Case study: Landsec's mental wellness journey
The Background
Landsec is a real estate organisation operating across the construction and property industries – sectors known for their high-pressure and stressful environments. Often these challenges go unaddressed, with nine in 10 real estate workers believing their industry needs to talk more about mental health. Landsec is built on the philosophy that it takes great people to build great places, so naturally the health and happiness of their colleagues is paramount. As such, Landsec saw a solution in mental health technology.
The Challenge
Like many progressive organisations today, Landsec had a wellbeing programme in place featuring an EAP and mental health first aiders. But head of HR and reward, Sue Greenland, felt it was missing a key ingredient – proactive mental health support.
“If people don’t support their mental health,” she points out, “it impacts their physical health, social health, and productivity.”
Sue needed a technology partner to hit three key criteria:
- To measurably improve her staff’s mental wellbeing.
- To be data-driven, enabling her to inform strategy.
- To be digital-first, accessible to a geographically dispersed workforce.
The Solution
After reviewing the employee wellbeing market, Sue decided on Unmind. “It's a digital-first solution that’s proactive – it gives employees access to the tools as and when they need it, wherever they are in their mental wellness journey.”
After a few consultations – and several cups of tea – Landsec rolled out Unmind to its workforce of 650 people across the UK in September 2018.
The Results
Team bonding Since then, the positive impact has rippled through the organisation. “It’s helped my team bond a lot more,” explained Abbie Brownjohn, document execution administrator, “it’s a great way to get the conversation going around mental health.”
When employees share recommendations about the app, it doesn’t just normalise dialogue around mental health, but actively encourages it.
Easy access “I’ve always suffered with mental health issues,” said OCIO director Danny Nicholson. “It helps having Unmind available at all times, because it’s hard to tell when you’re about to have a low period or a steady period. If you’re like me and get the signs that you’re feeling low, or are becoming more anxious or stressed, it’s there and available straight away.”
Proactive boost Unmind was designed to proactively support mental health, providing users with digestible content on the go. “Your thoughts are crucial to your wellbeing.” explains Lee Otteson, IT platforms manager. “It’s like physical exercise – you’ve got to look after your mind as well. I commute for an hour every morning, so I use it then as a daily boost.”
Data-driven Importantly for Sue, this was all reflected in the data: “The data we’ve got from Unmind has proven invaluable,” she said. “We’ve identified focus areas across three aspects of wellness – financial, physical, and emotional – and introduced education and awareness programmes, which has been great for us as a business. We didn’t have to ask for any of this information – the Unmind support team were proactive.”
Want to learn more about workplace mental health?
Landsec is one of many companies, including John Lewis & Partners, ASOS, and Just Eat, using Unmind to measurably improve the mental health of their workforces.
This is sponsored article is provided by Unmind.
In partnership with Unmind
Our vision is to create a world where mental health is universally understood, nurtured&celebrated.
