A whole-person approach to how people function at work
Ergonomics for the Mind was founded by Jennifer Young to address a practical question:
What affects how a person functions, and under which conditions are they most likely to do their best work?
People do not arrive at work as a collection of separate issues. Attention, energy, sensory processing, sleep, recovery, pain, emotional load, biological context and the demands outside work can interact with each other and with the work itself.
Yet these factors are often considered separately, or only after performance has been affected.
Ergonomics for the Mind provides a structured way to understand the whole picture. It helps individuals identify the conditions that support how they function and equips organisations to respond through better-informed workplace action.
Founded by Jennifer Young
Jennifer Young’s professional background spans regulation, occupational health, law, organisational systems, education and human functioning.
BSc (Hons) Biology. Postgraduate qualifications in Occupational Health and in Law.
- 01
Regulation and assurance
- Eight years as an inspector with the Health and Safety Executive, examining how organisations identify foreseeable problems, assess their significance and establish effective arrangements to manage them.
- Expert witness work.
- 02
Major organisations
- Working with and within major organisations.
- An interim management role with Shell International.
- 03
Professional education
- Delivery of advanced professional education, including the NEBOSH International Diploma for TNK-BP.
- 04
Intellectual property and systems
- Development of structured, evidence-informed training and assessment systems.
- Building and licensing intellectual property for use across professional settings.
This combination of experience allows Ergonomics for the Mind to consider the person and the work together: the biological, cognitive, sensory, emotional, physical, recovery and life-context factors affecting how someone functions, and the conditions and demands they encounter at work.
From individual understanding to workplace action
Ergonomics for the Mind begins with the individual, but it does not conclude that the individual is the problem.
The Ergonomics for the Mind Review gives a person a private, structured understanding of:
- 01the factors affecting how they function
- 02the conditions under which they are most likely to perform well
- 03their strengths and predictable areas of variation
- 04the points at which their needs and the work may not fit well
- 05what may be useful to communicate at work
At organisational level, this understanding can support more informed conversations, practical action and the identification of recurring patterns in the design and conditions of work.
The purpose is not to create a single ideal way of working. It is to help organisations make better-informed decisions about what will support the person and improve the fit with the work.
A framework designed to leave capability in place
Ergonomics for the Mind is a structured, licensable framework, not a traditional consultancy model.
Organisations are taught and equipped to use controlled Ergonomics for the Mind tools themselves. Named internal people can develop the knowledge and capability to support individual conversations, review work design and identify where practical improvement may be possible.
This allows the organisation to build its own capability rather than becoming reliant on repeated external intervention.
The framework can support organisations at several connected levels:
- 01
Individual understanding
- 02
Supported workplace conversations and action
- 03
Structured review of work design and foreseeable mismatch
- 04
Organisational learning from recurring themes and patterns
Variability in human functioning is foreseeable.
People will not always think, process, communicate, recover or perform in the same way, under the same conditions, at every point in their lives.
Work can support that variability or add further demands.
Ergonomics for the Mind helps organisations understand that interaction more clearly and decide what practical action is appropriate, in so far as is reasonably practicable.
It is a framework for understanding how people function, how the work meets them and what can be learned where a mismatch exists.