16-year-old Ellie tells us about her work experience at Unmind

Hi, I’m Ellie. I’m 16 years old and was lucky enough to attend Unmind for my work experience this summer. I'm very keen to study Psychology and would love to take it at University and further use it in a career. My week at Unmind helped me immensely with this by giving me an insight into the different uses of Psychology with future careers. I was able to speak with many different members of the team and see how each of their jobs contributed to their final product. Overall, it helped me understand what a workplace environment is like and gave me ideas about my path to future studies.

What?

Unmind is a mental health platform providing clinically-backed tools and training for healthier, happier, more human organisations. Nowadays, people have an increased awareness of mental health, and with the Internet, are able to access information more easily. Unmind has taken this into account and found an extremely effective way of encouraging and helping those people. With an increasing choice of their Tools and Series, any employee can learn more about and support their mental health, track their mood and measure their overall well-being through the Unmind Index, which gives them more personalised recommendations for their mental health. 

How?

Unmind does a lot of planning and collaboration to create the content on their platform and many people and teams are involved. I was surprised to see how many different teams Unmind had, including Client Success, Content, Design, Psychology, Engineering, Finance, Sales and more, with each member of Unmind playing a crucial role. It has been clear that without every single member of the Unmind team, the final product would not be the same or reach its full potential. 

Every part of the process, from creating content for the platform to delivering it to the client, is thought out in order for the product to be as effective and helpful as possible. Everything from ensuring the research is correct, to creating thousands of questions and answers for the chatbot, to designing the icons for the Series and Tools is a thought-out, structured process. 

Who?

Unmind is a group of unique individuals all working towards the same goal. They have lots of different backgrounds, interests and experience which has led to the product being so diverse. I could tell that each person at Unmind wants to help others and improve mental health in the workplace, but that they all had different stories and personal reasons for being involved.

I was lucky enough to speak with a few people from each team and saw how each of them had specific roles and challenges within Unmind, but that all welcomed them equally. They clearly love what they do and enjoy working together with other teams to keep on improving the product for their users.

Why?

From my time here I have seen that there are two main reasons that Unmind do what they do and why they are successful. The first reason is that they really do help employees improve their mental health, happiness and well-being. This is crucial in today's stressful professional world as people want to keep a balance between being focused and motivated at work and staying healthy. The second reason is because each team member is passionate about being able to use their skills towards the main goal of improving people's lives.

My Experience ...

I feel extremely lucky to get a place at Unmind for my week of work experience. I had such a warm welcome from everyone and met the team one by one where I learned a lot about mental health, as well as the education or training each member had to go through to be able to do their jobs. I also got some insight into the challenges they face and what it’s like to work in an office environment. 

I was interested in learning about all aspects of the business and was therefore given tasks that covered different areas of Unmind which allowed me to have a better understanding of each team and the tasks that each team focuses on. I was also fortunate enough to sit in on meetings and hear about the future of Unmind. It was exciting to hear about Unmind's plans and how the business is going to grow in the future.

Final Thoughts ...

I see huge potential for this product to be used in schools. Unmind's excellent Series and Tools really inspired me and I wish they could do the same for my friends at school.  Something else I really liked was that although Unmind is an app and online product, it has a human feel to it.Some of their Series and Tools cover issues that are present in all schools, such as sleeping problems and Procrastination. Also, many teens experience mental health issues such as stress, anxiety and depression due to the pressure placed on them in schools. I can see Unmind being really useful in helping students like this improve their mental health so they are able to get an enjoyable experience out of school and learning.

Another major issue that Unmind could help with is that most teenagers do not turn to their teachers or school counsellors for help with their mental health, because they are less comfortable talking about their emotions with someone at school. However, Unmind is an online platform meaning teens would be able to anonymously go onto the Unmind platform to get help and information regarding their own or other’s mental health. This might make them more motivated to improve their mental health. Unmind, from my experience, is a perfect, safe space to get support if in need.    

Overall, my experience at Unmind was inspirational, insightful and informative. I have been able to experience what an incredible work environment is like and have witnessed what it takes to create an impressive platform like Unmind.