Lee and Louise discuss:

• The benefits of Louise’s background in social research

• How they take academic research a step further and create tangible change

• Combining the best of human nature with technology to create support pathways

• Neurodiversity in the workplace and the small changes that can accommodate large proportions of the population

Links & references

Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/

Dr Louise Morpeth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-morpeth/

Brain in Hand: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brain-in-hand/

https://www.braininhand.co.uk/

Get in touch: lee@extrology.com

Episode highlights:

“My early days were actually mum and dad setting up their own business. So I got the bug early on of what it was like to set up and run a business. I think that might have inspired me to end up where I am now, although going on a very circuitous route to get here.” - 1:35 - Dr Louise Morpeth

“The motivation in academia is to publish, it's not about necessarily making a difference to lives. After 20 years of doing that, I thought I’d rather be making a difference. Being somewhere like Brain in Hand, I get the absolute best of both worlds. We need research to evidence what we're doing and the difference we're making, but we're actually changing lives.” - 6:40 - Dr Louise Morpeth

“First of all, we needed to demonstrate that Brain in Hand improves quality of life. We needed that to be done independently of us. So challenge one was to raise the money to commission external research to have an independent clinical trial of the benefits of Brain in Hand.” - 18:15 - Dr Louise Morpeth

“We've been trialling the nine day fortnight. So we wanted to see whether, by letting people have every other Friday off, would that help with people's wellbeing and commitment to work, and again, for us to be differentiated as a place to be. That's been an amazing success and something that we're now going to do permanently.” - 22:55 - Dr Louise Morpeth

“We're not going to just be a fully digital product. Our challenge is how do we get the best of both worlds? I'm excited about how we move that forward, because we don't know at the moment just how much value just comes from what our team does, and what comes from the technology. That's what we're trying to understand, but it's a really exciting trajectory to be on.” - 29:50 - Dr Louise Morpeth

“There are 100,000 people who are more than three months waiting for an autism assessment in the UK, and many will have waited several years. The challenge for autism is even just getting an acknowledgement that you are autistic, and you may need some support - that’s the first hurdle to overcome.” - 31:55 - Dr Louise Morpeth

“We're seeing some employers who are really embracing this, and have 10% of their employees who are autistic which, compared to the broader population, is almost an over-representation. Then at the other end, there will be companies losing people from their workplace by failing to make very small adaptations.” - 38:00 - Dr Louise Morpeth

“I think being able to grow a business that can combine financial success, delivering great value for our users, and being a really human place to work where we genuinely care about people's well being - if we could do all three of those at the same time, that would really feel like success. So often it feels like one has to be sacrificed for the other. ” - 50:00 - Dr Louise Morpeth

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