Supporting your Staff: Mental Health Training and Neurodiversity Awareness in the Workplace

How do you stop workplace wellbeing becoming a tick-box exercise and make it something that genuinely changes how teams work?

In this episode of OxTalks, host Howard Bentham speaks with Olga Zilberberg, founder of The Missing Link, about mental health training, neurodiversity, and what real cultural change looks like inside organisations. Olga shares lived experience of anxiety, panic attacks and depression, and explains why effective training starts with self-awareness, everyday communication, and psychological safety rather than diagnosis or compliance.

Against a backdrop of rising work-related stress, the conversation explores what managers and colleagues can notice when someone is struggling, how to create space for honest check-ins, and why supporting neurodivergent people requires inclusive hiring and practical adjustments. Recent UK data underlines the scale of the challenge: the Health and Safety Executive reports 22.1 million working days lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25. This episode offers grounded, human advice for leaders who want wellbeing to show up in day-to-day culture.

• (00:00) - Welcome to OxTalks
• (01:14) - Mental Health Training and Neurodiversity
• (03:17) - Meet Olga Zilberberg, Founder of The Missing Link
• (03:46) - Lived Experience: Anxiety, Panic Attacks and Depression
• (06:54) - Getting Support and Returning to Work
• (08:26) - Stigma, Shame and Psychological Safety
• (11:15) - Recognising Red Flags and Recurrence
• (15:15) - What The Missing Link Does for Organisations
• (17:00) - Business Support, Mastermind Groups and Ongoing Help
• (20:15) - Neurodiversity, Masking and Co-Occurring Mental Health Conditions
• (22:43) - Why Training Must Change Culture, Not Tick a Box

Olga Zilberberg: Olga Zilberberg is the founder of The Missing Link, a UK consultancy providing bespoke mental health and neuroinclusion training to help organisations build more supportive, inclusive cultures. Drawing on lived experience and professional practice, Olga focuses on practical strategies that improve psychological safety, communication, and day-to-day workplace behaviours.

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OxTalks is recorded at the Oxford Podcast Studio and produced by Story Ninety-Four.