“The most wonderful time of the year”? Not so much. For most Americans, the period of time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is more like the loneliest, most stressful time of the year: A 2021 study found that 3 out of 5 Americans feel their mental health negatively affected by the holidays. That’s a lot of people who need someone to just listen to them—and who may not have anyone in their lives to do so. 

That’s where Hapi, a leader in providing audio-only, non-clinical emotional support via Active Listening as a Service (ALaaS), comes in. Hapi recently launched the Atlantic Listening Academy (ALA) to train and certify Professional Listeners and leaders in every industry, helping to provide qualified listeners just when the world needs them the most.

Hapi’s mission is to end loneliness, the largest global pandemic, and create a world in which everyone feels they belong. We do that by providing active listeners to our Hapi customers. Our listeners create a space that is sometimes safer for expression than those provided by friends or family: “Thank you for the advice and acknowledging all my problems—I don’t have many people in my life that do that,” said one customer.

“Thank you for being such a good listener, it was nice having someone unbiased to talk to and advise me,” said another. “At this point I’ve vented to the same friends too many times, so it was nice to have someone new to talk to.”

Those customers have shown us exactly how critical our mission is this holiday season. Use of the Hapi app during the beginning of the 2022 holiday season has exploded. The week of Thanksgiving sawa 46% increase in minutes per customer versus the previous week. 

And that’s not all: In the first week of December, Hapi experienced one of its highest call volumes (minutes per customer), and had the highest average number of calls per customer during all of 2022.

Relationship issues were on customers’ minds quite a bit this year, with over 143,000 call minutes devoted to the topic in 2022. Another 125,000 minutes were tied to life issues, including work.

“Research from Cigna and Morning Consult cited that 58% of American adults reported that they’re lonely,” said Hapi CEO Adi Y. Segal.  ”Remote work has exponentially increased the risk for loneliness, which can affect employee health and productivity.” 

“With the launch of the Atlantic Listening Academy we are bringing Hapi’s Active Listening as a proactive service for every company’s workforce,” Segal continued.

The ALA is a unique opportunity to elevate a team’s performance through active listening, which has been proven to be one of the most important business skills. By completing the ALA training, teams will be empowered to drive revenue growth, increase customer intimacy, better retain employees, and improve company culture.

Studies have shown that companies who listen to their employees can expect to see higher rates of productivity, decreased employee turnover, conflict reduction, and an overall positive work culture. 

To access the Atlantic Listening Academy visit atlanticlisteningacademy.com