are on a bus going home from work scrolling your phone? This brings us to apps such as GlanceAI, a free virtual styling app for iOS and Android, and Google’s new Try-On tool, which uses generative AI to show you how clothes will look on your body. Upload a full-body selfie and in seconds, GlanceAI shows photorealistic images of you wearing outfits curated to your body type, skin tone, and even local weather. If you like what you see, you can tap to shop similar products from retailers.

According to GlanceAI, in less than a month from the app’s launch, it’s created more than 40 million personalized outfit images for over 1.5 million users in the U.S. alone, with 40 percent of them shopping in the app on a weekly basis. GlanceAI earns money through affiliate sales. “We’re not trying to turn you into someone else,” GlanceAI CEO Naveen Tewari told USA Today. “We’re trying to help you discover the best version of you. It’s not just ‘what shirt fits me?’ It’s ‘what outfit makes sense for me right now, in my city, with my vibe?’”

While e-commerce is growing and shopping in person at stores is declining, many successful businesses know that you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. An omnichannel approach is one that combines e-commerce and the traditional retail experience and can give customers a unified experience no matter how they choose to shop on a particular day. It can mean a hybrid experience—being able to order and buy your coffee ahead of time and simply swinging by to pick it up, for instance. Of course, a lot of elements must work together to make such offerings successful.

Probably unsurprisingly, the root of many challenges is technology. Consider customer data being trapped in different systems that don’t talk to each other or a salesperson being left in the lurch, unable to access a customer’s details when they are standing on the store floor with them. Even if systems are working, data uploads may not be instantaneous, and customers can be left with the frustrating experience of not getting the item they want after all.

Successful implementation of the omnichannel strategy isn’t easy. It requires employees to grapple with changes to how they traditionally go about their jobs. They may have to learn and use new devices and systems; perhaps the commission system would work differently. All this could lead to dissatisfaction and resistance to reaching the goal of a unified approach to a retail experience. And of course, these integrated IT systems don’t just pop up out of nowhere; they require considerable time to implement and a lot of capital to set up.

If one thing is certain, it is that more change to retail is surely on the horizon. Ultimately, customer satisfaction is the constant and guiding light. Where retailers shine is in making the shopping experience feel personal, accessible, and rewarding.

The post Keeping It Personal<p class="company">The Outlook for Retail in a Changing Landscape</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Few people appreciate this in quite the same way that Murray does. His business has grown to become a significant manufacturing partner for the mining industry and oil fields in Canada and beyond.

And it all started with an unfortunate accident back in 1980.

“My dad fell off a ladder, smashed his heels, and was in a wheelchair for a year and a bit,” says Murray, who had trained as a sheet metal worker. His dad was a coppersmith by trade. “Once he had the accident, our life, everything changed.”

As part of this rollercoaster, Murray joined the family business, which specialized in welding for auto industry players like American Motors and Chrysler. It was based on the family farm near Thornton, Ontario, where his parents still live. He and his dad decided to reinvent the company, and Murray went on to become CEO as they grew and pivoted, now leading in industrial parts and heavy equipment. He’s proud that it’s still a family business.

Part of this new venture included projects with a company called Ramsey Engineering, which makes high-precision weighing equipment for industrial automation. “They would build belt scales that would weigh material, like iron ore going into the mill at the mine or sawdust, aggregate, or cement,” Murray explains. So JEBCO began working on projects for bridges, underground conveyances, cages, hoppers, and bins.

Things can change on a dime in business when a main client is sold. Ramsey was bought by Thermo Fisher Scientific, an American biotechnology company and global medical supplier—which no longer had need of JEBCO’s services. This was a crucial moment and an important change for the company, and the team began to focus more of its resources on third-party or OEM manufacturing.

“We went through the ’90s being a custom manufacturer. We did not get into the construction industry at all,” Murray says of the company’s decision to pursue opportunities in water treatment systems and then pulp and paper. “We stuck with mining or heavy industry, and that took us into pulp and paper because they’re all related, with common threads.”

Processing equipment for the oil sands was a particular growth area, and the company won its bid for weld overlay work for projects with Canadian Natural, one of the largest independent crude oil and natural gas producers. “Basically, it was a hydro cyclone with a feed launderer for the processing of the bitumen product,” Murray explains. “This particular project had a vessel that was lined with what we call a chrome carbide weld overlay. But they hadn’t actually executed it yet.”

The trouble was that the company that JEBCO contracted the work to was unable to provide that service. “We were in a very tricky position of needing to deliver on this, so we developed the process ourselves by being entrepreneurial and just finding a way while being under pressure.”

The feat made JEBCO one of the very first companies in Canada to have a weld overlay over a pressure boundary weld without needing to test twice. Named Ultraclad, this innovation was the world’s first and only fully robotic cladding technology, operating in the continuous 1F welding position, capable of cladding any shape or size of pipe.

Impressed, Canadian Natural came back to JEBCO again a year later, looking for work on the pipe and fittings in Alberta’s massive oil sands. “They awarded us a $10 million contract to line their pipe and fittings. We do this chrome carbide overlay on the inside of an elbow in the 1F position, which, to this day, is not being repeated. And we became a major supplier.”

Company expansion followed, and JEBCO bought a large complex in Barrie, Ontario in 2000, employing about 140 employees, including a full engineering staff. This marked a bright streak in the company’s history until the pandemic struck in 2020 when, like many businesses, JEBCO was upended.

“They announced the official state of emergency and then the six-foot distancing,” Murray recalls. “In the oil industry, they have large coaches to pick you up, holding anywhere from 45 to 65 people. There are thousands of people who they move by coaches, whether it be to the ExxonMobil or the Syncrude site, or the Canadian Natural sites—nobody drives to work.”

One can picture trying to get people six feet apart on a coach; a coach that can hold 60 people now only has 10 people. These logistical challenges coupled with reduced demand meant a slowdown for the whole sector. JEBCO came to a complete halt and had to rethink its business outlook. Part of the redirect included a return to its mining roots and applying its cladding technology.

On the upside, the past five years have seen a pattern of regrowth. “It’s a different landscape. We shifted from 80 percent mining and 20 percent oil sands supply to 80 percent oil sands and then back again to mining and water treatment,” Murray tells us.

While this was a painful shift, JEBCO is seeing the benefits of its agility. More emerging technologies are looking for minerals that the company helps to extract, like silver, gold, and copper. This pivot has also brought JEBCO back to its roots again. The company was reengaged by Ramsey to manufacture the belt scales and tramp metal detection for metal detectors.

Now Murray has signed a licensing agreement with an Australian company to provide clean air solutions for mining and construction support. This is a major win for the company and industry workers in the field, he says of the technology.

“They are basically gigantic dust collectors used to prevent silicosis issues that are prevalent everywhere as soon as you start digging in the ground, whether tunnelling, underground mining, or demolition work. We can collect that dust from the source and remove it from the workers.” By partnering with the founder of the product in Australia and Britain, JEBCO is bringing that technology to the U.S. and Canada and will be its only manufacturer.

Murray sees this as a critical turning point where the industries the company supports are making environmental impact a priority. It comes at a time when businesses with green initiatives have better brand recognition, investor support, and long-term sustainability. Take a ship loading cement: the loader moving the cement onto the ship needs a belt scale on it. The belt scale weighs exactly how many tons are going aboard. JEBCO helps make that happen. Then the ship with that belt scale also needs dust control while being loaded. That’s where JEBCO manages dust control to protect the environment and workers.

“So, whether it’s cement, iron ore, or other products, we feel that we’re setting ourselves up to be complementary to the environment and complementary to our industry,” says Murray. “We’re making good, honest, billable support through our belt scale, so that our clients understand that what they’re paying for or what they’re selling is accurate, and we’re controlling environmental dust issues.”

Looking ahead, JEBCO will be moving to a larger facility in Barrie next year, primed and prepared for what is to come. “We have a great general manager and a great financial manager handling our day-to-day operations as we scale for the future,” emphasizes Murray. “We’re pumped to be going through this next phase of our journey, and we have a great team.”

The post With an Eye for Opportunity, This Manufacturer Welds Its Way to the Top<p class="company">JEBCO</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

According to Spacelift.io, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day are generated—some of this through new devices, sensors, and emerging technologies. Think about this: every minute, people have sent more than 527,000 pictures, LinkedIn has added 1,200 members, more than four million YouTube videos have been watched, and 456,000 tweets have been posted on X (formerly Twitter). In fact, we are now entering the “zettabyte era” where one zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes. The implications of this brave new age are far-reaching, but one industry in particular may be more heavily influenced by all this data than others: marketing.

The challenge for marketers is that customers want it all. They increasingly expect companies to know them and cater to their personal likes, needs, wants, and preferences with every transaction and interaction. From a business standpoint, it is often the marketing team who must achieve this in what’s become a fragmented and multichannel world.

As Forbes reports, “For marketing, this means that as time goes on, the need for advanced tools to analyze and store data will grow. It’s safe to say that very soon all marketing efforts will need to invest in online software specifically geared toward handling big data. Furthermore, the big data tools of today need to evolve or will be outdated tomorrow.”

Finding a competitive advantage in a given business’s field will become increasingly difficult as more marketing groups gain access to the vast swaths of consumer data that is now out there and available. This means that marketers will need to distinguish themselves from the pack through innovation.

While the amount of data out there has exponentially expanded, big data is far from a new concept; predictive analytics have been in play for as long as businesses have gathered information, and for some time now, marketing firms have used predictive analytics to crunch consumer data to capture trends. Sifting through this mammoth amount of information quickly to extract timely insights can be overwhelming without the right technology, but from there, marketers can better position themselves to anticipate what customers might want and make better decisions on when to send offers and effectively segment their target markets.

Indeed, data is increasingly critical in marketing strategy and planning because it is the open window into what a target audience likes, how they behave, and what they may need. It can provide age, geographical location, income, and education level. This data can be combined with information on the websites consumers visit, the purchases they make, and the marketing campaigns they are interested in on social media. These insights are used to make campaigns more appealing.

But again, the vast amount of data isn’t easy to wade through in a quick and effective manner. That’s where two little letters go a long way: AI.

It’s an understatement to say that AI is popping up everywhere and upending practically every industry. We know that it’s making big changes in manufacturing and health sciences. The same can also be said for the business of marketing. From data insights to content creation, AI is changing how marketers think about their strategies and how they reach their target customers.

And as the world moves into a zettabyte-driven, data-focused future, the success of marketing will in many ways be based on attention to detail in data analysis and acting on those insights to make the most of opportunities. Customized experiences for buyers deliver improved results in brand loyalty and sales, and that is where AI in predictive analytics becomes so useful. With traditional techniques, marketing teams may require hours or days to obtain valuable information from small datasets. But with AI predictive analytics, it takes just several minutes to analyze millions of data points and reveal information businesses can use to improve their marketing.

Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business has written about AI and how technology is transforming marketing: “Before generative AI models like ChatGPT emerged, brainstorming topics, creating outlines, writing content, and editing could take hours, if not days. Today, the process is as quick as asking AI tools to write marketing copy such as promotional emails, ads, and articles. Users get output in seconds or a few minutes. This saves time for marketing experts who create content in bulk and regularly. Marketers can also use AI to create images, videos, and audio.”

The technology is fascinating and powerful. Some AI writing tools show users what is needed to get a more personalized output. For example, HubSpot’s Campaign Assistant allows marketers to specify the campaign’s goals, writing style, target audience, and calls to action.

Content generated by an AI marketing tool provides a starting point for most marketers—a source of inspiration. Like any other technology, however, AI writing solutions are not perfect. Their output may be inaccurate and requires a human touch. This ensures the quality, accuracy, and veracity of their content, and alignment with the intended marketing strategy, brand voice, and style. Marketers themselves must thoroughly fact-check, proofread, and edit AI-generated content.

And while all of this can be good for businesses, it can sound pretty creepy to a consumer. Sure, most of us are probably aware that things we do on the internet are being used by marketers to paint a picture of our interests, but it feels invasive nonetheless.

Data collection by companies is happening as quickly as that data is being created by people. And there is a dark side to consider: data collection includes sensitive data about people’s health conditions, personal preferences, and other details that they would never share with someone if they were asked on the street. Personal information can become available through harvesting their online data and as a result, this same data can be used to unfairly target or discriminate against groups of people. Not to mention that all this data can be coopted via cyber-attacks or swindlers looking to scam and defraud people.

So, is AI really our friend? Questions also come from where people’s data is collected. 20 years ago, consumer data was largely collected though point of sale transactions, responses to direct mail campaigns, and coupon redemption, but now it is through online purchases, click-through rates, searching behavior, social media actions, geolocation, and so on. This change has deeply impacted marketing strategies because of new access to detailed information on target audiences. For consumers it has created another feeling: stress. That’s because people don’t know how much of their data is being used or who is using it. And it’s not only that, but the sense that whether it’s through a cellphone, tablet, or computer, everything that we do is somehow being tracked.

In many ways, marketing in an age of significant data is a double-edged sword: it presents the greatest opportunity to date to truly know a target audience; however, that audience is growing more and more nervous about how their data is being used. Who needs more stress in their lives these days? This could mean losing trust in the technology that is intended to improve our daily life and experiences.

Marketers and business owners alike need to be more diligent and transparent than ever before about how data is used. No one wants to face the backlash of upset consumers who feel that their own information is being used against them. Clearly, there’s a lot at stake.

The post Smart Marketing and Privacy<p class="company">A New Era of Data Crunching</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

By all accounts, it seemed that tourism was on track to surpass pre-pandemic levels. The World Economic Forum reported in 2024 that many countries, especially those considered to be higher-income ones, saw rates returning to pre-pandemic levels. Francisco Betti, Head of the Global Industries team at the World Economic Forum, noted the positive signs: “This year marks a turning point for the travel and tourism sector, which we know has the capacity to unlock growth and serve communities through economic and social transformation.”

But just one year later, in 2025, things appear to be changing again. Patterns since January are pointing in a different direction for travel plans and where people are choosing to spend their money. And in particular, it is the U.S. that is the epicenter of travel changes.

The numbers of tourists from Mexico, Canada, and Europe traveling to the U.S. have declined. At the same time, travel to international destinations from these countries has increased. This change is as pronounced as it is sudden. The research group Tourism Economics had initially predicted a 9 percent growth rate in international travel to the U.S. this year. Instead, the group has recently downgraded these numbers to a 9.4 percent contraction. In March alone, the number of travelers from western Europe fell from approximately 17 percent to 7 percent from March 2024, according to Statistica. Among the somber notes, the group states, “We forecast international spending in the U.S. to decline 5 percent, a loss of $9 billion in spending this year alone.”

These shifts in tourist numbers and dollars could be very high stakes when you consider that in the U.S. in 2024 alone, visitors spent $1.3 trillion and the spinoff business of tourism produced $2.9 trillion for the U.S. economy and more than 15 million jobs, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

So, not only does it seem that people are changing their plans, but their choices could also be putting a significant portion of the American economy at risk. But what’s behind all the changes in these travel patterns?

Well, there are a number of reasons, including warnings that the United Kingdom and Germany have emphasized to their citizens that travelers need to comply with visa and entry requirements, and that citizens have been detained at the border. Even before people decide to travel, they are being influenced by the recent tensions among trading partners. It’s again these travelers from Canada, Mexico, and Europe who are thinking twice about their plans because of the current state of trade between countries. From a North American perspective, the introduction of tariffs on Canada and Mexico has resulted in retaliatory, but on-again, off-again responses that could lead to up to $87 billion in retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico. There is growing sentiment from these counties not to visit the U.S. as a response to economic impact that these tariffs are having.

In Canada, which normally sends 20 million visitors to the U.S. each year (more than any other nation), people are pausing travel plans as tariff threats are raised and then rescinded. The Globe and Mail reported that in April, 35.2 percent fewer Canadians traveled to the U.S. than they did at the same time in 2024. The travel agency Flight Centre has seen bookings to the U.S. fall by 52 percent. “What we’re seeing is Canadians are really traveling with intention,” says company spokesperson Amra Durakovic about the trend. “If they are going to go to U.S., they’re simply going to go. But those who don’t want to—they’re just not going.”

Similarly in Mexico, people who are frequent visitors to the U.S. are rethinking their plans. Travel and Tour World noted that once-steady corridors from Mexico City and Guadalajara to cities like Dallas, Los Angeles, and Miami have quietly closed down amid the uncertainty: “If you live in Mexico, Canada, or Brazil and are trying to book a trip to the U.S. this summer, the options may not look like they did even six months ago. Routes to Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are thinner. Nonstops have become one-stops. Prices are up. In some markets, entire cities have been cut off.”

The impact of these changes hits different parts of the economy in different ways, and there are some individuals who feel the fallout more than others. BBC describes how people in the travel industry are directly impacted by these changes: “It’s U.S. workers and small businesses who get affected by U.S. travel boycotts,” says Thomas F. Goodwin, leader of the Exhibitions and Conferences Alliance. “When international business travellers forgo coming to the U.S., everyone from exposition booth builders and general service contractors to venue caterers and individual skill labourers suffer—not politicians or the government.”

So where are people traveling to now? As Travel and Tour World says, “Interestingly, while U.S. visitation from Mexico declines, the number of international flights from Canada to Mexico has increased by 6 percent in the same period, suggesting a shift in travel preferences within North America. Travelers from Canada and other regions may see Mexico as a safer, more appealing destination… Europeans are also expected to follow a similar path, seeking alternative destinations with fewer concerns about political instability. Mexico, with its rich history, vibrant culture, and proximity to the U.S., is becoming an attractive option for many who are rethinking their travel choices.”

The airline industry has realigned to promote travel to places like Dubai, Delhi, Singapore, and Seoul, enhanced by aggressive pricing, new aircraft, and better onboard products to draw customers.

Americans are also reconsidering their travel plans, as CNN noted that 80 percent of 460 travel advisors said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about an economic downturn of their business. Beci Mahnken, CEO of MEI-Travel, talked about the locked-in mood of travelers: “You can’t just take one angle and say, ‘Oh the economy is having an issue. So let’s find something less expensive,’” Mahnken says about what agents are hearing. The industry expects to see savings on last-minute summer trips as travelers increasingly take a wait-and-see approach with their plans.

Underpinning these concerns is economic uncertainty as the markets have been up and down. Then there are worries about anti-American sentiment abroad and cost increases coming from tariffs. And while all of this may seem gloomy, it is also important to realize that a lot of what is going on with these trends is fluid. If one thing is certain about consumer intent, it is that it can change quickly depending on the economic and political environment.

Consider two communities in the U.S. and Canada separated by a river. Both are called Sault Ste. Marie and the Canadian one in Ontario is about 10 times larger than the American one is Michigan. Normally, thousands of visitors would cross the bridge each month, mostly Canadians looking for deals on the American side of the river. But now the traffic has slowed by almost half and hotel bookings are down 77 percent. This picture reflects a microcosm of the current situation. CBS reports that the local businesses of the Michigan town are looking to lure domestic travel to help get them through the current state while looking forward to a return to more travelers from Canada. Linda Hoath, Executive Director of the Sault Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, commented on the outcome. “It’s so intertwined. There’s no separation between the two communities,” said Hoath. “If [the bridge] is not so busy, what happens to your employees? They’re not making the money. Some people will be laid off.”

As a result, businesses may need to pivot for the short term to attract more domestic travelers while remaining hopeful for international travel to shift back to growth.

As Hoath talks about Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, her logic also applies to the other, larger destinations across the U.S. The focus has to be on attracting visitors from across the U.S. “When you don’t have a ton of funds you’ve got to put them where you know they have a better possibility of working,” she said.

The post Up in the Air<p class="company">Travel Turmoil in a Changing World</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

As the name suggests, the hybrid work model is a combination of work that takes place in the traditional, physical workspace and remotely, typically in an employee’s home. And now the hybrid work model has become the standard for nearly 100 million employees in Europe and North America.

A Forbes article highlights data from Owl Labs, a video conferencing company which released its 2024 State of Hybrid Work report, which surveyed 2,000 workers. The report revealed that time spent in the office went down by six percent in 2024 from 2023. Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs, noted that employees want to go into the office on their terms regardless of the job market and they continue to want flexibility in how they work. “Common deterrents in today’s offices that employers should be aware of include political chats, distractions during time needed for solo deep work, and expensive commutes,” he stated.

The report also reveals that workers cite a commute to an office costing them an average of $42 dollars daily.

But ask the question “is the hybrid model a good thing?” and you will get many different answers depending on whether you are an employee or an employer. Several prominent companies like Amazon, the Washington Post, and Apple have asked their team members to come back to the office. Often reasons like productivity, creativity, and collaboration are used to back up the return to the office request. Moreover, in a Fast Company article, a 2022 survey of more than 1,000 executives and managers on freelance platform Fiverr noted that about 33 percent felt that employees are more motivated if they know they are being watched, and a quarter of them wanted employees in the office so that they would take shorter breaks.

With that said, currently, neither the fully remote nor the fully in-office model has come out on top following the pandemic. It’s also worth noting that one person’s hybrid may be different from another’s. While the most common definition is when employees divide their work time between the office and remotely, it can also be outcome-based, where employees work remotely if they meet specific performance criteria or project deadlines. However, findings from the Financial Post show that the larger a company is, the more likely it will have a hybrid working model. There are also differences based on geography; for instance, while North America tends to choose in-office set ups, Asian Pacific regions tend to offer more remote work, while Europe tends to have combinations of the two.

There is one study that is often cited when talking about the benefits of the hybrid model for work, conducted by Harvard. The Havard Business Review outlined the results. The study randomly selected employees of Trip.com, a large company with 40,000 employees, for a three-day and a five-day in-office work week. In all, 1,600 employees were placed into the two groups based on their birthdays. Interestingly, before the experiment started, managers estimated production would drop 2.6 percent. However, after the six-month trial was completed, productivity went up one percent and those working under the hybrid model had a higher satisfaction rate, while attrition was lowered by 35 percent. This lowered attrition rate was especially notable as it was estimated that for Trip.com, each person who would quit cost the company approximately $30,000 and the lowered attrition rate could save them millions of dollars a year.

Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University and one of the foremost researchers on hybrid policies, comments on the results in a Stanford news report, “This study offers powerful evidence for why 80 percent of U.S. companies now offer some form of remote work and for why the remaining 20 percent of firms that don’t are likely paying a price,” Bloom writes.

And there is one group of employees who make up roughly half of the working population and particularly benefit from the flexibility that comes with a hybrid work model—women. That’s because it’s women who take on a disproportionate share of home and childcare responsibilities.

Polls indicate that women prefer either fully remote or partial remote work at a rate 10 percent above men. And a study conducted by International Workplace Group found that 72 percent of women would look for a new job if their employer moved away from a hybrid work model. This is not only a statement about how women view a hybrid work model, but also a bright flashing neon sign for employers trying to attract and retain talent.

The International Workplace Group study uncovered that 90 percent of women say that hybrid work “serves as an equalizer in the workplace.” Half of the respondents reported being a caregiver and that because of that, flexible work arrangements allow them more opportunity to balance their role as an employee and the many responsibilities that come with caregiving.

A CNBC article quoted Sallie Krawcheck, Ellevest co-founder and CEO, as she spoke to a group of CFOs in New York City about remote work and the push to return employees to the office. “If we want to go back to the way it was, then acknowledge that you know it works mainly if you’re a man and have a wife at home.”

Although employee satisfaction can increase and attrition rates can drop with a hybrid model, it is clear that not everything can be done as well remotely as it can when people are in the office. Some CEOs are convinced that collaboration and impromptu meetings are more likely to take place when employees are in an office. There is also additional effort needed to coordinate work with remote colleagues, which can lead to missing out on subsequent conversations and minor decisions.

Most agree that there is also a feeling of disconnect that can come from working remotely. The Harvard Business Review recently looked at loneliness in the workplace and how companies need to address it with communal lunches and happy hours rather than more team meetings. And consider the impact on creativity that comes from remote working. While people can have brainstorm sessions using technology, important parts of the creative process—like a fluid conversation in a room or spontaneous sidebars between participants that can lead to new ideas—are not easy to replicate through a computer screen.

Another quality that is critical to the health of a company—but hard to pull off remotely—is creating and maintaining a work culture that makes a company distinct. Both during the pandemic and coming out of it, many employees would have worked together in the office and knew how to work effectively with one another. The question is, how does this culture survive if new employees work remotely? This issue is further complicated as those longer-tenured employees move on. This not only impacts culture but also corporate knowledge, values, expectations, and how to socialize new employees. All of this is important not only for retaining employees, but for recruiting new ones.

So, if neither a complete return to office nor a fully remote approach seems to be the choice of most companies, the question for employers becomes, how do they make the most of a hybrid work model for their business? There are a few things employers should consider. Firstly, the hybrid work model is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Factoring in employees, the work, and the team will make it easier to understand what elements are necessary and what are not. And once a hybrid model is in place, it’s important to avoid mixed messages such as saying that meeting in-person is “preferred.”

Finally, there is always the question of how to motivate employees who work remotely. Intrinsic motivation does not come from a games room, a free lunch, or online team games. It’s built on pride and purpose in the work and trust in the relationship. Companies need to make it a point to use sincere compliments and encouragement to motivate employees wherever they are working. And going into the future, it’s important to acknowledge that there are new norms that must be clearly communicated to help sustain the corporate culture and keep employees productive, motivated, and happy to be at work—wherever that is.

The post The New World of Work<p class="company">Helping Hybrid Teams Deliver</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

The annual survey provides data on the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, substance use disorders, and mental health issues. Breaking it down further, 28.9 million individuals had an alcohol use disorder, 27.2 million had a drug use disorder, and 7.5 million people experienced both.

Worse still is the growing proportion of America’s youth in this vulnerable population. The percentage of people with a substance use disorder in the past year was highest among young adults aged 18 to 25. Now consider the fact that substance abuse at any age can sharply exacerbate symptoms of mental illness or trigger mental health problems—when these disorders collide, the risk of self-harm increases, and with it, the critical need for in-patient health services.

On the front lines
One of Oregon’s most comprehensive treatment facilities, Serenity Lane is a non-profit substance use disorder center directly involved in helping these patients and their families. The care team sees the real-life impact behind the statistics daily, understanding the pain and uncertainty people feel when it comes to how to heal.

“Being welcomed into a non-judgmental environment is central to what a person will experience when they call us and walk in the door for the first time,” says Pete Kerns, President and CEO of Serenity Lane. That is paramount when people are feeling fearful in the midst of their substance use disorder, he explains, with the empathy his organization is known for. “They don’t realize that their brain has been rewired and there’s a compulsion that they have little control over. But they try to control it and in their failure to do so, they hurt themselves. They hurt the people who are closest to them. There’s a lot of guilt and shame at the time that they choose to come in.”

This is a critical turning point, he tells us—when a person realizes that their life has become more unbearable than their fear of going into treatment. “That’s when they pick up the phone to call us.”

Serenity Lane takes those calls for help and accepts admissions seven days a week––a response that sets the facility apart from other centers. Similarly, if someone calls on behalf of a loved one in crisis, steps are taken immediately to welcome people into treatment.

Open arms
“The most common thing that people who’ve been through our program are grateful for is an environment where they feel welcome,” says Kerns. When people are at their lowest with substance use disorder and mental health struggles, simply feeling welcomed and supported can be a lifeline. Serenity Lane stands proudly on a long tradition of providing lifelines, giving people a new beginning and uniting families.

The original center opened back in 1973 when there weren’t any treatment centers available south of Portland. Pete Kerns’ father was a family physician who had lived through the trauma of family tragedy. His mother and two brothers died from diseases and his father, a dentist in a small town in Nebraska, died from alcoholism. Pete’s dad was only 15 years old when all his immediate family had passed away.

“That left quite an impression,” Kerns says. “When he was a doctor here in Oregon, taking care of families and getting to know the local AA leaders, they would bring patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) to him,” he says, referring to the need of so many for help with addiction. It started him on a path to establishing a much-needed treatment center.

The first facility was established in a vacant fraternity house that became a place for people with AUD who needed detoxification and residential treatment. A residential treatment center is usually the first stage of getting treatment for a substance use disorder; it helps the patient get off the addictive substance and start an intensive treatment plan that requires an inpatient stay of a month or more, depending on the individual. This facility was a win for residents of communities in the Willamette Valley, a beautiful area between the Oregon Coast and the Cascades south of Portland.

While the center was founded on the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program model popular at the time, the offerings have expanded considerably just as the facilities have over the years. The new residential center in historic Coburg is complemented by six outpatient clinics in the state that provide supplemental substance use disorder (SUD) therapy, mental health therapy, and case management services for navigating community supports like housing and employment.

A holistic approach
Serenity Lane’s personalized treatment plans reflect leading the intervention strategies in the field, which is part of what makes it a sought-after teaching center for medical school residents and students in nursing or psychiatry. Here, the expert team focuses first on integrated care, which is an evidence-based holistic approach for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing. Medication is still frequently a part of treatment, but the residential center also boasts a gym, a meditation space, a wellness facilitator for fitness and nutrition, a clinical chaplain, and yoga instruction.

“When I started in the field 35 years ago, if I had someone come to my office that had been drinking, I invited them to leave because I couldn’t possibly do therapy with somebody that was intoxicated,” says Dr. Cheryl Gifford, Mental Health Director at Serenity Lane.

“Now we view it differently, so that patients assessed with a dual diagnosis are being treated for their substance use disorder and mental health disorder at the same time. Research says that’s the best way to do treatment. We’re providing integrated care, which is a really positive shift.”

Serenity Lane has seven full-time mental health professionals and four full-time counselors in withdrawal management helping with detox and checking on patients during daily rounds in the hospital unit. While individual counseling is provided, groups work together on how to manage both mental health conditions and substance use disorders. There is a separate group to tackle how to cope with trauma, which is common in this vulnerable population, and another group with sexual and gender minority status.

Getting family on the team
Another valuable option, unique to Serenity Lane, is the family program where patients and their loved ones are brought together to discuss the disease of addiction and the treatment program. This approach helps people better understand what their family member is going through and ultimately strengthens family ties. “This might be just as important as the treatment the client receives, because every family, every household, achieves some kind of equilibrium,” says Kerns. “And for a person with an alcohol use disorder, for example, that equilibrium exists, and it supports the alcohol use disorder for that person. So the family comes in and learns about that and how to change it, because if our client went back into the same household without that awareness, they would surely relapse. A lot of work is done with the household members to make sure that there’s a good situation to go home to.”

Kerns has a background in law enforcement and initially retired in his late 50s, deciding to interview for the position of President and CEO of Serenity Lane when the post became available. He’s been in the role for five years now and humbly says he’s most proud of the people who preceded him. “They did all this fundraising and built this place; that’s probably the most impressive accomplishment beyond opening in 1973, because we’ll be on this campus for decades and we’ll continue to grow here and develop our services.”

Expanding capacity
Kerns is also excited about research partnerships with the University of Oregon and others to evaluate the family program and the comprehensive wellness program offered at Serenity Lane, and about expanding the capacity of the Counselor in Training Program that has been so successful for former patients.

As Dr. Gifford explains of the team’s dedication, “We recognize that substance use disorder is a disease that takes lives, so there’s a real passion to do the work and to help everyone we can. The culture is so compassionate and vibrant here at Serenity Lane and I think that’s one of the things that sets us apart. We care about providing the very best care because many of us remember what it is to be a patient.”

Indeed, some former patients are now in management positions or working as chemical dependency counselors. “We have mental health counselors who have been chemical dependency counselors and then decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree,” Dr. Gifford says. “I’ve worked in a lot of different places in healthcare, and Serenity Lane feels like coming home. The culture here is very rich and the people who are here really appreciate being able to work in this environment. That speaks volumes about the care we provide.”

The post It’s Official––Healing Begins with a Warm Welcome<p class="company">Serenity Lane</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

But if you’re worried about climate change, there is a lot at stake when it comes to travel and vacationing.

According to United Nations Tourism, the world’s destinations welcomed 22 percent more tourists in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the same time period in the previous year. And levels of travel reached 88 percent of pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023.

While this is good news for tourist destinations and the countries that benefit from the revenue the business brings in, there is a dark cloud on the horizon. Climate change is having a noticeable impact on tourist destinations and the industry itself.

When we look at 2023, it was a hot year. The data record of Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the European Union’s space program, revealed it was the world’s warmest year. And it is likely that 2024 may break that record again by the time the year is done.

“The overall context hasn’t changed; our climate continues to warm. The devastating effects of climate change started well before 2023 and will continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach net-zero,” Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of Copernicus, said in a statement.

A University of Cambridge document titled Climate Change: Implications for Tourism noted that the tourism industry is exposed to indirect and direct impacts of climate change, including sea-level rise and an increase in acidic levels in the ocean that threaten coastal tourism—especially coral reefs.

Rising temperatures will also shorten winter sports seasons which will impact ski resorts. The author writes, “The tourism sector is operating in an environment of considerable uncertainty… Some parts of the world will be more sensitive to climate change than others. Climate change will also provide opportunities, with new regions and types of tourism becoming attractive to tourists. However, these opportunities may well be short-lived, and dwarfed by the negative impacts that the sector is already beginning to feel from climate change.”

Already, prime tourism season is moving from summer to spring and fall—and businesses reliant on the industry are feeling the flux.

As a case in point, some regions are seeing a positive uptick in number of tourists. As the temperatures rise ever higher in Mediterranean countries, Scandinavian ones like Norway and Sweden are seeing more travelers coming to escape the hot temperatures during the summer months. Northern countries like Canada may see a large increase in tourism dollars in the future. But for each winner, there will be many losers, and not only in tourism.

Beaches are particularly vulnerable to climate change, not only from more frequent and severe storms but also from rising water levels. The World Tourism and Travel Council found that an unusually strong hurricane season in 2017 cost the Caribbean 826,100 visitors who could have generated $741 million in revenue. The storms also had the add-on effect of increasing insurance premiums by 40 percent—all this in a region where tourism makes up 30 percent of GDP.

In Southeast Asia, some of the world’s most iconic coastlines are feeling the fallout of environmental damage. Thailand’s Maya Bay, Vietnam’s Hạ Long Bay, and Boracay in the Philippines are all being impacted. There has been notable damage to coral reefs, beaches strewn in garbage, and sewage-filled waters. And some countries are closing tourist destinations to give them time to recover.

In Africa, loss of biodiversity, which is linked to climate change and forecasted to impact over half of the continent’s species, would in turn trigger a huge loss in plant species. In Northern climates like the Alps, we have seen a drop in snow cover by 8.4 percent per decade in the last 50 years. Resorts like Whistler Mountain in Canada, famous for skiing, now actually make more money in the summer.

And the economic impact of all this could be very significant, because tourism is very big business. According to the research firm Statista, the market size of global tourism rose significantly in 2023 to $1.9 trillion, and it is expected to reach $2 trillion dollars in 2024.

But the industry itself is a contributor to environmental concerns, specifically the transportation aspects of it. An estimated 11 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases are linked to tourism, and that is predicted to double by 2050. Air travel is the biggest driver of this, particularly those long-haul roundtrip flights that are more than 9,941 miles (basically the distance between New York and Cairo, Egypt). A 2023 report, Envisioning Tourism in 2023 and Beyond – The Changing Shape of Tourism in a Decarbonising World, from the Travel Foundation states that these long flights need to stay static at 2019 levels for the next 27 years to curb damage. At the same time, alternative travel modes that use clearer fuel options like electric vehicles and highspeed trains need to increase to help offset the emissions that are already in the atmosphere.

As Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the Travel Foundation, told Bloomberg News about the intention behind the report: “Our hope is to spark further dialogue and to help destinations and businesses recognize that the business-as-usual scenario is not all that likely for the future.”

Beyond air travel, there are other considerable sources of emissions linked to the industry, like cruises and hotel construction.

So, for its own sake, how does the tourism industry help stop or at least slow down the impact it is having on the planet? The answer could be twofold. On one hand, it comes down to the people who are taking the trips and the countries and destinations that support tourism.

From a traveler point of view, understanding the impact of our travel plans on the planet may make some rethink how we should travel and where we should travel to. Companies like Booking.com are looking at how to display carbon emissions on flights and hotels. Others are taking a different approach to how they travel.

There’s a movement toward “slow travel,” a term to describe shorter, more immersive travel such as backroad backpacking or mindful, environmentally responsible modes of travel. It’s really the opposite of using the fastest way (with often the largest environmental impact) to get to a destination. The trend also ties into localism and the renewed interest in supporting our communities that came out of the COVID pandemic. In a Condé Nast Traveler article on slow travel in April 2023, Chyanne Trenholm, a member of the Homalco First Nation and assistant manager of Homalco Wildlife and Cultural Tours, talks about people looking for a different experience. The company organizes tours to local communities on Vancouver Island in a way that celebrates the Indigenous culture of stewardship of the land. “If slow travel is all about taking the time to properly connect with a place and its people, then yes, it’s something I’m all for,” Trenholm says. “It’s about taking time to make a connection to the land and each other.”

Governments and tourist boards also have a role in encouraging responsible tourism through developing policy. Many of the countries that benefit from the money tourism generates are in the Global South, but most of that money comes from people from wealthier northern countries who travel. So, if countries act to reduce or stop travel, it could have severe impacts to economies, industry experts say. “Do we need to cap the Global South, or do we need to cap some of the highest-volume airports in that long-haul aviation? This is exactly the discussion we need to have in this unprecedented, collaborative way,” Megan Morikawa, global director of sustainability for travel giant Iberostar Group, told Bloomberg News. “If we are making assumptions on who the winners and losers should be, we’re going to end up making decisions that might make equity issues even worse.”

Like governments, the industry itself will need to adapt to the changing climate and find ways to reduce the impact it has on the planet. But sustainability costs, and competition is fierce—will travelers be willing to pay more for a sustainable option? Booking.com’s 2023 Sustainable Travel Report says that 43 percent would, and that 50 percent of travelers generally choose sustainable travel options because they care about the impact of their travels.

The real test may come when we all must decide whether travel is worth the price to the planet.

The post Temperatures Rising<p class="company">Tourism Feeling the Burn</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

There is incredible momentum in healthcare when it comes to self-responsibility and the benefits of artificial intelligence, or AI. Mobile and wearable devices like smartphones, rings, and watches can track your body’s most important messages. You can find out about the quality of your sleep, activity and exercise, stress and heart health. You can see what your resting heart rate is, for example, and how you’re recovering from everyday stresses. Or, if your resting heart rate has skyrocketed, you can be prompted to go to the hospital to check for irregular heart rhythm or atrial fibrillation which, left untreated, could lead to stroke and disability.

In this context, smartphones and other devices with biosensors that measure your body’s biological or chemical reactions can provide the vigilance that we need. Healthcare facilities and specialists are already feeling the burden of a growing and aging population here in North America and beyond. Paramedics have expanded their practice so that ambulances have become mobile treatment clinics. Pharmacists can now prescribe more prescription medication and counsel patients. And just as transformative, AI in the hands (and pockets) of people themselves can provide the tools for improved health through better self-monitoring.

“As the elderly population grows globally, the medical industry is changing dramatically due to the need for point-of-care (POC) diagnosis and real-time monitoring of long-term health conditions. Over the past 30 years, data from rare disease registries have helped inform scientific understanding and the development of comprehensive monitoring and treatment guidelines, aiming to improve the quality of life of affected patients,” writes Ion-Alexandru Secara and Dariia Hordiiuk, authors of a study published in May in the Journal of Intelligent Learning Systems and Applications.

“The evolution of healthcare technology from traditional methods to AI-enhanced wearables underscores a significant advancement towards personalized care, necessitating further research and innovation,” the authors note. AI is opening doors for therapies and drug development in personalized or “precision medicine” as it is often called, that can provide customized and effective care for each unique individual.

That said, having a smartphone is much more than a way to connect with family and friends or follow the daily news. Devices like these can capture and analyze data about how you interact with your environment and other people, looking at how active you are, what you’re eating, and how far you’re travelling each day. This kind of basic health information is an important predictor of everything from general wellness and heart conditions to diabetes and mental health concerns like depression and anxiety.

In a recent study of 177 people with major depressive disorder, the MoodCapture smartphone app correctly identified early symptoms with 75 percent accuracy, combining the power of AI with facial-image processing software. UPI spoke to the study researchers in Dartmouth’s Department of Computer Science and Geisel School of Medicine in Hanover, NH in February, learning that the app uses a phone’s front camera to capture facial expressions and surroundings during regular use. Then the images are evaluated for cues linked to depression.

“We undertook this study to address critical gaps in traditional methods of monitoring and detecting depression,” the study’s co-first author, Subigya Nepal, told UPI. “Traditional approaches often involve self-reports and clinical assessments, which can be biased and may not capture the complexity of an individual’s mental state continuously.” More objective and unobtrusive methods could help with early detection and faster intervention for those at risk.

Nepal also talks about the added benefit of making depression detection more accessible for people and less stigmatized because it’s embedded into daily technology use. It doesn’t require user input, doctor supervision, or clinical visits to use. When there is so much concern over existing health inequalities like access to care, simple and effective self-monitoring tools can help to level the playing field.

As Scientific American reports in a January article, Intervention at an Early Age May Hold Off the Onset of Depression, identifying at-risk individuals might stop depression from becoming chronic and disabling:

“The earlier a first episode of depression begins, and the more episodes a person suffers, the more serious and disabling the condition is likely to be throughout life,” says the piece. “People who recover from an initial depression have a 40 to 60 percent chance of a later episode; those with two episodes have a 60 to 70 percent chance of recurrence, and those with three episodes have a 90 percent chance—a vicious cycle that too often ends in chronic illness or disability.”

While the pandemic thrust mental health into the spotlight, the article notes that the risk for teens of falling into this depression cycle has climbed alarmingly since COVID’s shutdown: surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 42 percent of U.S. high school students report hopelessness or lasting sadness, up from 28 percent a decade before.

Smartphone apps for mental health monitoring could have a significant impact, given that statistics as of October 2023 show that 97 percent of teenage girls in the U.S. had access to a smartphone at home. Teen boys aged 13 to 17 years had a smartphone access rate of 94 percent. In total, 95 percent of U.S. teens had smartphone access at home.

Weaving healthcare into a growing number of everyday products makes health information accessible and easier to grasp—and the relationship between patient and physician stands to evolve.

“Digital devices can help patients take an active part in their own health or disease management,” Bertalan Meskó told Well+Good earlier this year. Meskó is Director of the Medical Futurist Institute which analyzes the role of digital technologies in shaping the future of healthcare. “They can finally become members of their own medical team.”

The Emm menstrual cup, for instance, has a connected app that will tell you about your menstrual flow, and its technology in development will alert you to early signs of diabetes, high cholesterol, and gynecological diseases. The Daye tampon now works to check the vaginal microbiome to detect bacterial infections, potential fertility problems, and indications of entering perimenopause.

Earbuds in the works from EarHealth promise to screen for ear infections, earwax blockage, or ruptured eardrums. Apple has its Health app warnings about dangerous volume levels and is reportedly designing AirPods that will screen for hearing issues.

There is also a smart tattoo coming that changes colors in response to your hydration levels, blood sugar levels, or kidney or liver function. Another tattoo nearing market release lights up with exposure to UV light (skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.S., and the most preventable cause is overexposure to UV light, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Clothing is another route to mass adoption of the technology. The Prevayle SmartWear shirt or sports bra, launched in 2022, comes with a sensor that can capture almost 1,000 data points per second, including your body temperature and breathing rate. Its electrocardiograms, or ECGs, were validated against the hospital-grade standard for heart rate monitoring.

NADIX Activewear uses mild vibrations from sensors integrated into its leggings to let you know if you are practicing yoga moves accurately, helping improve overall balance, flexibility, and strength. Meanwhile, medical-grade wearables like continuous glucose monitors for people with diabetes automatically estimate blood sugar throughout the day and night (and set off an alarm for dangerous low or high blood glucose levels).

As well, AI neuroscience research at Imperial College London is hoping to add sensors to clothing items that will detect movement patterns that are characteristic of neurological disorders like Duchenne muscular dystrophy, one of the most common and severe forms of hereditary neuromuscular disease. Critical information like this can help doctors catch problems early and stall the progression of debilitating disorders.

The trend in wearable health tech is set to boom. Global smartwatch shipments are going to surge from 37 million units in 2016 to more than 402 million units by 2027, Statista projects. The next chapter in the evolution of wearable health tech will be prioritizing the adoption of medical-grade wearables for medical purposes. As Forbes notes, the use of personal fitness trackers or smartwatches presents distinct challenges of accuracy and reliability, data security, regulatory compliance, and interoperability and integration with healthcare systems and electronic health records that allow for efficient data sharing among healthcare providers for diagnostics and treatment.

AI has tremendous value in healthcare, but we all need to be aware of the benefits and risks of BYOD—Bringing Your Own Data—to your next doctor visit.

The post AI Comes of Age<p class="company">How Smartphones Can Safeguard Your Health</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

The pandemic further impacted the burden of mental health conditions with anxiety over COVID-19 restrictions, job loss, and the abrupt shift to online work and virtual learning. Many health experts say the silver lining of the pandemic is that it has brought mental health concerns and workplace burnout to the forefront.

Have things changed? To a degree, yes. Over the past three years, we’ve seen employee programs boom as company leaders expanded their health and wellbeing benefits. However, while employers have spent almost 20 percent more on their employees since 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employees report they are still not getting the support they need. The workforce is feeling the pressure of the turbulent economic environment, and employee turnover and disengagement can cost businesses millions in lost productivity every year.

Employee turnover alone can set employers back as much as 33 percent of an employee’s annual salary, Forbes reports. The culprit is the hiring of a replacement: the fees to recruiters or advertising, onboarding and training time, and costs that come with new employees understandably not performing at a high level while they’re still in training.

“External hires demand 18 to 20 percent more in salary than internal hires,” Stephen King, President and CEO of GrowthForce, told Forbes. King adds that it typically “takes eight to 12 weeks to replace a knowledge worker, and then another month or two before the replacement gets to full productivity mode.” So, if the person who left the company was bringing in $100,000 in revenue, that means your company will see $25,000 less in income and profits for the next three months or so, until the new hire gets to know the ropes.

Another cost is that your other employees, likely working at full capacity already, are taking on additional work while all this is happening. This can damage morale, and friends of the former employee may also become sad or resentful and question whether they should plan their exit as well.

The situation can be even more challenging in the skilled trades, writes Christopher Brenchley, CEO of SureHand, in his report on the hidden costs of hiring.

“As the Generation X and Baby Boomer generations reach or exceed retirement age in the skilled trades, there are fewer workers entering these industries to fill the gaps,” he writes. “A steady emphasis at the high school level on graduates favouring two- or four-year college degree programs versus vocational school or apprenticeship programs has reduced the number of incoming trades professionals.”

The American Welding Society estimates that there will be a shortage of 400,000 welding operators by 2024. And in Canada, one-fifth of the construction workforce is nearing retirement as the industry struggles to recruit new workers to fill a gap of 80,000 vacancies, according to a 2023 report by CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal.

As Brenchley notes, filling roles in industrial inspection and quality assurance are just two areas of concern, made more complicated by fragmented industry certifications and updated codes, specialized skills and equipment, and heavy workloads that all exacerbate the talent acquisition challenge.

Looking at mental health supports can help attract and retain talent—and deliver on your bottom line. There’s a growing body of research on the effects of poor workplace mental health linked with negative consequences. Beyond high staff turnover, there’s the issue of lower engagement and decreased productivity. Loss of productivity can happen both with absenteeism from work and coming to work but doing the tasks with impaired functioning. But, while you can’t miss the headlines about disturbing rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, it’s the mental health conditions like depression and anxiety that are the leading cause of workplace absenteeism and productivity losses in most middle- to high-income countries.

The American Psychiatric Association reports that employees with unresolved depression experience a 35 percent reduction in productivity, which is estimated to contribute to a loss of $210.5 billion a year for the U.S. economy. It’s a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

As the World Health Organization (WHO) says, “Workplaces that promote mental health and support people with mental disorders are more likely to reduce absenteeism, increase productivity, and benefit from associated economic gains.” Those economic gains could be meaningful: depression and anxiety cost the global economy some $1 trillion per year in lost productivity.

How common are mental health conditions? WHO reports that 15 percent of working-age adults were estimated to have a mental disorder in 2019. Johns Hopkins Medicine notes an estimated 26 percent of Americans ages 18 and older—about one in four adults—suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time, and depressive illnesses in particular tend to co-occur with substance use and anxiety disorders. People are hurting and companies need to understand that a healthy, positive work culture will attract and retain talent and deliver on the bottom line.

Consider that about 63 percent of Americans are part of the U.S. labour force, so the workplace can be a key location for strategies to improve wellbeing among adults. Workplace wellness programs can identify those at risk, connect them to treatment, and put in place supports to help people reduce and manage stress. There’s also the long-held stigma of mental health conditions as weaknesses that people are ashamed to admit to. How do you break that down and create a safe environment for people to discuss mental health? Is it talked about in the workplace and do employees feel there are supports available to them?

The real question is, how do leaders transform their employee experience in a way that will improve mental health, boost productivity, and ensure their companies remain strong and continue to grow?

Promoting mental health and supporting people with mental health conditions isn’t difficult, but it takes action and awareness. It’s more involved than allowing for paid stress leave. It takes time and resources to look at your workplace and evaluate the work processes, procedures, and policies to determine if mental health is included or considered. It’s also important to have a process in place that encourages self-disclosure or self-identification of mental health conditions in a safe manner.

Some ideas to consider are free or subsidized therapy and counselling for employees and their families, flexible work schedules (including mental health days), and discounted or free memberships for mental health apps like Headspace, for example, which provides mindfulness tools including meditations, sleepcasts, mindful movement, and focus exercises.

Health tech is a high-growth sector for a reason. There’s a clear need and there are numerous mental health startups looking to land major clients like banks, retailers, or health care providers to offer services to their employees. “Each one is another chance for someone struggling with their mental health to get the unwavering support they need,” New York tech writer Kinsey Grant says of the proliferation of innovative health apps.

“It shouldn’t come as a shock that offering genuine, accessible mental health resources is the morally right thing for employers to do. But in case that’s not enough, it’s also strategically the right thing to do. Helping people pays in spades.”

Organizations that use effective wellbeing strategies can build healthy, profitable, and growing companies. We hear a lot about artificial intelligence and how AI-driven mental health support programs remove the barriers people face when they’re looking for the support and care they need. These tools, like many wellness apps, can analyze data quickly and provide real-time resources in a way that was not previously possible.

These systems help people and families to connect with the right behavioural health experts and resources to understand their symptoms and receive the diagnoses, treatments, and medications that meet their needs. They can also help people locate health providers for in-person sessions and support.

Through AI, for instance, some companies have administered virtual stress assessments which then prompt employees to take steps to address high or moderate stress levels and improve their mental health. Employees can do assessments in the privacy of their home at a convenient time for them, so it gives them autonomy and control over accessing support programs and other wellness initiatives.

“Companies and officers—especially chief human resources officers and chief financial officers—are under intense pressure from boards and shareholders to deliver for their employees,” says Stephen Scholl, CEO of Alight Solutions, in Fast Company. “These leaders have invested billions in trying to solve the mental health crisis. It’s time to step back, consider what is and isn’t working, and chart a new path forward.”

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