Kearney Sees Continuous Mental Health Improvement Throughout Five-Year Unmind Partnership
Content
- About
- Strategic approach
- Impact of Unmind
- Impact of overall strategic approach
- Why it worked
- What's next
Stats
- UK: +26% improvement in mental health
- US: +21%
- Australia: +18%
- Industry: Consulting
- Company size: 5,900+ employees across 40+ countries
- Timeframe: 2020 - 2025
About
Consulting never slows down – long hours, constant travel, and back-to-back client demands are the norm. For Kearney, a global firm with more than 5,900 employees across 40 countries, supporting mental health was a strategic imperative.
Since 2021, Kearney has partnered with Unmind to provide proactive, evidence-based mental health support across its global workforce as part of its overall strategic approach to tackling mental health challenges.
Strategic approach
Kearney created a strategy that included a range of mental health and wellbeing programs to support employees in a meaningful way. The aim was to provide access to preventative care while also addressing more complex needs, ensuring support was available at every stage of an individual’s mental health journey.
The initiative began with a global commitment to mental health, alongside the development of a charter and set of commitments
From there, a series of initiatives were introduced:
- Support teams: Established global and regional wellbeing teams, alongside a joint taskforce to drive connection and collaboration.
- Resource hub: For mental health tips and tools for self-care and caring for others, including internal and external support.
- Survey integration: Added questions to the firm’s biannual engagement survey to gauge employee mental health.
- Communications campaigns: Delivered global campaigns to raise awareness and normalize conversations around mental health.
- People forum: A week-long open forum for employees to collaborate and co-create ideas for a mentally healthy workplace.
- Learning curriculum: Introduced opportunities for mental health education and skill-building to increase awareness and capability.
- Ambassador program: Trained colleagues who offer initial practical and emotional support to others and champion mental health.
Dedicated funding: Administered an office health and wellbeing fund to enhance investment in support.
In 2021, support expanded further with the introduction of Unmind services:
- Digital resources (2021)
- Manager specific digital resources (2023)
- Therapy and Coaching (2024)
- Crisis support (2024)
AI Coaching via Nova (2025)
Impact of Unmind
Kearney wanted more than just a tick-box program, they wanted proof their wellbeing strategy was working. As such, numerous impact measures were assessed.
Digital support
Since the beginning of the partnership in 2021, 2,287 employees globally have actively utilized Unmind digital tools to support their mental health in ways that work best for them - embedding wellbeing into their everyday lives.
Engagement has also extended into leadership. Since the 2023 launch, just under 1,300 managers and people leaders have leveraged Unmind’s digital tools to support their own mental health, strengthening not only individual resilience, but also the broader culture of wellbeing across the organization.
Following the 2025 launch of Nova, employees are now also embracing real-time, in-the-moment guidance - particularly to navigate work-related stressors - signaling a shift toward proactive, immediate wellbeing support.
Therapy and coaching
Since Therapy and Coaching was launched in 2024, employees have engaged in over 3,000 sessions, investing in both their personal wellbeing and professional development through dedicated, high-impact support. Self-report surveys, completed alongside each practitioner session, have demonstrated meaningful outcomes.
Among Kearney employees, clinically validated measures (GAD-7 and PHQ-9) showed a 36% reduction in anxiety symptoms and a 44% reduction in symptoms of low mood after just 2–7 therapy or coaching sessions.
These improvements were also reflected in workplace outcomes. Results from the academically validated Workplace Productivity and Activity Impairment (WPAI) survey showed that, after just 2–7 sessions, absenteeism decreased by 14%, presenteeism by 15%, and overall productivity increased by 16% through recovered working time.
Return on investment
ROI is calculated by comparing the financial investment in Unmind against the estimated savings generated from improvements in user productivity. Overall, Unmind delivered annual savings of $2,085,063, resulting in a 4.7x return on investment.
Productivity improvements were calculated using Kearney’s usage data alongside employees’ Workplace Productivity and Activity Impairment (WPAI) scores from January 2025 to January 2026. Hours regained through improved mental health were then converted into cost savings using average salary data.
Impact of overall strategic approach
In 2024, Kearney partnered with Unmind to conduct a comprehensive analysis of five years of employee data, with the goal of uncovering clear evidence that their investment in mental health was driving increasingly meaningful outcomes over time.
Using aggregated and anonymized data from the firm, designed to gather regular employee feedback through short, frequent check-in surveys aimed at improving the overall work experience, the analysis incorporated mental health scores, engagement metrics, sick leave, attrition, and job satisfaction. This enabled Unmind to track how trends in mental health correlated with key individual and business outcomes over time.
Mental health outcomes
Working with Kearney, Unmind explored how mental health was changing across 4 different units (US, UK, UAE, AUS) over the five years (2020–2025). Mental health scores improved globally, with notable gains in several key markets:
- UK: +26%
- US: +21%
- Australia: +18%
Workplace outcomes
The analysis also revealed strong associations between mental health and business performance:
- Employee advocacy: Mental health and likelihood to recommend Kearney as a great place to work were strongly associated (r=0.77).
- Reduced absences: Teams with stronger mental health took fewer long-term leaves (r=-0.79).
Why it worked
The impact data shows meaningful shifts in both mental health outcomes and organizational outcomes, and a steady progress over five years.
Kearney’s approach to transforming mental health was multi-faceted, but three factors made a significant difference:
Preventative care: Employees didn't have to wait for a crisis to get support. They could access tools daily, then escalate to therapy when needed.
Global consistency: The approach scaled across 40 countries, combining global consistency with localized content to ensure relevance.
Partnership approach: Unmind worked directly with Kearney's People team to co-design the program, ensuring it aligned with organizational culture and priorities.
What's next
Five years in, the lesson is clear: investing in mental health, and measuring what matters, drives impact for both people and performance.
Looking ahead, Kearney will continue to strengthen its strategy, with a focus on:
- AI-enabled support: Equipping employees with AI-powered tools to build resilience and strengthen global wellbeing capabilities that scale effectively across the organization.
- Awareness and measurement: Increasing visibility of mental health programs while enhancing how progress is tracked and reported.
- Leadership and psychological safety: Strengthening leadership accountability and fostering psychological safety across the firm.
Clinical surveys
Therapy & Coaching users complete a clinical self-assessment ahead of their practitioner sessions which includes two validated tools:
- PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire-9) - assesses the severity of low mood symptoms
- GAD-7 (Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7) - assesses the severity of anxiety symptoms.
PHQ-9: Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following?
- “Little interest or pleasure in doing things?”
- “Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless?”
- “Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?”
- “Feeling tired or having little energy?”
- “Poor appetite or overeating?”
- “Feeling bad about yourself - or that you are a failure or have let yourself down?”
- “Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading or watching television?”
- “Moving or speaking very slowly, or the opposite - being fidgety or restless?”
- “Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself in some way?”
GAD-7: Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following?
- “Feeling nervous, anxious or on edge?”
- “Not being able to stop or control worrying?”
- “Worrying too much about different things?”
- “Trouble relaxing?”
- “Being so restless that it is hard to sit still?”
- “Becoming easily annoyed or irritable?”
- “Feeling afraid as if something awful might happen?”
Workplace survey
Therapy & Coaching users also complete an academically validated work impact self-assessment ahead of their practitioner sessions. The assessment consists of two questions from the WPAI (Work Productivity and Activity Impairment) survey:
- Presenteeism: During the past week, how much did mental ill-health affect your productivity
- Absenteeism: During the past week, how much work did you miss due to mental ill-health?
ROI: How it was calculated
Annual ROI was calculated by comparing the financial investment in Unmind against calculated savings from improved productivity. Productivity improvements were calculated from Kearney usage data and Kearney users’ own WPAI scores from Jan 2025- Jan 2026. Hours reclaimed due to improved mental health were calculated and converted into cost savings using average salary data.
Mental health score: How it was calculated
Rather than just looking at raw scores over time, we used statistical methods to analyse changes in mental health while accounting for other factors such as differences between countries or changes in engagement and satisfaction over time. This helps separate genuine changes in mental health from shifts driven by other organizational factors, revealing trends in wellbeing over and above those influences. Overall, this approach provides a more accurate and informative picture than relying on raw scores alone.