International SOS is a leading medical and travel security services company. Their global team is spread across 1,000 locations in 90 countries, with a dedicated workforce of approximately 13,000 employees.

Workplace mental health is a priority for the business, which aims to foster a supportive environment that promotes wellbeing, resilience, and productivity. This aligns with the company’s broader mission to protect and enhance the health and safety of employees, especially in challenging or remote work environments.

Involving employees in planning their workplace mental health initiatives has been paramount to success. International SOS has established a ‘Think Tank’ style group, comprising a diverse mix of employees from departments and levels across the organisation: from finance to marketing, intern to executive. This group operates like a creative lab, where ideas on mental health initiatives are brainstormed, experimented with, and refined in a collaborative and open environment. ‘Innovation Huddles’ are held every two months, where these representatives bring fresh perspectives, challenge conventional approaches, and ensure that strategies are engaging.

International SOS is also able to harness the collective wisdom of the 5,400 healthcare professionals among their workforce, who are experienced in advising some of the largest corporations globally on their mental health programs. They draw on their extensive field experience to inform the strategies and provide an additional layer of expertise. This combined creative method ensures that the mental health initiatives are continuously evolving, resonating with the diverse workforce, and leading in the field.

Across the wider workforce, the business regularly surveys and runs feedback sessions to understand staff needs and concerns. They report that the feedback received from staff about the workplace mental health initiatives show they have ignited a change in the emotional wellbeing of staff. Employees have shared practical instances where they’ve felt more in control of their emotional health, with reduced stress levels, enhanced emotional resilience, and newfound coping strategies that they can apply in their day-to-day lives. Structured feedback processes mean International SOS can take the data from their surveys and HR metrics and combine them with qualitative feedback – for instance, from focus groups – to give rich and robust data that informs how they move forward.

International SOS’s advice to other businesses looking to involve staff in developing workplace mental health plans is that it’s vital to include employees from various departments, roles, and levels in the planning process. Diverse perspectives ensure a well-rounded approach that addresses the needs of all staff. They also say it’s important to create a supportive environment, so people feel safe to contribute and establish both qualitative and quantitative feedback mechanisms to gather valuable insights on the effectiveness of your initiatives.