01 / 14 · Fourteen panels, scroll on
The problem you are buying against
Your EAP reaches the people who ask for help. Your most expensive people are not asking.
3% to 5%
The take-up nearly 85% of UK employers report from the EAP they already provide. 79% provide one.
HCML, 2024£103bn
Annual UK cost of workforce sickness, presenteeism and absence combined.
IPPR, 202422.1m
Working days lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25.
HSE, 2024/251 in 4
Say work negatively affects their health.
CIPD, 2025
EAPs are not widely used, and the employers who buy them know it. Nearly 85% of those providing one report take-up between 3% and 5%. Providers count any contact and report higher. If yours has a price, set it against the number of people it reaches. Many come bundled with an insurance policy and have no separate price, and then the reach figure stands on its own: how many of your own people it never gets to.
It is offered to your whole workforce anonymously, so nobody can be singled out for taking it up. The ones who will actually run it are the few who cost you most: the senior operator at half capacity who will not self-refer. Not because the help is bad. Because being seen asking is the cost they will not pay.
PRC does not ask them to be seen. That is the whole product.
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What it is, in one panel
A 90-day protocol. It runs by default. It changes one pattern.
Delivered entirely by email. It targets one thing: the behaviour a person reaches for under pressure, and the pattern that has built up around it. It carries them through mapping, redesign and installation, a few minutes a week, with nothing to organise.
What it is
- A 90-day protocol, delivered by email.
- Behaviour-pattern work: one trigger, one response, rebuilt.
- Automatic. It runs by default and asks a few minutes a week.
- Built to move a measured baseline by Day 90.
What it is not
- Not clinical, and not a substitute for clinical care.
- It diagnoses nothing and treats nothing.
- It names no one to you, and labels no one to themselves.
- Not another scheme your people must be seen opting into.
The same operator, with more capacity and cleaner judgement, by Day 90. That is the entire aim.
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Your side of it
Three numbers. Quarterly. This is what you are buying.
It is the only thing that ever leaves the system, and the only thing you receive. Everything else happens on the participant’s side, where you cannot see it, by design.
+2.4
Aggregate PRC Index movement across the cohort
You receive
- Seats occupied
- Completion rate
- Aggregate Index movement
- Not reported below five seats
You cannot receive
- Names. There are none.
- Individual scores. Not withheld, absent.
- Anything they wrote.
- Anything to cross-reference against a personnel file.
You know the protocol is running and whether it is working. You do not know who is running it. That is by design, not by policy.
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The protocol
Ninety days. Three phases. A few minutes a week.
Days 1 – 30
Mapping
They watch the pattern without changing it. When it fires. What was happening ninety minutes before. What they reach for. What it costs in the hour after.
Days 31 – 60
Redesign
They build an if/then against their real trigger. They add friction to the old path and take it off the new one. They test it in live conditions.
Days 61 – 90
Installation
They run the redesigned response for real, on their own, until it holds without thinking about it. The old default fades. By Day 90 they are steadier by their own scores.
58
Guided email prompts, each with one small task
13
Weekly worksheets, one every seven days
4
PRC Index checkpoints: Days 1, 30, 60, 90
13
Weekly numbers, one a week
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Who this is actually for
Five people already costing you. All five invisible. None will self-refer.
The always-on manager
First on, last off, certain no one else can carry it. The hours climb, the judgement erodes, and the work slips while the input keeps rising.
UK workers put in 1.2 billion hours of unpaid overtime in 2025.
TUC, 2026The high performer running on empty
Still delivering, masking the cost. Turns up when they should have stayed off, and it looks fine until one day it does not.
Employees lose an average of 44 productive days a year to working through sickness.
IPPR, 2024The quiet leaver
Checked out, saying nothing, already looking. You find out when the resignation lands, not before.
Employees showing these signs are six times more likely to intend to leave within three to six months.
McKinsey, 2022The single point of failure
The one who knows how it actually works, and will not let it go. Every exception routes through them, so nothing gets written down and nothing gets delegated. Give them a fortnight off and delivery stalls.
82% entered the role with no formal management training; 52% hold no management qualification.
CMI, 2023The silently plateaued expert
Experienced, dependable, and quietly checked out. They hit the mark and no further, and have no intention of leaving, which is exactly why nobody addresses it.
Just 1 in 10 UK employees are engaged at work, among the lowest in Europe.
Gallup, 2024None of them will raise a hand, and none will use your EAP; being seen asking is the cost they will not pay. All of them can run PRC, because it is anonymous by design.
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Why they will actually use it
The anonymity is not a promise. It is the architecture.
A promise can be broken. There is nothing here for an employer to break, because the employer is never in the data path.
What the system holds
- The email address they signed up with. It arrives by email, so an address is held.
- A random seat token, derived from nothing about them.
- Seven self-rated scores, four times.
- That is the complete list.
What the system does not hold
- Their name.
- Any name, anywhere in the record.
- A single word they write.
- Their thirteen weekly numbers. Those stay in their log.
- Any clinical record, anywhere.
They enrol on their own device, using a personal email address, never a work one, because a work email address can be read by an employer’s IT administrators. That address never reaches you. HR never assigns a seat, receives no identifier of any kind, and is never told who took one. Anonymous to you. Not anonymous to the system that has to send the emails, and this deck says so rather than claiming otherwise.
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Day 1 · What lands in their inbox
Two things on Day 1. After that, one line, only when the urge shows up.
Their inboxDay 1
Day 1. The voice in your head.
At some point today there will be a moment. A small impulse toward something. Toward the phone. Toward staying at your desk when the day is done. Anything that is not quite what you would choose if you were choosing clearly.
That impulse has a name in this protocol. The voice in your head. Not because it is loud. Because it is persistent.
Task one. When it shows up today, write down the time. Just the time. In your log.
Task two. Record your seven starting scores.
IF the voice shows up and I am not near my log, THEN I send myself a one-word message with the time. That counts. I am building a log, not writing an essay.
These seven scores are the Day 1 baseline. The same seven are rated again at Days 30, 60 and 90, and that is what the movement is measured against. After Day 1 there is nothing to submit on a quiet day.
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Every seventh day
Four questions in their log. And the week’s number beside them.
Their inboxWeek 2 · Day 14
Week 2. Four questions and your number.
Write this week’s answers before you look at last week’s.
1. How did the time window look this week? Same as Week 1, or different?
2. Did anything new show up in the ninety minutes before?
3. What did you reach for? Has the default started to shift?
4. What was the cost in the hour after? A specific example.
Your number for this week. 1 is the hardest week you have had with this pattern. 10 is a week where it was quiet.
IF I am tempted to check last week’s number first, THEN I do not. I choose first. I look after.
Thirteen readings across ninety days. Read the line, not the numbers.
The four answers and the number both stay in their private log, on their own phone. We never receive them. That is the design, not an oversight.
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Where their words live
A private log, on their device. We never receive a word of it.
It opens from their dashboard in one tap, saves as they type, and transmits nothing to us or to you. It is a web page they open on their own personal phone. A work device is never used, because the moment one is, the anonymity stops being structural.
Their log · one quick jotonly when the urge shows up
Wed 16:40 · Office
Back to back calls, inbox climbing. Left the desk, checked the phone twice, put the task off. Gap about twelve minutes; it slipped an hour.
The system still holds nothing. The words simply stay where they were written, on the participant’s own device.
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Day 90 · What moved
Seven measures. Four checkpoints. Rated by them. Every time.
+2.7
Movement across seven measures
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Day 91 · What they walk away with
A record they complete themselves. Because we never held their words.
This record answers three questions.
1. What did the numbers do? The system held those.
2. What did you write? The system never held those. You bring them.
3. What do you keep? Three tools. No system behind them.
The if/then
A specific plan, loaded before the moment arrives. Read it once each morning, before the trigger window opens. If they keep one thing, this is it.
Friction maths
Twenty seconds onto the old path. Twenty seconds off the new one. Enough to break an automatic sequence.
The pre-mortem
One question at the start of a hard week. How will I fail this week? Not whether. How.
All three work with no emails, no dashboard, and no us. The employer never receives it, or any part of it.
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What you just saw
One protocol. Three things worth remembering.
One
It reaches the ones who never ask
The senior people who will not self-refer, because being seen asking is the cost they will not pay. No self-referral. No HR pathway. No clinical record.
Two
The anonymity is structural
Not a policy you have to trust. There is no name in the system to leak, because there is no name in the system.
Three
You still get a number
Seats, completion, and aggregate Index movement. Enough for a board paper. Nothing that identifies a soul.
It sits alongside your EAP. It replaces nothing. It reaches the people your EAP was never going to reach.
90
Days. Email only. No app, no IT project, no integration.
0
Contract changes required. It runs beside what you have.
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What happens next
One conversation. Thirty minutes, with Jon Cull.
£3,450 plus VAT
The Workforce Reach Audit
The paid first step, if you want one. Three weeks, anonymous, and it tells you how many of your own people your current support reaches. The report is yours whatever you decide.
£9,750 plus VAT a year
The 90-day protocol
One site of up to 500 employees. Above 500, priced on headcount. The audit fee comes off in full, so £6,300, if you go ahead within 30 days of your report or by your next board or HR committee.
The call costs nothing. Three organisations can still run the full 90 days with no protocol fee, and the places go in the order audits finish. Everything on this page, in full, at
prcworkforce.com.
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For the record
Sources.
Every figure in this walkthrough, with a link to the original. UK data unless noted.
- HCML, 2024 · 79% of 200 UK employers provide an EAP; nearly 85% of those report take-up of 3% to 5%; 27% of 503 employees did not know one existed. Employer-reported, a different measure from EAPA below.
- EAPA UK, 2024 · Provider-reported utilisation of 10% or more, up from around 4%. Different metric from HCML above.
- IPPR, 2024 · £103bn annual cost of UK workforce sickness; 44 productive days lost per employee per year.
- HSE, 2024/25 · 22.1m working days lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety; 964,000 workers affected.
- CIPD Good Work Index, 2025 · 1 in 4 workers say work negatively affects their health.
- TUC, 2026 · 1.2 billion hours of unpaid overtime in 2025; 6.8 hours each a week.
- HiBob, 2026 · 47% say there is no clear, quiet period at work. Censuswide survey of 2,000 UK employees.
- McKinsey Health Institute, 2022 · Six times more likely to intend to leave in three to six months. Intent to leave, not measured attrition.
- CMI, 2023 · 82% of managers entered the role with no formal training; 52% hold no management qualification. More than 4,500 UK workers.
- Acas, 2021 · Workplace conflict estimated at £28.5bn a year to UK employers; around 485,800 resignations.
- CIPD Good Work Index, 2025 · 69% with a far too much workload report a negative effect from work, against 14% whose workload is about right. 5,017 UK employees.
- Gallup, 2024 · Around 1 in 10 UK employees engaged at work, among the lowest in Europe.
Illustrative dashboard and cohort figures throughout are fictitious. No cohort has yet completed the protocol.