In a large organisation it can be hard for managers to tell when a department is struggling with burnout, or some other emotionally-charged internal issue.

Organisational development firm Morphosis Global is launching a wellness app that will help.

The app is a strictly optional part of Morphosis’s new employee assistance programme.

Company chief executive Burgert van Jaarsveldt said the app, Morph Mind, does daily wellness checks of its employees by “nudging” them about their mood.

“If a large portion of a department suddenly starts reporting higher than normal levels of stress, the app will alert the boss. “It helps managers to identify hotspots,” Mr van Jaarsveldt said.

However, individual entries to the app remain confidential. The data gleaned helps Morphosis to identify trends within an organisation that could be impacting productivity.

“We can use the data to do a specific training initiative tailored to the situation,” Mr van Jaarsveldt said.

He said when employees are well, mentally and physically, they tend to be more engaged and take less sick leave.

“They are more productive in the workforce,” he said.

Morph Mind also notifies counsellors at Morphosis on Reid Street in Hamilton, when individual employee responses to the daily wellness questions, start throwing up red flags.

“It will ask permission to do this,” Mr van Jaarsveldt said.

Tina Laws, Morphosis mediator and relationship coach, said she is using the app herself.

“It allows people to better track their own moods,” she said. “Sometimes we can get so busy that we don’t even have time to check on ourselves. It gives an opportunity to personally invest in ourselves.”

Morphosis anticipated that the app would particularly appeal to the younger generations, because, theoretically, they are used to monitoring their wellbeing with technology.

“The main differentiator between our employee assistance programme and others like it, is an emphasis on prevention,” Mr van Jaarsveldt said. “We have monthly psycho educational sessions that we do on a webinar.”

Morphosis also offers Morph Money, employee financial counselling done in partnership with Megan Nesbitt, owner of accounting firm Abacus.

“Money is such a taboo subject,” Ms Nesbitt said. “It can be a source of conflict in all sorts of relationships. So we are looking to really plug in, on a referral basis.”

She said regardless of income, most people are stressed about money.

“There are very few people I know that don’t have anxiety around money in some way, shape, or form,” she said.

She talks a lot with clients about their money mindset.

“People are raised with different experiences and feelings around money,” she said.

However, she said Morph Money is not a therapeutic service. “We are there to support the therapists,” she said. “We provide practical tools to help with money issues.”

Morphosis is providing the Morph Mind app with the help of an Australian company called Shade Tree. The firm does a lot of character development work in schools.

“One of the biggest differences with the Morphosis employee assistance plan, is that it’s not like insurance where you pay, and then you lose what you do not use,” Mr van Jaarsveldt said. “What people don’t use by the end of the year can be monetised into a training programme specifically designed for the company.”