Hello there you, I’m Alex – the Sales Manager here at Self Space. When we first partnered with Huel back in September 2021, we were over the moon. Huels values spoke to us: To make nutritionally complete, convenient, affordable food, with minimal impact on animals and the environment. And their company cultural statement of well, not being a dick, spoke to us even louder.
We’ve now got 3 years of a collaborative, thriving partnership under our belt which includes 1 to 1 therapy session support and a packed schedule of psychoeducation. At this point in time we’ve facilitated 2,889 therapy sessions for Huel and those brilliant Hueligans don’t show any signs of slowing down.
We have employees who see us weekly and others who pop in every now and again for a mental maintenance top up or just to focus on specific bumps in the road. The key here for Huel was allowing their people unlimited access to a therapy service that was flexible and worked for everyone. One therapy style, one location, one therapist does not fit all.
What we love about our partnership was the immediate buy-in from senior leadership within the Huel team. James Collier who is their Co-Founder introduced us at our initial launch and he and Vicki their People Operations Manager have been incredibly engaged champions ever since. Senior stakeholder buy in? They’ve nailed it.
About Huel
Huel is Nutritionally complete, convenient, affordable food, with minimal impact on animals and the environment. Huel is complete food, simply delivered. The majority of our team is based at our HQ in Tring, but we also have offices in London, Birmingham, Germany and New York, with remote team members in the Netherlands and Japan. We are now at 273 employees.
What was your company struggling with in relation to workplace mental health and wellbeing?
We were already quite far along with our presence in supporting our team in the mental health space, we had trained our mental health first aiders, were raising awareness and encouraging our teams to reach out to us for support. But we knew we lacked the clinical expertise to support our teams even further and the option of 1 on 1 therapy or counselling was something that our founder, Julian, was keen to offer everyone. We wanted a partner who truly represented our diverse workforce and would support us in encouraging as many people as possible to use this brilliant benefit.
Why did you choose to partner with Self Space?
Lots of reasons. We love how Self Space talks about mental health awareness and supporting each other, we spoke the same language. We liked that Self Space recognised that we wanted to be proactive rather than reactive in supporting our team’s mental health and that building the right scaffolding to support your own mental health is a healthy and sustainable approach rather than reacting to crisis. Self-Space’s team is brilliant and we’ve benefited from the excellent workshops as well as the online resources and handouts to help celebrate the mental health and wellbeing events we observe each year.
What were you hoping to achieve by working with Self Space?
Healthy take up of the sessions and positive engagement. I feel we have achieved this in the number of sessions people book, this is unlimited to not put people off using the service and it is regularly one of the most appreciated benefits we offer in our staff survey.
What was the programme that was implemented by Self Space?
Huel initially implemented a series of workshops for their general team. Huel and the psychoeducation team met to discuss HUELS culture, struggles and challenges and areas they felt needed addressing. We agreed to a series of workshops and implemented 2 sessions to the broader team. After that we identified through the sessions that some leadership support would be beneficial, so we decided to utilise two further workshops for leaders. After further consultation on close review of the feedback, HUEL recommissioned a further 2 general workshops for their team which led to a broader implementation of our CPD Leadership training.
Why was this approach taken?
Huel wanted to offer immediate support to their staff, so general workshops felt like a great starting place. It provided brilliant insight into what the general team were craving from managers, which enabled us to work alongside Huel to identify how we could support that through psychoeducation.
What were the learning objectives?
These differ depending on the workshops. But broadly the objective was to continue the conversation within HUEL about mental health, to normalise and destigmatize being at our edges, and to provide the team with tools to look after their wellbeing.
Who was trained, how many people trained and in what?
Huel have had:
– How to set healthy boundaries
– Proper Self Care
– Meaningful mental Health
– Conversations for Leaders
– Decompression Session
– Combating Imposter Syndrome
– Therapy Talks
– Tools For Leaders CPD
We’ve trained nearly all of their general staff and a large proportion of their leadership team.
What has been the impact of working with Self Space?
It has sent a positive message to our team and anyone looking at Huel as a prospective workplace that we take your mental health seriously and value that you may need support from time to time. It’s an incredible benefit that receives a lot of love.
We are very appreciative of the time and effort that Self Space put into everything they do; they listen to our feedback and take the necessary steps to help us. They’re psychoeducation offering is excellent, and we adore all the resources we get. We look forward to a thriving partnership where we both support each other.
If you’re ready to take the first step towards championing the mental health of your people, book a chat with Alex, and she’ll help you get started.