Putting Mental Health on the Menu
How Incipio Group cut churn and made care part of culture.
of staff considering leaving in the hospitality industry.
The Challenge
Service with(out) a Smile.
Hospitality is unforgiving. Long shifts, late nights, and relentless service demands take their toll. Stress-related absence is climbing, with 60% of staff considering leaving and 62% saying they don’t feel supported by their employer. For businesses, the cost is huge: turnover alone drains an estimated £272m a year across UK hospitality — before even counting absenteeism, presenteeism, and lost productivity.
Incipio Group, with over 450 people across ten venues and a head office, felt the strain first-hand. High churn threatened loyalty. Stretched teams meant service suffered. And without proper support, the culture they’d worked hard to build was at risk.
Wellbeing support provided by Self Space became one of Incipio’s most valued staff perks - improving retention, reducing absence, and lifting productivity.
Cost of turnover drain per year across UK hospitality
Retail Therapy
Incipio partnered with Self Space to design a programme built for hospitality’s unique demands — fast-paced, high-pressure, and often overlooked by traditional wellbeing models. Instead of helplines or one-off sessions, support was made practical, visible, and accessible to every member of staff.
The programme focused on four key areas:
Therapy for All:
Confidential 1:1 sessions for every employee — no hierarchy, no gatekeeping.
Diverse Facilitators:
Therapists reflecting the diversity of Incipio’s workforce, ensuring everyone felt represented and understood.
On-Site Launches:
Therapists introduced directly in venues, breaking down stigma and meeting teams where they worked.
Ongoing Support:
Regular resources and tailored content to keep wellbeing front of mind.
Programmes tackling burnout, turnover, and the silence around mental health were built into the rhythm of daily work. For the first time, frontline staff had equal access to meaningful support — making wellbeing not just available, but unavoidable.
The Self Space Difference
Short summary
Therapist-led, on-site support
Delivered straight to the venues, where teams worked — practical and visible, designed for hospitality’s pace and pressures.
No one-size-fits-all
A diverse community of 145 qualified therapists, speaking 16 languages and offering 21 therapeutic approaches — so every team member could find a style that worked for them.
Representation that mattered
35% of therapists from global majority backgrounds, reflecting Incipio’s workforce and making support more relatable.
Early access with impact
On-site therapy lightened the load for leaders, reduced churn, and built loyalty in a sector defined by turnover.
Outcomes
The outcome: a hospitality business where care isn’t an afterthought, but a cornerstone of retention, results, and healthier teams building a better business.
300+ therapy sessions
Delivered since 2021.
Wellbeing became one of Incipio’s most valued staff perks
Improving retention, reducing absence, and lifting productivity.
Early access to support took pressure off managers
Rehiring costs cut in a high-churn sector.
Embedded into service culture
Strengthening loyalty and performance and giving customers a better experience.
“We love the simplicity and accessibility of Self Space. The set-up is fantastic, and the feedback from our teams has been outstanding.”
Incipio Group
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Case studies
Our team of qualified people are on hand to deliver therapy that works, talks that engage, and training that builds confidence and inspires. Read about how we help our partners championing the mental health of all their people.
