Oct 14, 2026 · Comments ↓

We've stopped noticing each other. At work, that matters

Before any mental health conversation, someone has to notice. We're doing less of it than we used to. Why it matters at work, and how to get better at it.

At the end of a recent assessment, a learner and I got talking about noticing. I said that one of the best things they could ever do as a mental health first aider is notice. Before anything becomes a conversation, someone has to notice the person.

They took that on board straight away. “Even before we’re chatting,” they said, “we’re noticing.”

That’s the order it happens in. And noticing is something we’ve been losing.

We’re doing a lot less noticing

Look around a train, an office or a queue. Heads down, eyes on a phone, earphones in. Everyone getting through their own day.

Some of that is individualism. We’ve been taught to focus on ourselves and get on with it. Some of it is the screen. Either way, we’ve got used to not paying attention to the people right next to us.

I think we’ve lost connection along the way, and isolation and loneliness have become ordinary. In England, a government survey finds about one in fourteen adults feel lonely often or always, and only one in five say they never feel lonely at all. It’s highest among people aged 16 to 24. The survey doesn’t say why people are lonely. My own view is that how little we notice each other is part of it.

So when someone does notice you, it means more than it used to. I think noticing is one of the biggest things we’ve lost, and it makes me sad.

It’s not only noticing when someone’s struggling

I don’t just mean noticing when someone’s having a hard time. We’ve stopped noticing so much. The colour of someone’s jacket. Their eyes, their hair. Whether they walk with a stick.

My husband talks about it every week. Not everyone on a bus needs a seat. But when someone gets on who clearly does, the people in the priority seats at the front, who don’t need them, often don’t notice. He’s often been the one at the back of the bus, nudging someone to offer their seat.

That’s noticing too. Paying attention to the people around you, more of the time.

Why noticing comes before the conversation

A lot of what’s taught about supporting a colleague starts with the conversation: what to say, what not to say, how to listen. That matters. But it assumes you’ve already seen there’s something to talk about.

I don’t teach people to spot signs and symptoms. A lot of what people are going through doesn’t show, so often there’s nothing to spot. You might notice a change, but you won’t know what it means until you talk. As I always say, it’s in the conversation. Noticing is what gets you there.

Plenty of people won’t come to you. They keep their head down and get through it on their own. If nobody notices, nobody asks.

Noticing at work isn’t complicated. It’s paying attention to the people you see every day, closely enough to know when something’s changed. I’ve written before about what people carry into work, and how little of it shows unless you’re looking.

And it doesn’t have to lead anywhere big. Sometimes “how are you doing, really?” goes nowhere. Sometimes it tells you what’s actually going on. You never know which until you ask.

Noticing is a skill, and it can be practised

This is what I teach. Not resilience, and not a script. Noticing, and then having the conversation anyway, even when you’re not sure anything’s wrong.

It’s a skill like any other. It gets better the more you use it, and it fades when you don’t. Head up, phone down, and actually look at the people you work with.

A workplace has to leave room for it

Noticing takes time and attention, and plenty of workplaces have squeezed both out. If people are flat out from the start of their shift, it’s hard to find the space to look up.

That’s why it can’t all be left to a handful of trained people. As I wrote recently, mental health first aiders are being asked to do the wrong job when they’re treated as the whole answer. And if noticing is only ever done for free, on top of a full workload, the workplace has paid for the shift and taken the caring for free.

Everyone can notice. A workplace can make room for it.

Try it

Next time you’re at work, look up. Who’s quieter than usual? Who hasn’t been themselves for a while?

You don’t need the right words. Notice, then ask.

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