At well-being benefit platform Gympass, a recent partnership with mindfulness and meditation app Headspace is helping employees connect both their mental and physical selves. Headspace will now be available to Gympass's own employees, as well as their 10,000 employer partners, providing meditation tools,
Gympass has been expanding their platform beyond gym memberships and fitness classes throughout the pandemic, and this new partnership was an important step to addressing the challenges employees have gone through over the last few years, says Livia de Bastos Martini, the company's chief people officer.
"Well-being is the key topic for any person in HR right now," she says. "How do we tackle the isolation from remote work, or the lack of an office for people to socialize? We want to have as many different activities and alternatives so people can tackle their own mental health."
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For Headspace, making mindfulness and meditation as easy and fun as possible is crucial to getting employees engaged in small steps that better their mental well-being, says Desiree Pascual, the company's chief people officer.
"Just like we exercise daily to strengthen our muscles to be strong and healthy, a daily mindfulness practice helps us cultivate that resilience, emotionally and mentally," she says. "When we're in a time of crisis or change, being able to come from a place of mental and emotional resilience expands our capacity to show up with curiosity, which leads to opportunity, rather than burnout."
Acknowledging that employers and employees are struggling — and that those challenges will only get harder to navigate — can pay off when organizations take a proactive approach. Employers who invest in mental health foster a happier and more engaged workforce, which in turn increases productivity and retention, Pascual says.
"Employers of all sizes will continue to face numerous challenges in the labor market and on the tails of the pandemic, so it's more important than ever to have these resources available," Pascual says. "Agile businesses are going to take a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to mental health."
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De Bastos Martini has tackled her own mental health using the Headspace app, and has even participated in their Star Wars' themed-breathing exercises. Incorporating an element of fun into a daily practice eases any stigma around needing to take a few minutes to mentally reset, she says.
"They have a breathing break with Chewbacca, and I thought that was really whimsical," she says. "What we need is to find different ways to help people take that first step, and then from that point on, they can feel ownership of their journey."
Gympass has been proactively expanding their offerings to include more gym access,
"If your body is better, your mind is better — it's a self-reinforcing mechanism. My body and mind are the same person, and we need to tackle both at the same time," she says. "Companies can no longer afford to shy away from that, and they'll see how better the ROI is on investing in the well-being of their employees."
