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EuroSTAR Conference

Europe's Largest Quality Engineering Conference

Track Talk T2

Not Remotely Healthy? Mental Health Skills for Remote Testers

Katherine Haigh

10:30 - 11:15 CEST, Tuesday 16th June

How can our testing be at its best if we, the testers, are not at our best?

Even AI and automated tools need to be created, set up, maintained and tested by us humans, and we do our best work when we are healthy and happy.

Looking after our mental health has always been important and in recent years a lot of progress has been made towards breaking down the stigma and taboos that can surround this topic, but in the age of remote work there are new challenges to consider.

As a tester who manages their own depression and anxiety and a trained mental health first aider, I’d like to share my experience of looking after my and others’ mental health whilst working and managing remotely in both hybrid and fully remote workplaces. This includes what has worked well for me and others and what definitely hasn’t!

My first experience was managing the only hybrid employee at an otherwise office-based company.

Next came the Covid lockdown, where I wore pyjamas for weeks at a time and threw on a hoodie and a professional face for video calls. In my current workplace, everyone is fully remote. So I’ve sat on all sides of the table.

The talk will be a mixture of personal experience and collated research about the positive and negative mental health impacts of remote work for all kinds of workers. I’ll touch on how some of the characteristics that make us great at testing can help or hinder our mental health and share some actionable tips for individual testers, managers and organisations on how to help get the best testing by promoting good mental health in themselves and their colleagues.

What you will learn

  1. For individuals - how to safeguard your own mental health when working remotely
  2. For managers - how to promote good mental health in your teams
  3. For companies – how to embed mental health good practice at a company level

Session Details

  • Introductory
  • 45mins
  • Includes 15min Q&A
  • Developing and nurturing essential soft skills
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Check out this video from Katherine Haigh to hear more about her talk on Not Remotely Healthy? Mental Health Skills for Remote Testers.

We look forward to welcoming you to EuroSTAR 2026.

Session Speakers

Katherine Haigh

Xtract360, UK

Born and bred in northern England, I’ve been a tester for 10 years, starting out manually in the very niche world of XBRL (an XML-based business reporting language) and, more recently, developing my automation skills. I love coaching and mentoring other testers as part of a team, as well as learning and making new connections in the testing community.

Having experienced poor mental health, and knowing how many of us are affected by it, I’m really keen to promote open discussions and share good practices in this area. I also love gardening, making music and playing with my cat, Odo.

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