The 2023 Headspace Working Well Awards recognize the organizations and leaders in our customer community that make “working well” a priority. They advocate for and elevate mental health in the workplace to promote a culture of well-being for all employees. 

This year, we received a robust field of submissions from more than 45 clients. Our winners were carefully selected by an esteemed panel of judges, including Kelly Greenwood, Founder and CEO of Mind Share Partners, Jennifer McClure, CEO of Unbridled Talent and Disrupt HR, and Jae Washington, Senior Manager of the Global Headspace Client Community.  Our five winners encompass what it means to be a champion for mental well-being – striving to make “working well” part of their organization’s mission.  We couldn’t be prouder to support a customer community that models what matters to create happier, healthier workplaces.

We’re excited to announce the winners of the 2023 Headspace Working Well Awards. If you’d like to learn more, you can watch our Working Well Awards Fireside Chat on-demand. Here, our winners share their stories and provide tangible takeaways to spark your own workplace evolution.

And now, without further ado, the winners…

Working Well Leader of the Year - Faith Primacio, Cision‍

The Working Well Leader of the Year award is dedicated to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding commitment to promoting mental health and well-being among employees. This year’s winner has gone above and beyond to put well-being at the heart of her workplace.

As the Director of Global Benefits at Cision, Faith Primacio has a deep understanding of the kinds of benefits and resources it takes to help employees feel engaged, empowered, and valued at work. But in a company spread across two dozen countries, providing equitable, comprehensive benefits to support all employees can be very challenging. Faith helped leadership and stakeholders see how investing in employee wellness and supporting established DEI efforts could have a positive domino effect throughout the company. 

Faith knew that prioritizing mental health could lead to stronger employee loyalty and retention and overall company success. Headspace became one of the pillars of the mental health and well-being initiatives she launched. Headspace helped employees build lifelong skills like stress management, coping mechanisms, and resilience. 

Through her unwavering passion for her employees, Faith has built a supportive, inclusive culture that promotes mental well-being, ultimately benefiting both the employees and her organization. 

Get the full story in the Cision Case Study. 

Working Well Champion Leader of the Year - Jeff Sinclair, CarMax

The Working Well Champion of the Year award is dedicated to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding commitment to promoting mental health and well-being among employees - outside of their day-to-day responsibilities. 

At CarMax, company values are a driving force for the organization. One of these values is “put people first”, which includes taking care of associates and making their well-being a priority. Jeff Sinclair, a senior technology support analyst at CarMax, went above and beyond in his role to support associates by sharing his passion and expertise of mindful meditation. 

A seasoned mindfulness meditation practitioner, Jeff recognizes the transformative benefits of mindfulness. Jeff believes that meditation can help to reduce associate’s stress levels, promote positive social interaction, and enhance creativity and productivity. Jeff’s leadership included offering weekly guided group meditation sessions,and  sponsoring mindfulness challenges to encourage participation among associates. More than 350 associates have benefitted from Jeff's various mindfulness programs, demonstrating his far-reaching influence. One of the most impactful initiatives was creating a Microsoft teams group called, Mindfulness at CarMax. This page has over 200 members who participate in weekly sessions, answer questions about mindfulness and encourage each other. 

The Headspace app provides associates a tool they can use on their own time, in addition to scaling access to mindfulness tools across the whole company. CarMax has exceeded its goal of enrolling more than 3,000  in Headspace. Jeff's unwavering commitment to mindfulness, combined with his innovative approach and leadership, has established him as a potent force for supporting CarMax’s focus on mental health and wellbeing.

Get the full story in the CarMax Case Study. 

Working Well Organization of the Year - Thomson Reuters

The Working Well Organization of the Year award is dedicated to a company that has used its reach and resources to make a significant, measurable impact on the mental health and well-being of its employees. This year’s winner has woven well-being into the fabric of its culture at every level.

Employee well-being has long been a central pillar of the workplace experience at Thomson Reuters. As a data-driven organization, the team at Thomson Reuters understood that 31% of U.S. adults experience some type of anxiety disorder in their lives and that more than 1 in 5 U.S. adults live with a mental illness. Thomson Reuters’ top priority was to help their employees feel supported, cared for, valued, and respected by implementing mental well-being programs and resources that could serve their entire global employee population. 

To truly build a more supportive environment and reduce mental health stigma within the organization, Thomson Reuters’ leadership committed to placing an increased, long-term focus on mental health and the overall health of their workforce. They began with a broad effort to embed well-being into the culture across the organization by ensuring all employees could hear the same messages, have access to care and support, and participate equally. 

By offering Headspace, Thomson Reuters has provided employees with a tool they can use to support their mental health in and outside the workplace. Engagement and enrollment metrics have demonstrated to Thomson Reuters the significant impact of Headspace on the overall stress and mental health of participants. 

Working Well Impact Award - Genpact

The Working Well Impact award is dedicated to a company that has adopted successful workplace mental health initiatives and has measured results that demonstrate impact. This year’s winner has seen an extraordinary level of employee  engagement in its well-being initiatives, with striking results

Genpact has long held well-being as an integral part of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion charter. When the company developed an AI-enabled chatbot to gauge employee sentiment, the data revealed that workload and work-life boundaries were causing burnout among employees. 

The company partnered with Headspace to build a psychologically safe work environment, improve manager support, increase mental health awareness, and encourage work-life balance. Genpact offered Headspace to 10,000 employees across the globe, helping them hone essential skills such as managing stress, focusing, and navigating challenges. They also worked with Headspace to deliver webinars and training on topics such as normalizing mental health, destigmatizing seeking help, and driving cultural change. 

Genpact’s commitment to building a robust mental well-being program for employees has resulted in measurable outcomes that directly impact employee stress, compassion, and focus. For instance, the company achieved a 100% Headspace enrollment rate, with 87% of participating employees reporting less stress after using the app. Genpact’s engagement and adoption metrics speak for themselves, but it's the stories from employees that leave a lasting impression. 

‍“Headspace is a brilliant app. The content, meditation, workouts, and everything are so perfectly designed. I want to use this application daily to make my life happier.”  - Genpact Employee

‍Get the full story in the Genpact Case Study. 

Wellness Ambassador of the Year - Booking.com

The Wellness Ambassador of the Year Award is dedicated to a company that has empowered employees, managers and the broader organization to expand the reach of mental health and wellbeing resources. This year’s winner has introduced innovative training to reduce stigma, increase program engagement, and offer new professional development opportunities. 

At Booking.com, well-being means that every employee can feel socially connected, healthy, content and purposeful. This vision includes creating an environment that supports health and wellbeing in a sustainable way for everyone at the company. To achieve this ambitious goal, the team at Booking.com needed to establish global well-being guidelines that could easily be adopted within local offices. 

Booking.com developed programming to not only increase awareness of well-being resources but to also reduce the stigma too often associated with supporting one’s mental health. This included launching yearly events, such as Mental Health Awareness Week, Quarterly Wellbeing Boosters and Benefit Fairs to showcase the various support and well-being resources available to employees. Booking.com also launched Headspace as a benefit for employees across all sister brands of the Booking Holdings group, in addition to supporting dependents. 

Finally, to extend the reach of these various initiatives, Booking.com introduced a network for employee support through the role of Wellbeing Ambassadors. Employees who are passionate about wellbeing and have completed mental health in the workplace training are prepared to support colleagues in distress, signpost them to available resources and create campaigns to promote healthier habits.

Get the full story in the Booking.com Case Study.

Interested in learning about how Headspace can help your organization advance workplace mental health? Contact us here.