Our big year building communities and supporting peers to make more mentally-healthy workplaces

What have we been up to in 2022? With many now enjoying the freedom of flexible, hybrid and remote working, we took the opportunity to be accessible to those outside of London and embraced the virtual world even more than during lockdowns. Now, as 2022 draws to a close, it’s time to take a look back at some of our successes, the stories we’ve shared and some of our new supporters.

We doubled in size!

As the year turned, Minds@Work welcomed Lauren McMenemy as Head of Community Development, and at the end of summer 2022 we were joined by Carys Shannon as our Head of Digital Marketing. These two joined our long-standing team members April Doty (Head of Communications) and Sarah Bingham (Head of Programmes), which means we doubled in size in 2022! 

We are a small team still - and we’re all part-timers! - but we are mighty. Everything we talk about in this article was achieved by this dynamic foursome, with the blessing of our Chair Rachel Baillache and co-founders Geoff McDonald and Georgie Mack. 

Being a charity means we can only grow through funding - nothing we do is for profit - and we are grateful to our sponsors for enabling us to have such a great year. (Side note: if your company likes what we do, we’d make a great recipient of some of your CSR budget!)

We launched a community!

Yes, with the appropriate funding and Lauren coming into the fold, we finally had the opportunity to launch a virtual community on the Mighty Networks platform at the end of May 2022 - something we’ve wanted to do for a long time.

The Minds@Work virtual community arrived to support a revolution in the workplace - one that encourages better mental health and puts people at the centre. It’s a place for HR directors, internal communicators, managers, team leads and peer-leaders to troubleshoot, share best practice, ask for advice or assistance, and test ideas for workplace wellbeing with a group of like-minded peers. 

We have steadily grown our membership - which is free and open to all - over the last six months, and now have close to 400 people in there. There’s a long way to go in terms of finding the sweet spot for this community and its purpose, but we are quite proud of its humble beginnings. 

We held lots of virtual events!

To support that community and create a buzz, we held A LOT of virtual events this year - at least, a lot more than we used to and an impressive amount considering our size. After all, Minds@Work is built on sharing stories.

Every month in the community had a theme or focus for its content and conversations, and each of those themes had a panel session with experts in the field to help shine a light on personal experiences and workplace accommodations, a way to help those influencing work culture to understand what they can do to improve the mental wellbeing of their employees. Special thanks to Head of Programme Sarah for finding our great event speakers. 

Replays of these events are now available on our YouTube channel, again free and open to all to ensure this essential information is accessible; click on the links below to reach the individual sessions:

We also had (mostly) short conversations with experts in a range of topics to hear more about some of the things businesses should consider or be aware of when considering their culture. We called these “Community Conversations”, and you can also find them on our YouTube channel:

We’re giving the events a little rest for now, but if you’ve got something you’d like to share with our community, please get in touch with Lauren.

And HIVE is buzzing!

And all of that is before we even consider HIVE, our flagship peer support programme, which returned for another year following its successful launch at the end of 2021.

HIVE - or Highly Interactive Virtual Experience - is a 14-week virtual peer support programme for people who want to make a positive life change. It helps to embed good habits around the foundations of wellbeing, which are sleep, eating, exercise and relaxation. It’s not just a class you tune into; it’s a true peer support network, and you’ll have a smaller tribe to share the journey with. 

We ran a HIVE earlier this year for a corporate sponsor, delivering it for their own employees, with great results - 92% of respondents rated their own wellbeing more highly after HIVE, and respondents also reported feeling they now had someone they could turn to for help and support thanks to their participation. 

The next HIVE is already open for public applications thanks to the generous support of Legal & General. This time around, we’re looking for working carers who have little time or support for their own needs. If you care for a family member or friend who cannot cope without your support due to their illness, disability, age, mental health problem or addiction, and you’re balancing those caring commitments with a job as well (full time or part time, freelance or permanent), then join one of our information sessions to find out more. 

What does 2023 hold?

And now, we have a HIVE to fill! Our team is now focused on building buzz and getting people to sign up to join our next HIVE, which will begin in February 2023. You’ll see most of our attention in terms of social media and content focused on that in the coming weeks, but we’re still here building momentum in other areas of our community, too. 

We’d love to see you in our virtual space, which you can join here. Come on in and let us know what you’d find most useful in 2023 as you consider how to break the stigma of talking about mental health at work, and as you go about building more mentally-healthy workplaces. 


Our 2022 in numbers

  • 7,869 followers on LinkedIn - almost 800 followed this year alone

  • 383 members joined our community since its launch in May

  • 9 one-to-one conversations with experts for our community conversations

  • 5 “big events” held online exploring the personal and professional of mental health at work

  • 1 HIVE completed successfully - and another launching in February!

  • And we doubled our team members - there’s now 4 of us! (We’re all part time, so it’s the equivalent of two full time members of staff.)

Lauren McMenemyComment