By Chris Earle, Workforce Wellbeing Officer, Money Advice Scotland.

  

I walked past a school playground at lunchtime today while walking my dog. It was loud, shouting, whistles. balls crashing against metal fencing. The kind of noise you barely register until you’re right beside it — then suddenly it’s everywhere, pressing in from all sides. And then I noticed a little boy. He was maybe six or seven years old, standing on his own at the edge of the playground. He was wearing ear defenders. His body looked tense, still, overwhelmed. The adults nearby carried on as normal. No one seemed to notice him.

 

I don’t know his story, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Just walking past that noise felt overwhelming to me — I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be small, overstimulated, and alone in it.

 

It made me feel unexpectedly sad, and how often people can be surrounded by others, yet feel completely unseen.

 

Being seen isn’t about proximity

 

We often confuse being present with being connected. That playground was full of people, noise, movement, activity. Yet one child stood quietly at the edges, doing what he needed to cope, unnoticed.

 

Connection isn’t about proximity, volume, or numbers. It’s about noticing, checking in, small acts of care. The more I thought about it, the more it felt uncomfortably familiar — because this doesn’t stop at childhood.

 

The adult version of ear defenders

In workplaces, we don’t usually wear ear defenders, instead, we:

• Sit quietly in meetings while others dominate the noise
• Keep cameras off because we’re already overwhelmed
• Push through open-plan offices, constant pings, shifting priorities
• Mask stress, anxiety, neurodivergence, fatigue, or burnout because ‘everyone else seems fine’.

 

People can be high-performing, reliable, and present — and still feel completely unseen. Just like that child in the playground, they may be coping rather than thriving.

Wellbeing isn’t always loud

In many workplaces, wellbeing conversations focus on visible actions: Workshops, surveys, initiatives, campaigns. All important, all valuable. But real wellbeing often lives in quieter moments:

 

• A manager noticing someone withdrawing
• A colleague asking “How are you really?” — and waiting for the answer
• Adjusting expectations rather than adding pressure
• Creating space where people don’t have to justify their needs.

 

Psychological safety, inclusion, and wellbeing aren’t built through noise, they’re built through attention.

 

Who might be standing at the edge?

This moment made me reflect on a simple but powerful question for leaders, managers, and colleagues alike: Who in your workplace might be standing at the edge of the playground right now?

• The person who never speaks up in meetings
• The one who’s always ‘fine’
• The colleague who copes quietly while carrying too much
• The person adapting themselves to fit the environment, rather than the environment adapting to them.

 

They may not ask for help, they may not want attention, but they still need to be seen.

Small acts. Real impact.

You don’t need to ‘fix’ people, you don’t need all the answers, sometimes supporting wellbeing is simply:

 

• Noticing
• Checking in
• Making it safe to say “this is too much”
• Designing work that allows different ways of being, thinking, and coping.

 

Small acts of care are not small to the person receiving them. That little boy reminded me of something we all need — at work and beyond: It’s not about reducing all the noise, it’s about making sure no one is left alone in it.