We are on a journey to understand and learn about maintaining a healthy mind in the workplace. One of the actions we promised to take was to explore how we can better support our mental health and minimise the gender gap around this phenomenon. Goforeans joined us in afterwork events related to this topic and came up with ideas and solutions to continue this work.
Based on these ideas, in 2025 we will, for example:
- Build more support for our People Leaders in both coaching through challenges and recognising and celebrating success and performance.
- Educate and discuss health topics concerning women in particular.
- Focus on preventive mental well-being care with new solutions.
- Foster a culture where peer groups support each other and open discussions are encouraged.
Sustainable work life and mental health
Sustainable work life has always been an important theme for us at Gofore. Last year, we began exploring and discussing work and mental well-being – a topic that now seems to be at the very heart of sustainable work life. We published our own data and committed to embarking on a journey of learning what we can do and understand better around this issue.
One finding that emerged from our data reflects a phenomenon affecting society as a whole: women’s mental health-related absences are higher than men’s (Kela 2024). Depression, anxiety, and burnout are all more frequently diagnosed in women than in men (Mehiläinen 2024). On a societal level, the reasons are thought to include various factors: unequal distribution of responsibilities within families, expectations and conflicting demands placed specifically on women, as well as other biological and socio-economic causes.
Proposed solutions for addressing this phenomenon in the workplace often include implementing equitable and transparent structures, investing in leadership and well-being, and designing work structures that flexibly support different life situations.
At Gofore, we feel that many of these elements are already well-established. And yet, the same pattern of higher absence rates among women is visible within our organisation too. That’s why we invited Goforeans to join the conversation at our We Do Mind afterwork events. Our goal was to better understand this phenomenon together and to explore concrete solutions for the workplace that could help reduce the gender gap in mental health challenges.
Pre-survey results from Goforeans
Before the afterwork events, we conducted a voluntary survey among Gofore employees to understand what burdens us and, conversely, what protects and helps us cope. Over 80 Goforeans responded to the survey: 59 women, 22 men, and 3 from other genders. The most frequently mentioned burdens in responses from both women and men centred around three common themes:
- A loss of control over one’s own work.
- A feeling of being unable to succeed in one’s work.
- Non-work-related stressors.
One notable difference was that after these common top three, over 51% of women reported self-criticism and personal expectations as familiar stressors. For men, the fourth most common burden was workplace conflicts or difficulties in communication and a sense of belonging in the workplace.
In terms of the main themes supporting well-being, there were similarities as well. For both women and men, the top three tools included prioritising rest and sleep and talking about worries and emotions with loved ones. For women, the third most commonly mentioned tool was increasing self-awareness and taking time to reflect on personal expectations. In contrast, for men, meaningful hobbies took this place.
Based on these findings and what we had previously learned, we took time to brainstorm measures the workplace could adopt to better support mental well-being while also considering potential gender differences. We started by reflecting individually on possible actions, followed by group sessions where ideas were deepened and developed collaboratively.
The ideas were categorised into four main themes, with Goforeans contributing suggestions and prioritising the initiatives to begin implementation.
Four focus areas for action
1. Leadership and support in customer projects
Ideas from Goforeans:
- Mood tracker at the start of project meetings.
- Clear goal setting and regular prioritisation discussions.
- A designated sparring partner for challenging situations.
- Additional training for People Leaders on mental health topics and the differences in work-related themes between women and men.
Where we start:
- While we need our People Leaders’ support in day-to-day life, we need to pay extra attention to building a working support system also in customer projects. In 2025, we will focus on better onboarding to customer projects as well as building more communality in customer teams.
- To support people in managing their work and experiencing success, we will start regular success cycles, where People Leaders support people to define clear goals and expectations, help them to prioritise and adjust goals if needed, coach them in challenges and also recognise success.
2. Developing awareness and emotional skills in the workplace
Ideas from Goforeans:
- Developing emotional skills and self-awareness as a work community through training or discussions.
- Information sessions or training on mental health topics and health topics especially concerning women.
Where we start:
- We will provide materials and information related to women’s health topics to Goforeans during 2025 to increase awareness.
- Through our internal training tool, we offer self-learning solutions related to self-leadership and collaboration skills that support developing emotional skills and self-awareness. We are also exploring further training possibilities related to this topic.
3. Preventive mental well-being on focus
Ideas from Goforeans:
- In addition to comprehensive occupational healthcare, focusing on preventive and continuous support for mental well-being.
- Introducing well-being pulse surveys as part of everyday practices.
Where we start:
- From these ideas and conversations, we are learning that while we have a wide set of tools in place when one’s mental well-being is challenged, we need to find ways to support those who are currently doing well and want to prevent burnout and train their mental skills further. In addition to our healthcare, we have started to explore and assess services and partners especially focusing on this preventive, continuous care.
4. Culture supporting mental well-being
Ideas from Goforeans:
- Peer support groups for topics like life situations or self-criticism.
- Fostering a sense of community in everyday life.
Where we start:
- While re-thinking our culture, it’s been clear that we all are longing for connectedness, belonging, and togetherness. During 2025, we will focus especially on connecting together.
- Our culture can work as a platform of mutual trust, safety, and transparency. We have seen how that helps us to talk openly also about personal challenges and create working peer groups inside of Gofore. It is everyone’s shared responsibility to uphold and develop this spirit. Let’s mind about our minds together.
