Breaking New Ground: Innovations in Mental Health Support for Content Moderators

Speaker 1

Welcome everyone to today’s webinar. Today we are talking about breaking new ground innovations and mental health support for content moderators. So if you don’t know me, I’m Dr. Michelle Tio, the clinical director at Zeebo Health, and today I’m joined by my colleague Sarah, who is a senior well-being consultant here in Zeebo.

She first joined the company in 2019 and in that time she has worked extensively with our clients across multiple industries as well as on-site with trust and safety content moderators directly. So Sarah’s expertise in health and well-being spans over 20 years.

She’s graduated with a master’s in public health in 2005 and she’s extremely passionate about advocating for a holistic and integrative approach to support individuals and organizations to thrive. And she is currently undertaking a doctorate in human performance and innovation.

So her extensive research on the changing landscape of workplace well-being contributes to the ongoing development and refinement of our solutions, particularly in the trust and safety space, and she brings a wealth of interdisciplinary and cross-sectional insights to the table, giving us a lot of fresh perspective on creative and novel ways to support employee well-being, particularly in these types of challenging roles.

So Sarah, you are very welcome.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much, Michelle. Bye, everybody.

Speaker 1

Right.

So today, maybe just to set the context, you know, psychological health and safety standards in content moderation can be broadly categorized into two main areas, those that are kind of inherent to the role itself, and then those that are specific to the types of content being reviewed, the job design particulars, things like targets and allocated well-being time, work environment factors such as, you know, do we have relaxation spaces for moderators?

Do we have ergonomic desks and workspace design? And then I suppose there’s a consideration that there are kind of these significant discrepancies that can exist between employers in the latter category. And so it’s important for us to really recognize that moderation is an umbrella term for a highly varied work experience.

So appreciating, I think, this broad range of we discuss the innovations in mental health support for these employees. And in recent years, there has undoubtedly been leaps and bounds in the quality of mental health support provided to content moderators. But we do know that the space is highly dynamic. And in this tech enabled world, interventions are also going to be rapidly evolving.

So in this webinar, we’ve elected to zoom in on five key areas, the general trends in workplace well-being and how they reflect in the 360 degree approach beyond mitigating risks to enhancing health and well-being, new considerations in intervention design, and next level crisis management support.

And we’re going to explore the evolution of intervention design and how supports are being upgraded in line with technological developments. So I think everyone in the trust and safety space is very familiar that the AI race is transforming our digital reality in very unimaginable ways and it’s placing content moderators on the front line.

So we’re really looking forward to just doing a little bit of a deep dive into the next level support for these vital helpers. So Sarah, my first question for you, workplace well-being, as I’ve mentioned, and as you have noted, is evolving really rapidly. So could you tell our listeners about the impact that this is having on mental health supports, particular in content moderation spaces?

Speaker 2

Yeah, absolutely, Michelle. So first and foremost, I guess the biggest change that’s noteworthy in the last 12 months has been employers getting much more sincere in their endeavors to tackle work determinants of wellbeing. So what that means is for some time now, and some companies for decades have been supplying these really robust and holistic wellbeing programs.

However, there’s been a little bit of, let’s say, a gap between these wonderful supports provided to employees and then the implementation and the day-to-day operations and the frustrations that many people probably viewing today have encountered around silos, communication challenges with colleagues, and managerial challenges.

There’s a whole host of work-specific elements that can really challenge our wellbeing and our experience at work. And so that’s what we’re seeing, especially in the last 12 months, a lot of job crafting, workflow design, really investing a lot more in management training, especially when it comes to that sort of coaching approach and compassionate communication.

So that would be kind of the main area that we would see in particular in the work determinants. But as an adjunct to that, I was attending the OECD New Frontiers in Wellbeing Measurements back in February. And there was also very clear messaging that there’s an expectation from the public that employers are more transparent about reporting on employee wellbeing. So this is the double prong.

So you are still seeing the continuation of wellbeing programs and they are getting better and better, which is wonderful. The deeper dive into really the sincere effort to tackle the work-specific challenges. And we can talk a little bit more about that in a few moments around psychosocial risk associated with specific roles.

And then as an adjunct to that, then we’re seeing much greater transparency and sincere efforts under the umbrella of ESGs that employers are starting to be clearer about and having more integrity about the health and wellbeing of their staff.

And even sometimes if it doesn’t look so good, it speaks a lot about the organization that they’re willing to present it and to make sincere public endeavors to improve upon it. And so that’s what we’re seeing globally. And again, this is sort of like with a broad sweeping brush. So maybe a bit of oversimplification, but that’s kind of the essence to sales.

And then how that translates into TNS, what we’re seeing as an adjunct to that or another kind of element that’s really driving more of a focus in this wellbeing, investment and wellbeing for the content moderators specifically, I guess, is that increased risk of litigation, which many employers are aware of. But also we’re seeing much greater increase, like a surge in competition.

There’s a lot more players in the space. And so content moderators themselves particularly can leave that role quite easily and go to an employer that will treat them better and have a more robust provision to support their health and wellbeing in the role.

Speaker 2

And in addition to that, so we’ve got litigation, we’ve got competition, and then we’ve also got a rapid evolution in terms of jobs in that sector. You mentioned the AI really accelerating so much change. And what we’re seeing directly among some of our TNS clients is the emergence of new roles.

Such as individuals who are red teaming AI and that brings with us then a whole new host of unknowns and uncertainties around the impact that can have on wellbeing. So these will be kind of three pieces that are also coming in to influence innovation and the evolution of the wellbeing support provided to employees and TNS.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so, you know, like, even I guess you sort of mentioned it just based on our experience with our customers, you know, I, I think is has been the big topic around trust and safety for the last year, maybe 2 years. And I guess, even in relation to, like, the competition that is their companies, like, open, I didn’t exist before and they’re also hiring moderation teams and trust and safety team.

So, you’re not only looking at your traditional social media or gaming or e-commerce, you’re also now looking at platforms who are bringing in people to help moderate the AI to help teach the AI to kind of red team, the AI.

And even within the existing customers that we have in social media, they’re bringing in these kind of AI teams, because they might have AI products within within the original product.

So, you know, it’s always interesting to see how the global trends around kind of general workplace well-being can very much reflect in the trust and safety space, but that there are kind of unique identifiers and stressors and challenges in the trust and safety space too.

Speaker 2

there absolutely is and a recent project that we’re working on, we can see that there are just so many unknowns and uncertainties that really require a very robust action research approach to really keep an eye on the impact of these new roles on the employees and the responsive and proactive rather than I think in the past, particularly as this whole industry was emerging, there was a very kind of reactive approach.

Let’s wait and see what happens and then we’ll fix, whereas now I would say that would be one of the biggest things we’re seeing among our TNS clients is that there is this such a sincere endeavor and it’s not just even about mitigating risk and reducing harm, but there is this sincere endeavor for the whole TNS ecosystem, you know, how do we support this all participants in this organization to thrive and we were discussing even earlier today, you know, do we believe it’s possible for content moderators to thrive in such a taxing role and of course context is everything but it certainly is when there is a very sincere and robust multi-dimensional approach adopted to really support employees in this space too.

Yeah, not only avoid harm but to actually enjoy what they do and I think you were speaking about how you’ve come across so many content moderators who cared so deeply about the work that they were doing and the value it was having in the world and how that is such a protective factor in many regards that psychological piece.

So how do we facilitate that as kind of an angle as well that employers are asking for?

Speaker 1

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you’re absolutely right, right? Like the, the wellbeing space, even in trust and safety is fairly new.

We’ve been in the game as a company for the last six years, but you know, we have really progressed our strategy over the last six years to, to really take that more proactive approach and to not just focus on the risk mitigation, but also to focus on how to ensure that moderators are flourishing and thriving, and they can meet their productivity targets and not be impacted by content and how they can improve their ticket handling times, because that has an overall impact on just making online spaces safer for everyone.

Speaker 2

Absolutely. But also, as you say, on their work life quality. And I think that’s what the big Oxford publication at the end of last year was really highlighting that things like achievements and acknowledgments and all of these elements are so vital to employees thriving in any workspace.

And how each of these elements can be targeted and honed in upon with clever interventions, but it’s not just, there’s many, many, let’s say, trends to weave in and it’s not just, yeah, do this one thing and this will solve the issue, but a much more comprehensive 360 approach.

Speaker 1

So I guess that really helps segue into the next question that I have for you, Sarah. So how do you see these trends impacting the provision of well-being supports in the trust and safety space?

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, I guess one of the most obvious things is the need and the increased demand for consultancy. And because as you said, in the intro, uh, content moderation in and of itself is such a broad umbrella term and within even certain types of moderation, there are specific factors to consider.

And you mentioned how we’ve evolved in the last six years, our understanding like we’ve really seen how even specific workflows kind of have significant impacts on content moderators in very distinct ways, and now we’re now providing supports to address on a more granular level, the challenges that they can encounter.

And so this is where consultancy can come in to really advise an organization, um, based on what it is known, and then also to do the research about the unknowns and in, in trust and safety, you’d see a lot like of the limited publications that there, there are, um, they always are cross-referencing other industries that may have kind of similar challenges. So the consultancy piece would be huge.

And particularly, um, with ISO standards, uh, around psychosocial risk, the guidelines that were published back in 2021, we are seeing a much, uh, greater demand for psychosocial risk assessment and getting really into the specific roles and we’ve done management trainings outside of the TNS space.

And it’s really insightful to hear back from particularly middle managers around the specific risks that they’re noticing that are very related to, um, to specific roles under the umbrella of their team. So the crucial part that these middle managers and in TNS, the team leads play to be able to relay back upstream about, um, the specific issues that are being encountered.

So it becomes more of like a, a live feedback loop and a live learning rather than this sort of, Oh, this is what to do. And this sort of rigid approach and we’ll check in in six months or a year’s time and see what happens. Um, unfortunately it’s not responsive enough. So, so that would be the one big thing, the consultancy I would see.

I mentioned earlier about job design and, um, and taking that kind of, um, case by case approach to specific workflows around what the need. And we’re also seeing, especially in TNS that has such a global workforce of all, I think it’s of all workforces across all industries.

It really is such a cultural melting pot and you can have so many different, um, ethnicities and backgrounds working in the same workplace. So another kind of key piece we’re seeing in TNS is that cross cultural sensitivity and intervention design. That’s a huge, huge piece.

Um, we’re also seeing, you know, how interventions need to be adopted based upon, you know, individualistic societies like Western Europe and the U.S.

versus more collectivist societies, um, say the likes of Turkey and South American, um, countries where there’s just much more, uh, of this kind of, uh, collective mindset and a different value system, which, which inevitably impacts how wellbeing supports are offered and delivered and received.

Speaker 2

So this is another piece that I guess is growing based on the mounting industry experience that we’ve gained over recent years.

And then it’s also in part due to, uh, BPOs and employers really in effect having more offices globally and in different parts of the world and recognizing that the interventions that they offer have to have regional, local adaptations, um, and that policy while it might seem, um, well intentions on a collective level may not translate and work on a, on a, a regional level and so facilitating those adaptations and knowing what’s appropriate can all benefit again from the input of consultants who are tenured in this, uh, in this area.

Um, and then the last piece I would say, when you ask about how, how it’s impacting TNS, we’re just, I mentioned already just a much greater investment in this kind of real time monitoring and, um, this, especially having that, uh, proactive approach in these specialized, um, areas, and particularly when it comes to escalations and crisis management, um, just getting far more responsive and more equipped to deal with these, uh, challenging situations when they do arise.

So that’s kind of, again, another point of, broad sweeping summation of kind of key elements, but I’d say they would be some of the major areas that I’d see.

Speaker 1

Yeah, amazing. And I, I might just touch back on some of those points. So even, you know, you mentioned the consultancy in the first instance, you know, we, our, our department does a lot of consultancy work.

And so we can see when our customers are investing in that consultancy work and taking the time to allow us to talk to HR managers, talk to middle managers, talk to content moderators directly, survey them, implement some psychometric measures.

When we can go in and see what their policies look like, you know, what their grievance procedures look like, what their workflow designs look like, all of this makes a really big difference in helping us design out a solution that is very tailored to the organization, very tailored to their population.

And that can help address and mitigate a lot of the risks that are just inherent as part of this work and trust and safety.

And I think one of the key elements, you know, that we’ve been finding is, like you were saying, you know, it’s, within this industry, like the, the BPOs in particular, but I think a lot of various different companies, even if they’re not BPOs, they’ve got, you know, global sites all over the place.

And so you’ve got pockets of moderators, maybe like over in South America, as well as in Africa, as well as maybe in Europe, and just having one overarching large policy or one process that is the same across the board is not going to be great.

But it also means that you might have multiple different suppliers and multiple different vendors who are working with you to either design out your wellbeing programs and deliver them, or even to, like, add in kind of other holistic wellbeing kind of solutions for you, like maybe your health insurance, or maybe your EAP supports.

And I think that’s maybe the one area when you were talking earlier about kind of silos still existing is, I think, as an industry, we’ve maybe yet to find the best way to bring all of those different suppliers and vendors together and to share data across with each other that is going to be really beneficial in helping us design all of the right solutions and the right care pathways that are necessary for moderation teams.

Speaker 2

Absolutely and where there’s a more collaborative and cohesive approach that has definitely been one of the biggest challenges and all these kind of data gaps and you can have two or three vendors in working with the same population of content moderators not knowing what each other are doing and so having some way to facilitate this kind of cohesive collaborative approach.

I always love talking to you after you’ve been to TrustCon and I know it’s coming up soon but you always just speak so highly of the culture that is in Trust and Safety inherently is hey we know we’re learning let’s collaborate and learn from each other and all the organizations sharing their insights to support each other to really provide the best for the employees and so in fact if that culture and mindset and attitude could just drop one more tier within each organization to realize okay vendors to a certain extent there may be a perception they’re competing against each other but not really if you know if it’s very clear and distinct how they can collaborate and how their insights can be pooled at that management level to direct and inform the design of interventions and supports year on year and so that would be kind of one of the main trip and points we see especially when you’ve got an AP with your insurance provider and then you might have individual vendors coming in and yeah so it’s how do you as a TNS manager really kind of coordinate that and then the other piece that dovetails on that is the loss of insight and metrics when a key personnel leave the TNS space so when you have turnover at that middle manager or top tier level a lot of the insights and stats go with them if there isn’t this kind of centralized hub that has some sort of continuity for the next kind of individual who’s appointed to governor support with well-being to to track and to see what has been done to date and where the improvements can be made

Speaker 1

Yeah, so I think exactly what you said there, bringing everyone together and not necessarily treating your vendors as competitors, but being able to kind of work together, find the right data, the right insights, leveraging a centralized hub where all of that can come together is really important.

So I wonder, Sarah, even from your perspective, if we’re thinking more about that kind of 360-degree approach, what might that kind of look like?

Speaker 2

Yeah, so to facilitate this unified approach, I guess we’re thinking vertically and laterally. So what I mean by that is when we think vertically, we’re looking at, well, what are the supports that managers are receiving? What’s the sort of communication skills training? What are the systems in place? What is policy? So that’s the kind of top tier.

Then if we go and look at our middle managers, often referred to as the squeeze middle and our team leads, what adaptations are required for them? It’s not, it does not work to give a standalone training in a workshop and let them off you go now and apply it.

Like what are the kind of consistent check-ins and supports to help these crucial personnel develop these key skills that have been proven to be vital? Like you see all sorts of sensationalized stats published in recent times about the impact of your manager on your mental health.

So whatever stash you can come across, ranges from like, oh, more impactful than your spouse or your GP and 80% say it’s more impactful than a therapist, the relationship with a manager. So there’s all sorts of stats out there that maybe aren’t so scientifically robust, but nonetheless, the essence is true.

We all can attest to the importance of having that deeply trusting and respectful relationship with the manager. And so we’re looking at, well, what are the supports in place there?

When we go down and we’re thinking more laterally, we’re looking at, well, what’s peer-to-peer support looking like and how do you facilitate, as we talked about a cultural mountain cross earlier, individuals coming to collaboration and co-create together in the workspace that have very different worldviews that may have very different values, very different ways of communicating and providing them with supports.

So I’m talking about vertical and lateral, kind of specific to these areas that I’m mentioning, but you asked about how do we unify and how do we centralize the insights from that?

So whoever is your PIC, your person in charge all of your wellbeing programs, really it’s up to them to work possibly collaboratively with some form of a consultant to pull these different streams together and see exactly where the vendors are contributing to explore what services, what trainings are being provided at those tiers that I’ve already mentioned and creating a framework that is congruent and that can have, as I mentioned before, the keyword is continuity for individuals that would perhaps take their… So I’m speaking a lot there about, say, social connection and belonging, which is again such a foundation and a pillar, especially in TNS, but then you’ve all these other branches such as your physical health. So you mentioned I’d worked in with content moderators on site when I first started in Trust and Safety and I remember coordinating several programs that were really well received around central behavior and the correct use of their sit-stand desks.

Speaker 2

So they were all equipped with this like state of the art equipment and just just observing walking around each floor every day you could see they weren’t using them and there was people sitting for six, seven hours of the day. That in and of itself, that alone is going to have impact psychologically among your physical health. Nevermind extra stressors related to the road.

And so we have to look at looking at exploring ways to support physical health in the road. Nutritional health comes under the umbrella and spiritual health, as you know, Michelle, one of our client sites, they have a space and that is especially allocated as a prayer room.

So it’s really, really appreciating the complexity of us human beings that while you want to silo and just look after their psychological health in this kind of neat little box, the reality is there’s so many influencing factors and equally you mentioned earlier about, when we were talking about, you know, content moderators driving in a road.

you really nailed it when you highlight it, but it just depends also on the individual and you have some individuals who will thrive with talk therapy.

I mean they’ll love it, but then you will have other individuals that want to go to a yoga class and that want to unwind and relax and do a bit of breath work and then maybe have a nice conversation but appear to pierce for it so it can look so differently and I think the skill and the art in providing a robust well-being support to to content moderator staff is acknowledging that and then refining and streamlining how these elements will work together and complement one another.

Speaker 1

Yeah, amazing. And so we’ve covered a lot already. And there’s loads of little nuggets that people can take away from the conversation that we’ve already had. But in your opinion, what do you feel is maybe that kind of vital takeaway for anyone listening today who’s responsible for the care of trust and safety teams and content moderators?

Speaker 2

the first one that really is very close to my heart, especially when we’re working in an industry that there is a lot of vulnerability around certain pipes of workflow and egregious content exposure and other risks related to the role.

It’s just be brave and advocate for change and if you’re a middle manager or a senior leader and you can see something is happening that really require the dressing to be that voice for these workers and advocate for change because if you’re not going to vocalize and advocate for the change it’s going to endure substandard treatment, substandard behavior and ultimately it hits the bottom line and it increases turnover and it’s going to affect poor business outcomes anyway so be brave.

That would be a big big piece I’d say with my pontificating here but I don’t mean to be but it would be the one thing I would say as close as I said to my heart.

The other piece I think is the key is putting structures in place that facilitate adaptability so you’ve talked about grievance mechanisms for example you know the employee works like how easy is it for your employees to to vocalize and to name what their challenges are and to get a response and address these issues.

So looking at that as a tiny example but on a broader scale you know how do you prime yourself to be more adaptive and responsive and especially in the world that we’re in we know we need that more than ever.

And I guess the last piece is like dovetailing on what I spoke about in the last question would be really aiming to facilitate as much cohesion as possible behind all your good partied well-intentioned vendors and well-being support providers.

You know I would speak as someone who’s worked in this industry for 20 years anyone who’s drawn to work in this industry has this higher vision and desire for positive impact and positive change. So I would say you know if you can facilitate collaboration and cross communication as much as possible and yeah that that would be it would work wonders for the efficacy of your approach.

Speaker 1

That’s great, Sarah. So definitely a couple of vital takeaways for people. So very last question for you. What changes do you anticipate in the next 12 to 18 months in trust and safety?

Speaker 2

Yeah, look, the tech landscape, I mean, can anyone track what’s going to happen? I would say the increased emergence of new rules and that needs to be, yeah, like, predictive of potential firms, potential challenges associated with these new rules and have more than a buffer to protect in place. So to overshoot in that regard and then dial back once more, no one and once more is understood.

So I’d say that would be one of the kind of key elements. And then I would just say increased competition in content moderator. The demand for content moderation is going to increase more and more players in the industry and therefore really forcing employers to step up and really, really look after this who can be like this vulnerable population. Yeah, I would say there are the two key pieces.

Is there any that maybe you would see?

Speaker 1

I mean, I think just, you know, similar to what you just mentioned there around that increased competition in moderator companies or people who are employing moderators, you know, we’ve already seen, I think in the last year, the changes that have come that are impacting trust and safety teams.

So things like, like regulation, you know, it places a lot more pressure on moderation teams to react quicker, to really egregious harms, to be more accurate in their decision making.

And all of this, this increased pressure, whether it’s coming from a regulatory body, or whether it’s coming from the expansion of, you know, content moderation teams across the globe, whether it comes from, you know, AI, regardless of where that pressure is coming from.

Trust and safety teams and moderators at the end of the days are the ones who are the most impacted, as well as the end users who are just sitting on the platforms scrolling through Instagram, or TikTok, or whoever, or whatever other platform, right? So I think that that piece is really important.

And that is really, I think, already well recognized within the industry that that all of this change is constantly occurring.

And as much as we’re trying to keep up with it, like, it is difficult to keep up absolutely when the DSA first came in, like everyone was a little lots of webinars going around and people teaching each other how they’re going to, you know, improve their transparency reports around the DSA and just meet the requirements that are set out in front of them now, which is something that this industry has never really had to do before in that same level.

So I think it’s exactly that, you know, the more preemptive we can be, the more predictive we can be in understanding the challenges in the industry as a whole, but also for the trust and safety teams and the content moderators. If we can overshoot and then dial back, that’s the best approach that we can take exactly, as you said, Sarah.

Speaker 2

Yeah I really think so and I think when you mentioned the DSA you know the feedback is it’s not the major players that are impacted as much as the smaller players in the industry and it’s how do we support them and to kind of triage to know what are the essentials, what do we have to cover and support them not to go into overwhelm and to cave in because the demands are too much.

So it’s complex and it’s also passionate towards the people who feel responsible for the well-being of these populations as well and providing them with as much support as possible because it can be super high pressures and and challenging so yeah. Yeah absolutely and I think you just want to say to any of the viewers out there yeah.

Speaker 1

I know absolutely and I think that’s one of the great things that Zevo I think has with its customers and with the partnerships that we have with our customers is we really feel for them we know that they’re under a lot of pressure and you know the services that we provide as much as they’re targeted towards content moderators the consultancy work that we do and all of the other kind of like surrounding solutions that we offer are really there to support our customers at that wider level and to understand the entire ecosystem of things that are just going to be impacting everyone at every level in the organization no matter what function you’re in.

Speaker 2

Yeah, absolutely. A domino effect. Yeah, yeah, no one’s an island, is that what they say? No one’s an island.

Speaker 1

Yes, yeah, that’s exactly it. And trust and safety, I think the community knows, no man is an island, we all work together, we all collaborate as best as possible.

So I think a lot of what we’ve talked about today, you know, that sense of cohesion, that 360 approach, ensuring that we’re looking, you know, vertically, laterally, bringing all the vendors together, all of those pieces, I think, are really, really important to making sure that we have the best and most innovative solutions for moderation teams, just sitting there, making sure that they’re going to be okay in what they’re doing.

Speaker 2

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Michelle, for having me today. Absolutely.

Speaker 1

and thank you so much for for sharing all of the insights you you’ve got so much knowledge around global well-being trends and you you have a great way of helping people understand you know how this this translates into the trust and safety space so I’m sure that our listeners have learned a lot from you um and if anyone else wants to kind of get in touch with us about consultancy services or about any of the solutions that we have for the moderation teams you can go ahead to our everyone for joining us um and Sarah again thank you so much for your time thanks Michelle thanks everybody bye thank you bye