How Calix and Unmind are transforming mental health together
Andrea Saez
14 October 2024
Content
- About
- Problem
- Solution
- Outcome
Stats
- HQ: San Jose, USA
- Industry: Software Development
- Company size: 1,000 - 5000 employees
- Products: Individuals, Leaders, Organizations (Full Platform)
About
Calix is a leading provider of cloud and software platforms, systems, and services for communications service providers in the telecommunications industry. With a workforce of over 1,200 employees, Calix empowers broadband service providers to enhance communities one at a time by delivering high-quality services to their customers.
As part of its commitment to employee wellbeing, Calix has partnered with Unmind to provide comprehensive mental health support across its global workforce. This partnership allows Calix employees to access personalized, self-guided mental health resources that focus on both proactive care and real-time support. By offering tools like mental health assessments, therapy services, and a modern-day EAP, Calix and Unmind are working together to create a workplace where mental health is prioritized and employees are empowered to thrive in all aspects of their lives.
Problem
As a remote-first company, Calix saw challenges in monitoring and supporting employee mental health and wellbeing due to the absence of in-person interaction. With no regular office presence, it became difficult for leaders to gauge the mental and emotional state of employees, making timely support harder. Calix also wanted to provide a mental health solution that moved beyond standard benefits, addressing the holistic health of employees in a personalized way.
It’s very difficult to gauge that objectively as a leader, as a colleague, and as a team member, when you’re not sitting in front of them every day… So for us, it is very important that we have tools in place that enable employees to use them when they need it in their own time, confidentially and anonymously without having to feel the stigma or the pressure of using the tools related to mental health and wellbeing.
Solution
To address these challenges, Parul introduced Unmind to Calix based on her personal experience with the tool during the pandemic. Unmind offered employees access to self-guided tools, programs, and, later, therapy services tailored to their specific needs. The platform helped employees measure and manage their mental health in a way that was both accessible and destigmatized. Parul emphasized that mental health should be treated like physical health, and Unmind supported that vision.
Parul shared her personal story about Unmind’s impact:
My husband’s company at the time had Unmind… And it became like a ritual for us. There is a gratitude series that Unmind ran at the time… as a family, we’d sit down every night and write a gratitude journal. It was directly straight away from something that we had listened on this little 10-minute podcast thing on Unmind, and it was fantastic.
She further emphasized the importance of integrating mental health into leadership:
“We really need it. There is no playbook written for how employee experience will be when an organization is 100% remote.”
Outcome
Since implementing Unmind, Calix has achieved significant engagement, with 30% of employees actively using the platform. This proactive use of mental health tools has proven vital in maintaining employee wellbeing in a remote-first environment. Unmind’s global reach and real-time therapy services have provided employees with timely support, helping Calix create a culture that emphasizes holistic health.
Parul highlighted this success:
Today we have almost 30% engagement on Unmind, which is pretty cool for a tool that has been in existence for less than two years at Calix… The ROI on tools that help support wellbeing of employees is very different from the ROI of insurance. You can’t measure it dollar to dollar. If there was one employee that needed help and went on to Unmind or used the therapy services when they needed it, and they had it available, I think that’s ROI.
This initiative, along with leadership’s commitment to mental health, has made Calix a company that invests in its people. As Parul noted:
“We treat our employees as investments, not cost centers [...] We want to invest in their wellbeing, we want to invest in their learning, in their development.
By prioritizing mental health, Calix continues to cultivate a supportive, thriving workforce, ensuring employees feel valued and empowered no matter where they work.