Let me set you a hypothetical challenge.

You have to make your business fail just by changing the way you do things. How would you go about it?

There are some obvious possibilities. Treating your customers badly, overspending on budgets, developing products or services for which there is little or no demand. All would certainly have a negative impact on your profitability and viability.

But if you want to be really certain of getting the job done, start with the people who work for you.

It’s probably fair to say that you’d have to have been living under a rock for the last five years to be unaware that the world is in the grip of the most acute mental health crisis in living memory.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that the workplace is the environment in which the problem is most likely to manifest. The typical climate of stress and pressure around deadlines, targets and results is the kind of pressure cooker in which mental health issues are more likely than not to thrive.

So, this is the new normal. Or at least, as normal as things are likely to get in the aftermath of the pandemic. We live in a culture of hybrid working, of reimagined expectations and of realigned values and desires.

For perhaps the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, how we work and how we grow, professionally, is more important – or maybe as important – as how we’re remunerated.

Hybrid working isn’t the only legacy of the pandemic when it comes to business. Lockdown also gave huge numbers of people the opportunity to rethink their lifestyles and their working patterns.

The result was what has now become known as the Great Resignation, as workers of all ages elected to swap the routine of salaried work – and with it the stress of a daily commute, deadlines and targets – for new challenges.

By now, the realities of the new hybrid working era should be plain for most businesses to see.

Broadly speaking it’s probably fair to say that the benefits of flexible working – at least in the context of staff morale – largely outweigh the disadvantages.

Generally speaking, those businesses that have managed to find the right balance between seeing employees in the office and giving them the latitude to work at home have seen goodwill and productivity increase.