To underpin Pollinate’s wellbeing support strategy, we have launched the use of the Unmind platform for all of our employees. This supports our mission for our employees to be their best selves, wherever in the world they are based, and to provide helpful tools they can use beyond the office.

What is Unmind?

Unmind is a service, that is 100% confidential and can be accessed anywhere at any time. The service encourages employees to gain an understanding and perspective of their own wellbeing with tools, training and assessments and, with a wide variation of activities, there is something to suit everyone and supports each person’s individual journey.

The Unmind Platform focuses on seven key areas: fulfilment, coping, calmness, happiness, connection, health, and sleep. The platform provides self-guided programmes, in-the-moment exercises, clinically-backed insights, and expressions of gratitude.

What Affects Wellbeing at Work?

Everyone’s wellbeing journey is an individual experience and the workplace can play a critical role in that journey. Workload, communication, and the physical work environment are all factors that can affect wellbeing at work.

Unfortunately, there remains a stigma around mental health and it continues to be one of the primary reasons for workplace absence and this has been highlighted, particularly by COVID. Mind, the mental health charity, suggests that over 60% of adults and 68% of young people admitted their mental health got worse over lockdown. COVID has acted as a catalyst for many workplaces to make a change — particularly now that workers are having to merge their work and home life under one roof. Pollinate is no different.

By partnering with Unmind, we are bringing mental health and wellbeing in focus. Everyone has mental health and culturally it’s important for people to feel they can be themselves. By providing confidential access to the Unmind platform, we hope to equip our people with the tooling to proactively measure, manage and improve their wellbeing. We hope to inspire our people to create daily habits that lead to a better understanding of their own mental health, and support the wellbeing of their colleagues. Collaborating and supporting each other along our journey is key to cultural and business success.

In rolling out the platform, we asked representatives across Pollinate to become Unmind Champions. These members have played a key role in championing the platform pre-launch and we hope they will continue to act as advocates for the app, referring colleagues to tooling and supporting them.

HR AT POLLINATE

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

Here at Pollinate we have always placed huge importance on employee wellbeing and development but this was amplified during the pandemic, when staying happy and connected has been more important, yet more difficult, than ever. One of our co-founder’s Fiona Roach-Canning has been particularly vocal about the need to nurture employee wellbeing from afar, including placing an emphasis on the importance of the Pollinate team taking downtime when needed, enforcing work and home boundaries, and maintaining a sense of normality, as she discussed in UKTN.

COMMUNICATION

At Pollinate, strong communication is something that we pride ourselves on, even before the pandemic — our flexible working policies rely on strong communication from all levels of the organisation. Understanding each other’s communication style is an important factor in maintaining a positive work attitude and wellbeing — everyone communicates differently and, with communication being primarily digital at the moment, understanding people’s communication style is vital as there are no other ‘pointers’ as to how someone is feeling — tone of voice, body language etc.

HEALTH AND FITNESS

One element of the Unmind platform that is very beneficial for our employees is the ‘on the spot’ exercise tools as this encourages them to take some time away from their desk and change their focus — sitting staring at a computer screen all day is not healthy for anyone!

THE WORK ENVIRONMENT & WORK / LIFE BALANCE

In these times when everyone is under so much stress and pressure, both in and out of work, it is crucially important that we support people to achieve balance in their lives.

JONATHAN HUGHES
CO-FOUNDER OF POLLINATE AND CEO OF POLLINATE HORIZONS

Workplace flexibility is something that we have prided ourselves on here at Pollinate, even pre-pandemic. Trust in our employees is important and we trust them to complete their work whilst also remaining flexible around family commitments that they may have, for example, home-schooling during COVID. This is where Unmind fits in perfectly with our employees; there are calming, focus and empowering tools for them to use, as well as a ‘check-in’ tool to monitor their wellbeing, particularly when things are stressful.

When we are in the office, we offer a breathable, bright space where employees can collaborate and excel in their duties, but we also have areas where they can take themselves away perhaps to do an Unmind exercise and to re-focus.

How to Achieve Workplace Wellness

Trust and communication are vital factors to create workplace wellness. Throughout the organisation, at all levels, everyone is approachable and trusting. Our flexibility also plays a role in this because it reduces the ‘stigma’ of what is expected in the workplace and enables a greater level of communication without the fear of being ‘shut down’.

Being able to voice your concerns and queries to your teammates without the fear of judgement is one of the keys to workplace wellness, and that is where the Praise tool on Unmind is extremely useful — you can say thank you in an informal manner where you know their wellbeing is at the heart of it.

Workplace Wellness & Unmind

Using Unmind at Pollinate is a great way to support everyone across the business – I particularly like that there are lots of bitesize bits of content that only take a 1-2 minutes each. There are going to be big changes across the business, lots of challenges and new initiatives in the next 12 months, and I wanted to champion Unmind as a simple support tool to help everyone deal with these on a very practical level.

JAMES BRIDGMAN
HEAD OF GLOBAL MARKETING & UNMIND CHAMPION

Because of the organisational approach here at Pollinate, is one of the reasons why Unmind fits with our culture so well. The platform allows our employees to continue to develop themselves personally without the fear of judgement and stigma — Unmind has allowed us to openly start that conversation.

We are excited to see the influence Unmind will have on our employee’s daily lives and the positive impact that it will bring both inside and outside of the workplace to help our employees thrive.