this is worklife from bbc news, with ben bland and samantha simmonds. counting the rising cost of not taking care of employees‘ mental health, we have exclusive research on the issue. live from london, that's our top story on wednesday 22nd january. a study for the bbc has found employees‘ mental health issues cost businesses tens of billions of dollars a year. we're going to look at what's being done to tackle the issue. also in the programme, we're assessing the growing impact on travellers of the lethal corona virus outbreak in china.

and more turbulence for boeing, as the plane maker announces its troubled 737 max planes won't return to the skies until the summer. and we'll be getting the inside track on the battle over biometrics with a tech company developing emotional analytics tools for businesses. as we're focusing on mental health issues in the workplace we'd like to hear about your experience, both good & bad. let us know — just use the hashtag bbcworklife. hello and welcome to worklife. a warm welcome to the programme. we start with an issue that businesses can no longer afford to ignore — mental health. new analysis for the bbc suggests that the cost of poor mental health in the workplace has increased significantly in just two years with many employees feeling uncomfortable talking about their mental health

with their employers. the report by deloitte estimates that costs to uk employers alone have risen by 16% to over £40 billion. that's $52 billion a year. they say it's down to a combination of rising wages and an increase in "presenteeism" where employees come in even when they're unwell and less productive. deloitte calculated that companies lose an average of nine days of work per employee every year due to mental health issues but only two of those days are due to absence. the other seven are due to staff coming in and being unproductive, rather than taking time off when they're unwell. the report points out that on average, one dollar invested by employers into workplace wellbeing could see a return of five dollars or more by reducing presenteeism costs. well, our technology reporter zoe kleinman has been talking to amber coster, who suffered a breakdown in a high—flying job.

i had chronic exhaustion, i was tired all the time. i was suffering really badly from migraines, i had very, very strong abdominal pains, i went through patches of having rashes, breaking out on my face, i just wanted to cry. all the time. and there were many times when i just didn't feel like i wanted to exist. i ignored my body for a really long time. and now i understand my health a lot better. i understand my health a lot better. i understand that i'm not a robot. some employers are waiting up to the advantages of investing in mental health. but the bigger battle could be our own inability to switch off. how true is that? with us now is elizabeth hampson. she is a director at the consultancy firm, deloitte and also author of mental health and employers. welcome to you. thank you for coming in. we talk about the financial cost so in. we talk about the financial cost

so let's focus on that first of all. what our business is doing and what more could they be doing? we looked at this two years ago, the stevenson pharma review, and were surprised to see the 16% increase you've lagged earlier. but what we did see on the positive note is that particularly large companies are starting to do more, however, we see there is a lot more, however, we see there is a lot more that can be done. where we think that companies could do more is around culture change, education, proactive support for employees, so this gets a better return on investment, so if you actually wait untilan investment, so if you actually wait until an employee is struggling and taking time off, you get £3 for every £1 back but if you invest early then you get a much higher return. £6 for every £1. when businesses take steps like creating quiet spaces or encouraging people to ta ke quiet spaces or encouraging people to take time off, it can perhaps seem like a sticking plaster whereas actually the underlying problem is the work culture, especially in financial services sector, where

people feel that they are expected to work long hours and you are seem to work long hours and you are seem to have pride in being able to be contacted all times of day and night and weekends. what we highlight in the report as it is worth business paying attention to this and thinking about what cultural changes they might need in the organisation. one of the things we would advise is actually looking at where you have present tears, employees feeling like they have to come in. when they don't work at their best. where employees don't take holidays there allocated and have to work outside of ours, looking at what the factors that are contributing to this are, and starting to take action. where should employees look for help on an issue which is extremely sensitive to many people feel very uncomfortable talking about and discussing it with a line manager, for example? i think it's very personal what is best for you. for some people it's best to take time out. they may look for services through the health service, and for

others, they might be looking for employee assistance programmes etc. they might feel more comfortable. it's very much up to the individual, but definitely they should be made to feel more comfortable to approach their employerfor to feel more comfortable to approach their employer for support. 0k, thank you. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. the emergence of new competitors has started to dent netflix's growth in the us. the streaming giant said it added just 420,000 subscribers there in the most recent quarter. netflix is contending with a raft of new competitors, as rivals like disney, apple and comcast offer their own streaming services. coca—cola says it won't ditch single—use plastic bottles because consumers still want them. the firm added they appealed to customers because they reseal and are lightweight. the drinks giant produces about three million tonnes of plastic packaging a year but has pledged to recycle as many plastic bottles as it uses by 2030. vodafone has become the latest company to leave facebook‘s

digital currency project, libra. the project has seen an exodus of backers including paypal and mastercard amid regulatory scrutiny. in october, the world's biggest economies warned cryptocurrencies such as libra pose a risk to the global financial system. france has agreed to delay its introduction of a new digital services tax. this is after a backlash from washington. france has agreed it won't introduce this new tax on international technology firms until the end of 2020. the us threatened to impose tariffs on $2.1; billion worth of french goods after the tax law was passed injuly last year. the us now says it won't introduce extra import taxes this year following the news.

concerns that the deadly virus in china could be as damaging to the economy as the 2003 sars outbreak have kept investors jittery in asia. our asia business correspondent karishma vaswani is following the story from singapore. bring us up to date with the reaction to the outbreak and how it's been handled. well, in the first instance, i think that investors a cross first instance, i think that investors across asian markets, although we did see a sort of very sharp drop in shares earlier today, we are starting to see some recovery now, in particular chinese markets which saw that plunge, they too are recovering, and i think that tells you that investors are beginning to believe that perhaps china's response to this virus outbreak in the last few hours, we've heard from chinese officials may seem to be far more communicative about what they are doing and how they are planning to manage this and monitor the

outbreak, i think a lot of investors are taking heart from that and believing that it's better than what some had initially expected. that helped to alleviate fears of could possibly be in the minds of some investors, a global pandemic, although i have to add that pretty much every business person that i've spoken to him that has operations in china or regularly travels there from this part of the world, has expressed concern to me about the virus and in particular about travel to china. a number of these people are said to be the are thinking of banning or limiting travel altogether to china. it's not surprising that the usual suspects, travel stocks, tourism stocks can have been affected because there are concerns travel will still go in and out of china and that will have a knock—on effect on those sectors. remember chinese tourists are a major revenue driverfor remember chinese tourists are a major revenue driver for a number of asian economies in the region. then there's worries about what's going to happen over the lunar new year period, we are coming into that, and millions around the region will

start travelling, so lots of concern yet but i think panic for the moment at least on financial markets are certainly being contained. 0k, thank you very much. asian markets moved higher after the previous day's sharp losses. investors there still somewhat cautious though after a deadly virus from china was confirmed to have spread to the united states. tourism—linked firms were among the worst hit again. oil prices edged lower, extending the previous session's drops. investors continue to shrug aside the impact of almost all of libya's crude production being off—line amid plentiful supplies elsewhere. european markets start the wednesday session higher. tech stocks helping lift sentiment after ibm beat expectations. now to the us, where the troubled plane maker boeing has announced it doesn't expect its 737 max planes to return to the skies

until the summer. michelle fleury has more from new york. it wasn't meant to be like this. the grounding of the 737 max jet wasn't expected to last this long. and yet, once again, boeing is pushing back the date for its return to service. now, the new delay comes after two recent discoveries. a software flaw requiring more work than expected and an audit that found that some of the wiring of the 737 max plane needed to be re—routed. the delay means the jet will miss the busy summer travel season for a second straight year. that's peak revenue season and it could add to the compensation that the us playmaker ends up paying airlines. to recap, the max was granted in march 2019 after two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. now, the company had previously estimated that the flying ban would be lifted before the end of 2019. that overly optimistic assessment because the playmaker problems, not least with investors,

and it led to the departure of dennis wallenberg, boeing's previous ceo. this is the first update since his successor david calhoon started on the job last week and it comes one week before he has to face investors when boeing publishes its quarterly results. time now for our daily look at some of the newspaper and website stories which have caught our eye. joining me is allyson stewart—allen, founder and chief executive at international marketing partners. welcome. good to have you with us, so we are welcome. good to have you with us, so we are starting with a story about france signalling the breakthrough in us digital tax talks. they think it's a break to come anyway. yes, they do but the us, knowing well how you negotiate with the americans, i think it needs to be framed differently. they are certainly trying. there's an expectation today. between the french finance minister and the

american treasury secretary in order to find a way to get some agreement moving. if we just take a step or two back, why this digital sales tax was so two back, why this digital sales tax was so controversial and provoked such a reaction from washington?” think it's because it's about regulation, fundamentally, american companies, american industries don't wa nt to companies, american industries don't want to have any barriers put in their way in terms of making money, and if they are going to be taxed or if there are tariffs imposed, they wa nt to if there are tariffs imposed, they want to know it's on a reasonable basis, where president macron has other hand shaping this discussion in the first place, and in fact, it's his initiative that the tech companies opt to pay tax when they do business, rather than just companies opt to pay tax when they do business, rather thanjust at head office, whatever profits they have back at ho, head office, whatever profits they have back at hq, and that's really what this boils down to fundamentally. we heard from tim cook from apple accepting that there does need to be more tax, a fairer

tax, and the oecd is spearheading a global rules initiative. how was that progressing? it will take a very long time because you have to get the buy in of countries all over the world into how it's going to be overseen, how it's going to be implemented, and we know from this country anti—brexit in the uk, they are getting agreement with multiple countries, it's not an easy endeavour. it certainly won't be. let's look at the story in the guardian. a costly fight for harry and megan over the sussex royal brand. you come from a marketing background. explain why there is a costly legal battle. there have been cyber squatters who have seized the name sussex royal or have at least registered it online. an american lawyer on the 8th of january claims to have purchased the website sussex royal for the united states. to have purchased the website sussex royalfor the united states. and the challenge that they face, harry and

megan, is how do they exploit this brand with or without a web online presence, but how do they do it tastefully, how do they do with whether royal family will approve of what they do because i have to believe that they have to run it past the cream and other members of the royalfamily, past the cream and other members of the royal family, any past the cream and other members of the royalfamily, any commercial initiatives that they may well get involved with? so they have to do be in sync with the brand values for example, and they need the right instagram account name, which might‘ve also been hijacked other people. does the addition of the sussex really make a difference of just briefly because they are such a well—known couple, they are a global brand, does it really matter? i'm not sure it really does matter because it's about them. and so whether it has the word royal in it oi’ whether it has the word royal in it or not, everybody already knows their affiliation with the royal family. the question is how they keep that affiliation a good one

because it's in all their interests to do that? they do know that, don't day and they want to be respectful to the queen. good to have been with us. thanks very much for taking us through those stories. stay with us. still to come. the boss of lloyds banking group tells us how he has delt with challanges around mental health in his own life. you're with worklife from bbc news. the uk is more regionally divided than comparable advanced economy, according to a new report by the institute for public policy research. it's hosting a conference on the future of the north today, and one of the report's authors luke raikes is in our newcastle studio. thanks very much for being with us. those regional differences include health, productivity and income. what is all of this down to? the overwhelming source of this is centralisation in this country, that's what sets it apart from a

country like france and germany and whitehall, westminster, has managed the northern economy across england and the whole of the uk in a way which has led to these severe divides, more divided than any developed country can only countries like romania, poland and south korea are more divided in the developing unequally, so it a severe problem and whitehall is the source of the problem. we've long heard about a north and south divide and i'm from leeds originally and it's always been a grumble that the south gets prioritise in, but london is the capital, it has got a very large population, how do you fix this and try to make it fair? we aren't the only country with a capital of course, we aren't the only country with a world city, paris is a city, tokyo, much more equal than we are. what we would say is this isn't working for london either. all the investment going into london, infrastructure, research and under development and innovation doesn't

feed through to benefiting people in london because there is the highest inequality in the country and poverty rate in that area the most productive so it's not working for any regions, and that's why we need devolution of government which the government will look at pushing forward in the next few years. just briefly, do you think that actually something like more devolution would help or if it's not done well then you end up in situations where things are more fragmented and patchy? what we see across the developed world is more devolution does tend to mean that regions are better performing, more investment in education and infrastructure and more convergence between regional economies, so actually, yes, it should do if it's done well and the institutions are strong. we should see benefits of devolution across the country. we've got a lot of things coming down the line in terms of automation, technological change, and we've seen vital manage that badly in the past few years so we need to have the power in the north and across england to manage these things that are going forward. thanks very much.

you're watching worklife. a reminder of our top story. new analysis for the bbc suggests that the cost of poor mental health in the workplace has increased significantly in just two years. now, understanding consumer behaviour is essential for businesses. the more companies know about what drives our buying decisions, the better insight they have into what kind of products they can sell us. that's where our next guest josipa majic comes in. her uk—based tech firm, tacit, makes artificial intelligence tools that give firms a unique view into how people truly feel. let's get more on this. welcome to you. thanks for being so what's so different about traditional marketing to what you do? so basically what we do is we collect and analyse biometric data. to be

specific, total of ii and analyse biometric data. to be specific, total of 11 different biometric points in order to know exactly how you feel, with precision, and in order to know what that means emotional whys, stress wise, and cognitively. 0k, that means emotional whys, stress wise, and cognitively. ok, so let's say i'm on a tablet scrolling through and an advert for a holiday comes up, through and an advert for a holiday comes up, what are you going to be measuring in terms of my reaction? we will be measuring festival did you get excited by it? if yes, what level of excitement was it, high or low? whether the emotion is positive oi’ low? whether the emotion is positive or negative and most importantly of all, measuring if it elicited some stress and did it convert in a purchasing decision? also cognitive workload, the level of intensity you have to put in to comprehend is being shown to you, so do you understand it? what if i'm not co mforta ble understand it? what if i'm not comfortable with that personal data being sent to a company trying to sell me something? we only do studies where we recruit you

formally and you get financially compensated for participating in our research. its market research but just digital. based on biometric data, so we use it both in universities to do white paper studies and scientific research but also big clients and companies to help them understand their consumers better. ben would have to wear a watch which can send you all the data or something like that? yes, wea ra bles, data or something like that? yes, wearables, like the ones i'm wearing now. and then instead of using a traditional lab, we only use your smartphone app to collect all the data. how can somebody be sure you we re data. how can somebody be sure you were keeping his data private. it's all about privacy and we know how much data is worth. how can we be sure once it is set to you, you are not selling it on elsewhere and it will not misusing it? we actually require an ethical approval for each study we do and we are compliant with all of the current regulations in terms of their privacy encryption

and also what we insist on is a company is to have only a single use for the database company is to have only a single use for the data base collected company is to have only a single use for the database collected so an example would be if we are doing a sleep study, we will only analyse your sleep and then we discard the data. we have heard recently the eu is banning facial recognition technology for five years, so how does that impact on the work you are doing? people don't understand that facial recognition and facial coding is not the same, so facial recognition is using your facial features in order to identify you as an individual whereas facial coding is analysing the movement of a 43 muscles you have in your face in order tojust know muscles you have in your face in order to just know what is a micro—expression, so small involu nta ry micro—expression, so small involuntary movements would last a couple of milliseconds and that's the only thing we store, so we never know how your face looks, what it looks like, we only track the movement of your muscles. really interesting and increasingly affecting the way we all buy stuff and interact online. thank you very much for coming in to talk to us.

really good stuff. thank you. in a moment we'll run through some viewer responses to our twitter question. but first, let's return to the issue of mental health in the workplace. the chief executive of lloyds bank, antonio horta—osorio says firms that ignore mental health issues risk breaking employees' lives and families. he, himself, collapsed from exhaustion shortly after taking over lloyds and now advising fellow business leaders not to destroy themselves by working flat—out, all the time. it's very important to have high performance, but you cannot be at peak performance for ever. the bank, for once, is in a very weak position to face adversity. the bank had £200 billion of toxic assets and, of course, i could not speak about it. because if i did, obviously, that would not generate confidence in the bank. so it was a problem that was going around my mind constantly, which led me to sleep less and less

and the less and less sleep progressively led me to exhaustion and not sleeping at all. it's really important to combine peak performance for a significant period of time, whatever you need, with moments of rest where you can recover, where you can regenerate yourself. i think you also have to have holidays in order to think about different things and regenerate your body and your mind. and i think you have to protect your sleep, which is really important, as well, for the body to regenerate overnight, to classify everything that went on through the day so those types of things, i think would enable anyone of us to have much better performance, much more sustainability over a longer period of time.

this issue is an important one. we've been hearing how ignoring mental health issues in the workplace can break lives. we were asking about your experiences good and bad. pete got in touch and tweeted to say... he has a great company — solvay group — he had some personal issues s three years ago and the company worked hard hard and supported me. keith 15 adds: you are better off having cancer or a broken bone as your employers understand that. to be easierfor to be easier for people to grasp when you can see what's wrong with you. adrien von ferscht makes the point about freelancers and self—employed — he says what about the gazillions of lone self—employed folk who are in an unseen vacuum? very good point. nathan applaud the boss of knives for speaking out and says he was forced out for is

company says he was forced out for is com pa ny after says he was forced out for is company after a decade for no consideration of his mental health. thanks for getting in touch and being so candid on an important issue which is good to discuss. thanks very much for being with us. bye bye. thanks forjoining me. i trusted the fog won't of been an issue for you through the first part of wednesday. ona day through the first part of wednesday. on a day which is essentially still another dry day for the most part. a lot more cloud certainly across the southern half of britain than was the case perhaps for some of you on tuesday. that big old high pressure has drifted further towards the south and west and many more of us are now on its northern and eastern flanks. and therefore, we are sucking in this relatively mild air from the atlantic, moisture laden airat from the atlantic, moisture laden air at that, hence a lot more cloud across a lot more parts of the british isles. at its thickest, perhaps northern scotland, rain moving through on the breeze there.

the cloud breaking just on the eastern side of the pennines. the eastern side of the pennines. the eastern side of scotland. the best chance of sunshine through the afternoon. should that be the case, aberdeen, 12—13, elsewhere, 9—11 would cover it. the fog if it lifted, into low cloud, may well come back again as we move from wednesday on into thursday. a lot more cloud across the southern counties of england, so i think even here you will avoid the frost. 5—8 should just about cover it. not a great deal of change on thursday, friday on toward saturday, just watch out for those murky starts, mist and fog a real issue for many. there won't be much of an issue with the frost. here we move towards the weekend. this is where we begin to see the first signs of change because we will squeeze up the isobars are so more wind than many of us have seen for a good few days and the weather front eventually making progress, knocking the high

pressure aside. i think during the day, there will be northern and western parts, the bulk of the rain, heavy. elsewhere, the first signs of this breakdown with the odd piece of rain coming through on a freshening south to south—westerly wind. overnight, saturday into sunday, but active front will produce some wet and windy weather across all parts of the british isles, taking time on sunday to clear the far of east anglia, and following on behind, snow showers. this looks like a lot but it's a course model and i'm thinking this will be more of a high ground feature but it will feel much fresher on the northern half of britain. relatively mild for the south.

you're watching bbc news at nine with me annita mcveigh. the headlines... chinese authorities say they're now at "the most critical stage" of trying to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus which has killed nine people and infected more than 400 others. a battle over allowing new evidence — republicans reject attempts to call witnesses and obtain documents in donald trump's impeachment trial. saudi arabia denies claims the crown prince hacked the mobile phone of amazon bossjeff bezos. the duchess of cambridge launches what's been described as a landmark childhood survey which aims to improve the lives of the under—fives. new bbc analysis finds the cost of poor mental health