EXPLAINER-IN-BRIEF: SNAPCHAT UNDER FIRE FOR ITS UNDER-AGE USERS

Snapchat looks to be the latest casualty of scrupulous regulators in the UK. The Information Commissioner’s Officer, the data regulator, is worried that thousands of kids under 13 are using the app. Indeed Snapchat is considered the preferred app for underage users.

Back in March, it was reported that Snapchat had removed only a small number of underage accounts in the UK - around 700 suspected underage accounts were taken offline in the UK between April 2021 and April

2022. By contrast, TikTok removed 180,000 accounts during the same period.

If the data regulator is not satisfied with the information it finds, it will likely launch an investigation into the app. When an investigation finds evidence of wrongdoing, the company usually gets a fine. Snapchat does have some measures in place to protect users who are under 18, but has been repeatedly criticised for not doing enough to keep those under 13 away.

But part of the problem that remains is how companies cannot see the financial benefits of having a mentally robust workforce.

Few have made the economic case for managing mental health as a route to increasing productivity or growth.

Too often, politicians will fret endless about productivity and hope for some miracle cure to come along. But very few are shouting from the rooftops at some of the things that actually are working.

One of the best-kept secret is the Access To Work scheme. It’s one of those things often stuck at the bottom of a job ad, where the company in question promises not to discriminate based on background or any other characteristics. It usually ends up sounding both trite and somehow not quite real. But it can have a massive impact at a rela-

Jeremy Hunt has repeatedly warned about Britain’s sluggish productivity tively small cost.

For example, I was diagnosed with ADHD in March 2020. Emerging through the thicket of a diagnosis and starting life-changing medication, I’ve spent much of the past three years trying to figure out how to ensure I can do my job to the best of my abilities.

The scheme allowed me to identify what “reasonable adjustments” I could use that would improve my productivity and make me a better employee.

As a result, I now have a new tablet to keep all my handwritten notes - instead of the vast array of notebooks that inevitably get lost.

I also get access to weekly workplace coaching, read and write software, organisational programmes, training and an allowance to hire an assistant to help me with being organised (I’m still too disorganised to actually hire someone just yet).

Lastly, there was the offer of workplace awareness training.

The premise of the scheme is that the government provides funding to implement workplace adjustments, and thereby ensures people remain in employment, paying their taxes and avoiding the risk of being a greater burden by being unable to work.

But the question is - why can no one in government see that to have a thriving workforce and a growing economy, you have to make sure employees are supported properly?

If more employees were given support - like with Access To Work - then they will be able to be the best versions of themselves; more work will get done and bigger profits generated.

But until wellness is taken out of the bucket of “nice but not essential” to a business’s core strategy for generating greater profits, very little will change and the question of “why can’t the UK improve productivity?” will remain.

£ Simon Neville is Media Strategy and Content Director at SEC Newgate, he was formerly City Editor at Press Association