• Ukraine is now making glide bombs of its own.
• Russia has used the bombs, which can be fired out of reach of air defenses, to devastating effect.
• The US has given Ukraine some, but they have reportedly struggled with Russian jamming.

Ukraine is making its own glide bombs, trying to match the Russian weapon that is causing so much damage.

The hope is that they will be more effective than the ones it has so far received from the West.

Brigadier General Serhii Holubtsov, chief of aircraft of the Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said Ukraine will start testing the domestically made bombs in the next few weeks.

"We are now working on converting and producing our own corrected bombs based on conventional freefall bombs," he said in a radio interview, according to a translation by Ukrainian Pravda.

The bombs, otherwise known as glide bombs, have guidance systems that allow them to be launched at a distance.

They have emerged as a major weapon in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Russian aircraft are able to release the bombs at a safe distance, making it very hard for Ukraine to stop them.

Russia has escalated their use over the past few months, giving it a notable military advantage.

Russia has been using them to pound the Kharkiv region, where it launched a major offensive last month.

Many experts consider the bombs to have been crucial in Russia taking the city of Avdiivka in February, in what was its first major victory in months.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month that Russia was using more than 3,000 of the bombs each month against Ukraine.

The West has given Ukraine some glide bombs to use against Russia, but Reuters reported last month that ones supplied by the US have struggled against Russian jamming.

This means that many have missed their targets, three sources told Reuters.

Holubtsov said there are many complex decisions to be made regarding Ukraine's homemade bombs, including "picking the appropriate wing, GPS module, and control module."

"In a few weeks, we should begin testing the first batches of these bombs, which are Ukrainian-made," he said.

• Over 60,000 noise complaints at London Heathrow Airport were filed by just 10 people.
• 0.5% of complainants were responsible for 85% of all complaints.
• Just five people complained more than 1,280 times.

Just 10 people were responsible for over 60,000 noise complaints at London Heathrow Airport last year.

Heathrow, which was also the busiest airport in Europe in 2023, releases such data every quarter.

In 2023, there were 71,041 complaints about noise from the airport, with monthly numbers ranging from around 4,000 to 9,000.

Of those complaints, 60,490 came from just 10 people, meaning that 0.5% of complainants were responsible for 85% of complaints.

An even smaller number of people appear to be responsible for the bulk of that 60,000. The airport notes that only five people complained more than 1,280 times.

About half of the complaints were in the category of loud aircraft, and a quarter were for low aircraft.

Similar statistics continued into the first quarter of 2024, when the top 10 complainers filed 15,062 complaints. One person appears to have complained over 6,000 times in those three months, an average of around 60 complaints per day, over two per hour.

Research compiled by the UK Civil Aviation Authority shows how noise pollution from planes can disrupt sleep quality, increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, and impede children's performance in school.

To help people living nearby, Heathrow operates a "runway alternation" system, which says "provides predictable periods of noise relief."

It means one runway is used for takeoffs and the other for landings before switching around halfway through the day.

However, noise complaints from a small number of locals have still persisted.

Along with environmental activists, noise complaints have played a role in impeding controversial plans to build a third runway at Heathrow.

A similarly huge number of complaints was found in Australia. One person living under a flight path in Perth was responsible for almost half the country's aircraft noise complaints.

• Companies are axing middle management positions, but this may be short-sighted. 
• Middle managers provide mentorship and support to junior employees, and soft skills are key.
• A manager shouldn't be let go just because they have a "faulty toolbox."

Middle managers have been the punching bag of the workplace for some time, with employees increasingly seeing their direct superiors as meddlesome, obsolete, and taking credit for their work.

But it shouldn't be a matter of axing middle management entirely, Koma Gandy, the VP of business and leadership at the corporate training platform Skillsoft, told Business Insider.

Rather, we need to remember what makes a middle manager valuable.

The answer, Gandy said, lies in developing better soft "power" skills.

With improved communication and listening, more empathy, and emotional intelligence, middle managers could save themselves from the "great unbossing," Gandy said.

But that requires leaders to take note and start investing in managers to help them nurture these skills as well.

"I would say, why don't we lean into that cohort rather than thinking about how can we eliminate that cohort?" Gandy said.

The attack on middle managers

Companies have been axing middle management positions as a way to cut costs.

Their reduction has also been in response to Gen Z's distaste for management and how office culture has shifted with remote working.

Proponents of "unbossing" believe it could make Gen Zers who are entering the workforce better at their jobs by giving them more autonomy.

But this is short-sighted, Gandy said.

For starters, middle managers provide mentorship to junior employees and graduate staffers.

Zoomers entering the workforce prioritize their own mental health and work-life balance, and a good manager is someone who also makes these things a primary concern, Gandy argued.

"Some of the things that Gen Z is demanding from the workplace can be uniquely facilitated by the very people that the trend is trying to eliminate, which are these middle managers," Gandy said.

A lack of training

Good middle managers need training and guidance, which is severely lacking in current workplaces, Gandy said.

Many people, a few years into their careers, will fall into management positions almost by default. They are often expected to know how to effectively do the job without much support.

"It's just congratulations and good luck," Gandy said. "But wait, aren't you going to teach me how to lead a meeting? Aren't you going to teach me how to communicate to a team?"

Key skills for managers to develop include active listening and effective communication, which makes their employees feel valued, that their work matters, and that they are being recognized as whole human beings.

If somebody on the team is underperforming, for example, it could be for a myriad of reasons — something is going on at home, they're feeling unsure about what their job is, or where they fit into the company.

"If you don't build up that emotional intelligence to be able to tease out what's happening in that person's environment, you're never going to unlock and unleash the potential that they can bring to their teams," Gandy said.

A team that has a manager who has developed strong soft skills, "then you're going to see ripple effects throughout the organization," Gandy said.

A faulty toolbox

But when these skills are underdeveloped, "it creates a lot of mistrust" among team members, Gandy said.

"Nobody wants to be micromanaged. Nobody wants to have somebody sitting over their shoulder," she said.

Micromanaging often doesn't happen in a vacuum. It may be that a manager doesn't know any different, Gandy said, because that's how they were managed when they were more junior.

This manager shouldn't be let go, Gandy said, just because they have a "faulty toolbox." No manager comes to work striving to underperform or wanting their team to feel devalued and burned out, she said.

"That's a training deficiency. That is a behavior that can be changed," she said.

"If you're not supporting and nurturing them and giving them the tools to develop themselves, then, of course, it might seem attractive to eliminate that cohort."

Middle managers are easy to pick on, Gandy said, but it'll be a lot more cost-effective in the long run for companies to invest in training them in these skills.

"I really think it's a matter of, how do we intentionally develop and expose middle managers to the types of skills and the type of training that they need to be successful," she said. "Rather than throwing that entire cohort away to the detriment of an organization."

• Diners are cutting back on weekday meals out and spending more on the weekends instead, the CEO of GoTo Foods said.
• Consumers are limiting their spending and visiting less frequently, Jim Holthouser said.
• Other restaurant chains are also feeling the hit of cash-strapped diners.

Diners are cutting back on meals out during the week and saving the money for the weekends instead, a restaurant executive says.

Jim Holthouser, CEO of GoTo Foods, formerly known as Focus Brands, said that some diners had been limiting their spending. GoTo Foods owns Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's, Jamba, Moe's Southwest Grill, McAlister's Deli, Schlotzsky's, and Carvel.

Customers are "coming a little bit less frequently" and "cutting back, it looks like, during the week, saving their discretionary dollars more for the weekends," Holthouser told Business Insider, referring to data from GoTo Foods' loyalty programs.

Data from payments company Square suggests that diners are visiting restaurants on the weekends more frequently than they were pre-pandemic, while weekday lunch spending has taken a hit, likely due to hybrid work. The data only compares restaurant spending in 2019 and 2023, and doesn't show how this has changed in recent months.

Holthouser said that the most frequent customers of GoTo Foods' brands were "hanging in there" but that overall the average number of items per transaction was "down a little bit."

"Consumers are getting a little more conservative, definitely tightening their belts, and they're pulling back a little bit as they feel the pinch of inflation," Holthouser said, adding that restaurants had to deal with "a bit of a skittish consumer who doesn't quite know how to feel."

Other restaurants have said in recent months that customers are cutting back and described a gloomy outlook for the industry. Chains including McDonald's and Wendy's said that customers were visiting less often as they felt the pinch.

Fast-food chains raised prices significantly during the pandemic. Grocery prices also shot up but have almost returned to pre-pandemic levels, while restaurant inflation still remains elevated.

Holthouser said that GoTo Foods' portfolio — which includes seven brands in the US, as well as locations overseas and a licensing business — meant it had a range of revenue streams that would help offset its core domestic business if growth was flat.

Its licensing business includes selling its products in grocery stores — like Cinnabon pastries and Carvel ice-cream cakes — as well as its current collaboration with Subway to sell foot-long Cinnabon churros and Auntie Anne's pretzels, which Holthouser said was a "huge success."

Estimated retail sales from GoTo Foods' licensing partners totaled about $1.5 billion in 2023, or just over a quarter of total sales across its brand portfolio.

• The Democratic National Committee is furthering its commitment to state parties in the 2024 cycle.
• National Democrats have set aside funding for organizational efforts to aid down-ballot candidates.
• The national party is making key investments in a range of states, from Indiana to Texas.

The Democratic National Committee is spending nearly $2 million in additional targeted state investments to boost down-ballot candidates and fund critical voter registration efforts ahead of November.

The latest round of funding is part of the $20 million in investments the DNC has made in state parties this election cycle. This is a priority for President Joe Biden and party chair Jaime Harrison, even as the commander in chief faces a tough reelection fight against former President Donald Trump.

"Everywhere Democrats are on the ballot this November — from the school board to the White House — we're fighting to win," Harrison said in a statement.

Indiana and South Dakota are both controlled by Republicans at the statewide level, but the DNC sees them as prime targets for the party's latest investments.

In Indiana, the national party is making a five-figure investment to enhance the state party's organizing infrastructure — as local Democrats work to flip four legislative seats and crack the GOP supermajority in the state House of Representatives. As it stands, Democrats hold 30 of 100 seats in the lower chamber.

So far, the DNC has given $535,000 to Indiana Democrats this cycle.

In South Dakota, national Democrats are investing $70,000 in a critical voter registration program to boost turnout among Native Americans. The investment in the state now totals $477,000.

The DNC is also investing additional money for state parties in Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Washington State.

Some of the key down-ballot races the national party will target with the funding are the Maryland Senate contest between Democrat Angela Alsobrooks and former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan and the New Mexico 2nd Congressional District matchup between Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez and ex-GOP Rep. Yvette Herrell.

In Texas, the national party will spend an additional $45,000 on organizing efforts to boost voter registration before the fall. Republicans continue to retain their long-standing grip on Texas politics, and Democrats are looking to cultivate support among young and minority voters to counter the GOP edge in the state. Such an effort could prove especially critical in the fall as Democrats see an opportunity in Rep. Colin Allred's Senate candidacy against incumbent Ted Cruz.

The Trump campaign announced that it raised $141 million in May alongside the Republican National Committee, with tens of millions of dollars coming in after the former president's criminal conviction in his Manhattan hush-money trial. For much of this year, the RNC was largely strapped for cash, but it remained committed to important down-ballot Senate races in states like Montana and Ohio.

It's unclear at this stage how the RNC will respond to Democratic investments in non-presidential battlegrounds, but party leaders largely view Hogan's race as one of their best chances to run a competitive race in a deeply blue state.

• Steven Perry, 58, got $110,000 in student loans forgiven last August.
• It was a result of Biden's one-time account adjustments for PSLF and income-driven repayment plans.
• Perry wasn't expecting the relief, but it opened up financial freedom to save for retirement.

Steven Perry, 58, was never anticipating student-loan forgiveness — even after making payments for over two decades.

After graduating with a liberal arts degree in the early 90s, Perry went on to graduate school to get a teaching certificate, and he's worked as a teacher and administrator for the past 30 years.

While Perry took out student loans for both of his degrees, he could not afford payments with his initial salary, so he placed his loans on forbearance. During this period, he was not required to make payments. However, interest was still accumulating, causing his balance to grow. In 2023, his account stated that he owed just over $110,000, according to documents reviewed by Business Insider, which he said was more than he originally borrowed.

"It's precluded me from putting any money into savings," Perry said.

"If I had any type of financial emergency, whether it's a car repair, whether it's a hot water heater blowing up, whether it's having to move and putting money down on an apartment for a deposit, any unexpected financial obligations, the first thing I would do would be putting my loan on forbearance for a short period of time because I need to keep a roof over my head," he continued. "But the interest is insane."

Working in the nonprofit field for the duration of his career, Perry said he applied for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of qualifying payments. However, due to a range of paperwork issues, Perry was unable to receive relief through PSLF, and he put any hopes for debt relief out of his mind.

So imagine his surprise on August 16, 2023, when he received a letter from his student-loan servicer Aidvantage with the heading: "Congratulations! The Biden-Harris Administration has forgiven your federal student loan(s) listed below with Aidvantage in full."

The relief was a result of the Education Department's one-time account adjustments to bring payments for borrowers on PSLF and income-driven repayment plans up to date. Perry said he was not aware of the adjustment prior to receiving the letter, but this relief — on top of PSLF relief his wife recently received — "opens up a whole new world," he said.

"My boys will never take out a student loan for college. Everything is going to be paid for. Are we rich? No, of course not. My wife's an assistant principal, and I'm a retired assistant principal, but now I don't worry about crushing debt," Perry said. "I was relegated to dying with this debt. I mean, that's where it was. I was going to pay the minimum until I drop dead, and then it's over."

The Education Department said it plans to complete account adjustments in September. So far, thousands of borrowers have been informed that their balances have been wiped out as a result of the temporary provision. The department is also crafting a broader plan for student-loan forgiveness to replace the one the Supreme Court struck down last summer.

Perry was planning on going into substitute teaching to continue supplementing his income during retirement while he made his student-loan payments. He no longer has to do that — and he's grateful for the opportunities the debt cancellation has opened up for him.

"That money is going into savings. It goes to pay down some other outstanding obligations we have. I think it would be counterproductive to say, 'Oh, I have all this extra money now, let's go spend it.' No, what it is is security," Perry said. "It is just security."

'A significantly better retirement'

Looking back, Perry said his one regret regarding his educational path was allowing his loans to go into forbearance because the interest surged his balance.

However, he doesn't regret taking out student loans because the debt enabled him to pursue a more advanced degree and enjoy the benefits that came with that.

"My grad degree enabled me to go become an administrator, which came with a significant pay raise and a significantly better retirement," Perry said.

BI previously spoke to Kris Neilson, a 59-year-old who chose to go back to school to get an MBA. Even though it came with a student-debt burden, she said she thought it was worth the investment to further her education.

"I'm really glad I did what I did, even though it's scary to know what the future holds," she said.

However, that's not always the case. A growing number of Gen Zers do not see the value of a college degree because of the large student-debt loads that often accompany it, and with many jobs no longer requiring college degrees, higher education just isn't worth it anymore for certain fields.

Still, the majority of adults see value in a postsecondary degree or credential, according to a recent report from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. The report found that "adults' interest in pursuing some form of higher education is at the highest level" the organizations have ever recorded.

Perry never thought student-loan forgiveness would come his way. But now that it did, he's able to feel secure knowing those monthly payments won't follow him into retirement.

"The government is honoring their obligations to these public servants and people that have been in repayment for 25 or 30 years," Perry said. "It's not a handout — we've paid."

Have your student loans been forgiven? Do you have a different experience with student debt? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

Most people have, at some point in their lives, made an "oops" purchase — you buy a thing and almost immediately regret it. In the age of online shopping, such purchases are easier than ever to make. They are not, however, easier to reverse. Sometimes, you can quickly cancel an order, but oftentimes, the window to do so is so tight that you end up missing it.

I recently found myself in such a situation. I bought yet another inane thing I really do not need that I will not name because it is slightly embarrassing. Before anything had shipped, I reached out to the seller to call the whole thing off. Unfortunately, I was denied. Annoyed, mostly at myself but also a little bit at the seller, I had a sinister thought: What if I file a dispute with my credit-card company? I could try to initiate a charge-back, say the shipment was taking too long or I'd ordered it erroneously, and maybe get my money back. Perhaps I could even get to at least try the thing I was pretty sure I didn't want, but hey, if it was free. To be clear, I did not do this, and I don't know whether it would have worked. But I seriously considered it.

The bank plays the umpire and decides what to do with the money.

One of the best perks of my credit card — the ability to dispute a transaction to get a refund — had almost turned me into a bit of a jerk. Without knowing the term for it, I'd weighed engaging in first-party fraud, colloquially known as "friendly fraud," an increasingly common phenomenon where customers, accidentally or intentionally, dispute legitimate transactions as fraudulent with their credit-card issuer or bank.

A credit-card charge-back happens when a consumer sees something they don't like or recognize on their statement and asks the bank to look into it. The bank then investigates the claim and decides whether to issue a refund — under federal law, a consumer can't be on the hook for more than $50 for an unauthorized charge. The merchant can respond, too, if they have proof that the transaction was fine. The bank plays the umpire and decides what to do with the money — maybe it takes it back from the merchant and gives it to the customer, maybe it makes the consumer cough the money up, after all, or maybe it pays out both parties and eats the cost itself.

"Charge-backs are a huge problem for many merchants. That's not something they can just sweep under the rug," said Oscar Bello, the chief sales officer at Chargeback Gurus, a company that helps merchants navigate charge-backs and manage disputes.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to file disputes and initiate a charge-back, first and foremost, for a transaction that was made by a fraudster, not the consumer. There are other fair explanations, too — there was a billing error, the product or service wasn't delivered as promised, the transaction wasn't authorized in the first place.

Then there are charge-backs that can toe the line, ethicswise, or even tip into fraud by the cardholder. People lie and say they didn't get a pair of shoes delivered, even though they did, or they say the shoes came damaged, even though they were fine or had a tiny bit of damage but were still plenty wearable. Perhaps they cancel a restaurant reservation and dispute the cancellation fee, even though the penalty was listed plainly on the restaurant's website. Or a person paid to have their car fixed up and then said the workmanship was shoddy. In those instances, the customer is engaging in fraud or crossing a questionable line, but it can be hard for credit-card issuers to tell what actually happened. It can be quite the ordeal to trace whether a shoebox shipped in the mail wound up in the buyer's hands, let alone for a bank to decide whether all the work an auto-repair shop did was necessary and good.

There's no "silver bullet" for figuring out who's in the right in every instance of a consumer dispute, said Domenic Cirone, the vice president of acquirer solutions at Kount, a fraud-prevention company owned by Equifax. And as much as artificial intelligence is helpful, he added, you often need people to sift through the data and complexities. And, he said, most consumers are well-meaning.

Charge-backs and friendly fraud aren't new issues, but they're ones exacerbated by e-commerce. It's a lot easier to say that the sweater you got at the Gap never arrived than it is to claim you bought it at the store and, I don't know, forgot to take it with you or suddenly realized once you got it home that it sucked. A 2023 report from Ethoca, a Mastercard-owned platform that helps merchants handle fraud and disputes, said charge-backs in the US could reach $15.3 billion by 2026, more than double the $7.2 billion in 2019. Much of that is friendly fraud: The report cited a statistic from the data-analytics company Datos Intelligence that 75% of all the fraud digital businesses see is first-party fraud.

Beyond the e-commerce explosion, some other factors have made friendly fraud more commonplace. Consumers are increasingly using disputes for service-related issues — a product showed up damaged, or a service wasn't up to snuff. Inflation and economic pressures may also make the prospect of disputing a charge more appealing.

What's more, people are constantly paying through digital transactions that are really hard to keep track of. Perhaps they don't remember making a purchase, or their kid put something on their card and didn't tell them, so they mark the charge as fraudulent even though it wasn't. Last year, I almost committed accidental friendly fraud against an airline because I forgot I'd paid to check my bag and tried to dispute the charge before realizing it.

"It's really quick and easy to check out, which is great because we love that as consumers. That leads to a lot of transactions," Robert Painter, the vice president of global channel sales at Kount, said. "The old adage, more money, more problems, right? So in addition to that, there's confusion."

Of course, what's happening here on the end of consumers is not always confusion — sometimes, it's taking advantage of the system.

Customers now, what we found post-COVID, are very trigger-happy on the dispute system.

Kevin, an entrepreneur who asked me to keep his identity protected because he was worried his business partner would get mad at him for talking to the press, has lost thousands upon thousands of dollars and endless hours on what he believes are frivolous and often fraudulent disputes. One of his gigs is selling tickets for a swamp tour near New Orleans. According to Kevin, people who go on the tour have disputed charges because they claim they didn't see enough alligators. Or customers of his auto-transport company, which he recently sold, disputed claims because their vehicles arrived a day or two later than desired or, in one case, because a driver didn't speak "good" English. Essentially, some people are using disputes as a review system, and if they don't give the experience five stars, they tell the credit-card company they want their money back. Kevin has won charge-backs before — he recently succeeded in pushing back against a cancellation claim after customers agreed to move their tour time but then backed out at the last minute. More often than not, however, he loses, and regardless, the whole thing is a huge time suck.

"Customers now, what we found post-COVID, are very trigger-happy on the dispute system," Kevin said.

Kevin is not above using questionable dispute tactics as a consumer himself (he recognizes the irony here). He recently successfully disputed a $200 charge from a golf course after being told he couldn't change a tee time.

The ability to dispute transactions is generally a nice benefit of credit cards and one that most consumers use as a last resort once they've tried to talk to the merchant (if they can get ahold of them). Still, it's weird that Citi or Amex or whoever ends up playing arbiter in charge-backs because the business incentive is to prioritize the customer over the merchant. It's hard to feel bad for big businesses that might lose money on a transaction that barely registers on their records, but for smaller businesses, this can really be a strain.

In some cases, there's a pretty clear line between what is fraud and what's not, what's a legitimate charge-back and what isn't. Your online order never arrived, and the customer-service number never picked up: legitimate. Your order arrived and you claim it didn't: fraud. Right or wrong, many cases never get litigated out to the end, anyway.

"Not every merchant is equipped to fight," Bello of Chargeback Gurus said.

There's some gray area, too. If you place an order and it arrives in 12 days instead of the 10 days promised, you might very well win in a dispute. Is that really fair? Mmm.

I do not know whether my dispute on the mystery item would have been approved. (It was some stupid health supplements I saw online, OK?) But I wouldn't be shocked if it did. I've never disputed a purchase before, and my credit-card company would like to keep me happy. I do not think I would have felt particularly bad about initiating a charge-back, either, since the supplements industry is unregulated and scammy anyway. That doesn't mean it would have been the most awesome thing for me to do.

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Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

Gen Z wants to talk about mental health. And these days, they want to talk about it at the office.

In a 2023 survey of nearly 3,000 people, Gen Z was almost twice as likely as other generations to say they struggled with their mental health. And nearly half said they're fine talking about it at work — 20% more than other generations. Anecdotally, managers have said their youngest employees confront anxiety and have no qualms about openly discussing it.

This comfort with vulnerability shouldn't be a surprise. Gen Zers grew up amid a movement to destigmatize mental illness and encourage people to get treatment. They witnessed suicide rates tick up, especially among their peers. They watched celebrities like Selena Gomez, Simone Biles, and Demi Lovato speak out about once taboo subjects such as bipolar disorder, depression, and ADHD. And over the past few years, they've watched rates of depression and anxiety climb through the roof. They've felt increasingly empowered to be open about their struggles, support their coworkers, and lobby management for better benefits.

In a recent survey of US businesses conducted by the consultancy group Mercer and published by the US Chamber of Commerce, companies reported an overwhelming increase in demand for mental-health care over the past few years. In response, 94% of companies employing more than 500 people have added mental-health benefits — from expanded access to therapy to in-office programs for mental-health training. Across corporate America, talking about mental health is all the rage.

There's just one problem. While destigmatizing mental illness is important, a workplace overly focused on mental health isn't always a recipe for better mental-health outcomes. Recent articles about "therapy speak" and being "overtherapized" point to a growing sense that all the mental-health talk might be a bit much. In fact, researchers studying the issue think that talking about your psychological struggles too much can make your problems worse.

A healthy work environment is one where people feel supported and encouraged to do meaningful work — not one that fixates on their mental health.

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Americans are overwhelmingly worried about a mental-health crisis. In a 2022 poll of American adults conducted by the American Psychiatric Association, 79% said they viewed mental health as a public-health emergency in the US. When asked in a December KFF poll about crucial issues for the 2024 presidential candidates to discuss, far more people said access to mental-health care was most important compared with those who listed immigration, gun violence, abortion, or the climate crisis as the top issue.

The concern is well placed. Gallup found that between 2015 and 2023, the share of Americans who said they had been diagnosed with depression increased from about 20% to almost 30%. In just two decades, the number of Americans who received mental-health treatment shot up from 27 million in 2002 to nearly 56 million in 2022. Half of US physicians in a CVS Health/Harris Poll survey last year reported that their patients' mental health was declining.

Among young people, the problem is worse: A 2022 KFF/CNN survey found that adults under 30 were far more likely than those in older age groups to report that they often or always felt depressed or anxious. In a recent survey from the Archbridge Institute's Human Flourishing Lab, where I serve as the director, only 64% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said their mental health was good — less than any other age group and a stark contrast from the roughly 90% of people over 45 who said the same.

These trends have important implications for the workplace. Poor mental health reduces labor-force participation, work engagement, and job performance, costing the economy an estimated $50 billion in lost productivity each year. And companies are noticing the impact: In a 2023 survey of 152 large American employers, 77% of companies reported an increase in mental-health concerns among their employees.

Some psychologists believe that efforts to increase public awareness of mental-health problems in the Western world have actually made the problem worse.

To address this problem, human-resources departments have flooded the workplace with resources and programs: everything from online resources through partnerships with wellness and therapy apps like Calm and BetterHelp to in-house resources such as office peer support groups, mental-health seminars, and spaces specifically for meditation and yoga. Many companies are also facing a push for cultural change. In a recent survey by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, three-quarters of workers polled said it was appropriate to discuss mental health at work, and even more said that supervisors and senior leadership were responsible for helping employees feel comfortable discussing their mental health.

On TikTok, people are recording their on-the-job breakdowns. Across social media, Gen Zers swap tips on avoiding toxic workplaces. And in work-based TV shows like "Severance," "Industry," and "The Bear," mental health is front and center. Everyone seems to agree that companies need to do something.

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Breaking through the mental-health stigma is important: Many people struggling with depression or anxiety do not seek help because of their fear that it could harm their reputation, social relationships, and professional aspirations. In that sense, it's a good thing when workplaces become supportive environments where colleagues and supervisors view mental-health issues humanely.

But there's a limit. Too much mental-health talk can be counterproductive. Take concept creep, for example — the idea that the meanings of things like abuse, trauma, anxiety, and depression have expanded over time. Over the years, negative emotional experiences that were once considered a normal part of life have increasingly been viewed as signs of psychological disorders. Trauma, for example, once referred to the severe psychological distress that came from rare, life-threatening experiences. Now, it's used to describe less-severe distress caused by a wider variety of adverse events, such as exposure to offensive speech or violent media.

Some psychologists believe that efforts to increase public awareness of mental-health problems in the Western world have actually made the problem worse — they have encouraged people to fixate on negative psychological experiences and interpret normal levels of emotional discomfort as abnormal. This misinterpretation can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, they argue, whereby people begin to think and behave as if they truly have a mental disorder, ultimately increasing their risk of developing one.

Well-intentioned efforts to get people to think and talk more about mental health may inadvertently promote excessive dwelling on negative emotions and personal insecurities — known in psychology as rumination — which can exacerbate psychological distress. Research indicates that rumination can make depression and anxiety disorders worse, which is why helping other people is an especially effective way to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression — it takes people's minds off their own problems.

The more people view their lives — and work — as meaningful, the lower their risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide is.

So when employers encourage workers to spend time focused on their mental states with "emotional check-ins" or by including more mental-health language in office communications, they may well push staff to ruminate on their problems — and make them worse. And while workplace leaders can lend a sympathetic ear, most are not trained psychologists or psychiatrists and thus lack the expertise required to properly identify and address mental illness.

There's also a professional risk. Sharing your personal health information with colleagues and supervisors can blur professional boundaries and result in discrimination due to an altered perception of your competence that could affect your career advancement. When managers share too much about their psychological struggles, researchers have found, it can undermine how their employees see them.

In other words, the office isn't equipped to treat mental-health issues — but it can help in other ways.

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What does have a tangible impact on people's well-being at work is whether they find their work meaningful. The more people view their lives — and work — as meaningful, the lower their risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide is. And when people experience mental-health problems, the things in life they find meaningful can play an important role in their recovery. At work, finding meaning also improves the overall organization. Workers are more likely to report high levels of job satisfaction and low intentions of quitting if they view their work as meaningful.

I've spent two decades of my career as an existential psychologist studying the need for meaning in life. The most important lesson employers can learn is that meaning is about social significance. People feel the most meaningful when they believe that they're making important contributions to the lives of others. Research has found that people are more likely to derive meaning from their work when they focus on how it serves a greater good, rather than how it advances their career. Other research has found that work feels the most meaningful when workers have a strong sense of autonomy at work and believe their efforts significantly and positively influence the lives of others.

Prioritizing positive mental health in the workplace is crucial — most of us spend the majority of our time on the job, after all. But the solution, ultimately, isn't as straightforward as raising awareness and fostering open conversations. Instead, employers should ensure their staff have access to mental-health care while building a positive culture that promotes meaningful work.

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Clay Routledge is vice president of research and director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute.

• PwC offered UK buyout packages and directed staff on how to communicate their exits.
• The buyout program was not officially communicated firm-wide and it came with messaging rules.
• The buyout comes amid slowing client work, with PwC and other firms cutting jobs and delaying hires' starts.

After accounting giant PwC offered UK buyout packages in recent weeks, staff were directed on exactly how they should communicate their exits, the Financial Times reported.

The FT saw a note sent to employees that told them they could not talk about the circumstances of their departure. PwC said it could review messages before they were sent out to "a defined group" and that the note could not be "derogatory."

While PwC told employees their goodbye messages could be personalized, the firm offered the following wording, writing, "The content of your comms should follow this approach:"

"Following recent discussions with my [relationship leader], I have taken the decision to leave PwC. It hasn't been an easy decision for me to reach but now that I have, I am excited about what the future holds for me and the new opportunities on the horizon. I have really enjoyed my time at PwC and the opportunity to work with such talented colleagues.'"

PwC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside business hours.

While multiple UK offices were offered the buyout, the program was not officially communicated across the firm. It was not immediately clear how many people accepted buyouts across the UK offices.

The Big Four firms — EY, Deloitte, PWC, and KPMG — have cut hundreds of jobs in the past year as slowing client work forces professional services to rethink their staffing needs.

In November, the FT reported that PwC planned to ax up to 600 jobs in the UK and McKinsey said last year it would slash 1,400 jobs globally.

Accenture offered new hires out of college up to $25,000 to push their start dates back. Other consultancies have pushed entry-level start dates back eight to 11 months, Beth Hendler-Grunt, the president of Next Great Step, a career-counseling service for college graduates, told BI earlier this month.

• Russia's economy is facing challenges despite resilience and high liquidity, says Rosneft's CEO.
• He said the central bank's 16% interest rate to curb inflation hampers borrowing and investment.
• Experts warn Russia's wartime-driven economy is overheated, risking sustainable development.

Russia's wartime economy appears to be humming along over two years into its war with Ukraine. But doing business is hard, according to the boss of a Russian oil giant.

"Despite a record 103 trillion ruble of liquidity within the perimeter of the Russian banking system, the industry is unable to raise financing," said Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft — Russia's largest oil producer — at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Saturday. That's about $1.2 billion of liquidity.

The country's top central banker, Elvira Nabiullina, has hiked interest rates up to 16% over the last year to tame inflation.

The high rates discourage borrowing and investment, "which are necessary for sustainable development," said Sechin.

It wasn't the first time Sechin griped about high interest rates.

Last month, after Rosneft's first-quarter results, Sechin said that "market conditions in Russia have already resulted in a significant incremental cost of debt."

"The Company's average quarterly debt service cost reached its maximum in the 21st century," Sechin added.

On Friday, Russia's central bank kept its key interest rate at 16% for the fourth straight month. But the bank said in a statement that it "holds open the prospect of increasing the key rate at its upcoming meeting" on July 26 should high inflation continue.

Russia's inflation rate stood at 8.17% from May 28 to June 3 — up from 8.07% a week earlier. This is double the central bank's 4% inflation target.

Russia's overheated economy masks risks

Sechin's comments highlight the challenges in Russia's sanctions-hit economy, which has appeared resilient despite the Ukraine war.

Russia posted 3.6% GDP growth last year and unemployment rate hit a record low 2.6% in April. Meanwhile, real wages jumped nearly 13% in March from a year ago due to an ongoing labor crunch.

It's so hot that Herman Gref, the CEO of Sberbank — Russia's largest bank by asset value — said last week the country's economy is "definitely and strongly overheated." Nabiullina herself warned in December the country's economy was at risk of overheating.

Reports from Russia suggest the country's economy is primarily driven by wartime activities that generate demand for military goods and services, subsidies that steady the economy, and sharp policy-making.

But rosy GDP figures alone are not a good measure of economic performance during wartime. The main production — weapons and munitions — doesn't better the quality of life for Russians or contribute to future economic growth, Sergei Guriev, a former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said in January.