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Case Study: Hyatt

Olly partnered with Mind Share Partners on a workplace mental health strategy to better support employee mental health and wellbeing.

Summary


About Hyatt

Hyatt is a leading global hospitality company guided by its purpose – to care for people so they can be their best. The company’s portfolio includes more than 1,350 hotels and all-inclusive properties in more than 75 countries across six continents.


Industry: Hospitality

Location: Headquartered in Chicago, IL

Time frame: May 2024 — Ongoing

Size: 200,000+


“It has been incredible to work with Mind Share Partners as part of our commitment to building a mentally healthy workplace at Hyatt. As a hospitality company focused on care, we strive to deliver distinctive experiences designed to support our colleagues in pursuit of healthy, happy and fulfilled lives. With this as our focus, we knew we needed to collaborate with a trusted expert in this space to help us broaden our understanding of mental health and to normalize experiences so we can better support our colleagues to be their best.”


— Carly Walsh, Senior Manager Talent Management & Organizational Effectiveness, Hyatt

 

The Context


Since the onset of the pandemic, Hyatt saw a need to transform its wellbeing strategy across its global operations to better care for its colleagues, guests, members and customers. Hyatt’s goal was to evolve from a programmatic approach and a traditional perspective of wellness to a more holistic approach focused on supporting wellbeing at work through culture and leadership.


As part of this effort, in 2022, Hyatt introduced wellbeing as a new company-wide value – one of six that guides colleagues’ behaviors and embodies what it means to be a member of the Hyatt family. Hyatt also integrated wellbeing-focused questions into its quarterly Colleague Experience Survey to better understand and action on colleagues’ feedback as it relates to wellbeing in the workplace.


With the evolution of its wellbeing strategy, Hyatt recognized mental health in the workplace as a critical component to caring for its colleagues’ holistic wellbeing, and decided it required keen focus and attention to continue fostering safe, healthy and inclusive workplaces. As Christy Sinnott, Senior Vice President of Talent Management at Hyatt said, "Hyatt already has a strong foundation in building a culture that embraces and prioritizes wellbeing. By collaborating with an expert in building mentally healthy workplaces, we can keep evolving and truly position Hyatt as a leader in this space.”


Hyatt’s Custom Strategy


Colleague Listening Sessions


It was important for Hyatt’s global wellbeing strategy to be colleague-led; informed by its diverse colleague base and their personal experiences of wellbeing and mental health in the workplace. To do this, Mind Share hosted 60+ listening sessions and interviews with Hyatt colleagues around the globe—locations included Chicago, Austin, Toronto, Cancun, London, Barcelona, Seoul, Incheon, Hong Kong and Dubai.


Mind Share’s findings provided key insights to build a comprehensive, globally minded, and colleague-informed mental health strategy for Hyatt.


“Our goal was to understand and support the needs of our colleagues globally. Mind Share’s discovery showed that Hyatt colleagues were already aware of and valued core foundations of mental health, such as work life balance, community, and connection. The findings taught us where to focus our priorities and how to use language and vocabulary that would resonate with global teams,” said David Pritchard, Colleague Wellbeing Manager at Hyatt.


Mental Health Visuals


To make this effort sustainable, Mind Share partnered with a team of cross-functional stakeholders within the company to provide continuous feedback and iteration. One of the outputs of this cohort was the creation of visual assets for hotels to use back-of-house to help build greater awareness and education around mental health. These posters are also meant to help open a dialogue around the ways in which colleagues can support their own mental health needs and those around them.


Executive Storytelling Series


With storytelling being an important pillar of Hyatt’s strategy, Mind Share guided executives in crafting their personal stories showcased through a “Mental Health Matters” storytelling series focused on reducing stigma and normalizing experiences of mental health. Mind Share coached the company’s leaders, assisted with concept writing, and provided on-site support to record their stories. The ongoing series features senior leaders such as Hyatt’s Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Hotel General Managers, and more.


All-Colleague Virtual Sessions


To help drive further awareness and education around the importance of mental health, Mind Share also presented two, virtual 30-minute all colleague sessions in honor of World Mental Health Day. You can learn more about the full collaboration from Hyatt’s newsroom.


The Impact


It is incredibly important to the company not to take a one-size-fits-all approach, that colleagues know they are represented, and that experiences are personalized in order to meet individuals where they are.


“In order to do this successfully, we needed to work with an organization that would support us in creating something custom for Hyatt – that felt true to our culture, our people, and that delivered on our purpose. Mind Share helped us focus on what is unique at Hyatt, were flexible and supportive as we iterated. We could not have asked for a better organization to collaborate with on such an impactful body of work,” said Walsh.


Hyatt has seen initial success with the launch of its Mental Health Matters storytelling series based on positive colleague feedback and engagement. The series kicked off on World Mental Health Day (October 2024), featuring a powerful story by Hyatt’s Chief Human Resources Officer Malaika Myers. The series’ next episode debuted approximately one month later featuring Hyatt’s CEO Mark Hoplamazian. Both episodes were shared with global colleagues across Hyatt’s internal platforms and received some of the highest levels of engagement compared to other content shared on Hyatt’s intranet in 2024, signaling Hyatt colleagues’ desire to connect and engage around this topic.


“This work was a priority from leaders at the top of our organization.” Pritchard said. “We also knew that it was critical to engage our most senior leaders to serve as champions of this work to help break down barriers when it comes to normalizing mental health experiences. Mind Share’s listening sessions uncovered that peer-to-peer support and community already existed—it is just a part of who our colleagues are as humans and the existing culture at Hyatt– which is allowing this work to already take hold and be so impactful.”


Looking Forward


As Hyatt moves forward in its collaboration with Mind Share Partners in 2025, Hyatt is focused on deepening its colleagues' understanding and prioritization of mental health. Hyatt is continuing to lean into its culture of wellbeing and enable colleagues to be their best.


 

Employee mental health is at the heart of a successful business culture. When employees thrive, businesses do, too. Learn how to partner with us>


About Mind Share Partners


Mind Share Partners is a nonprofit that is changing the culture of workplace mental health and well-being so that both employees and organizations can thrive. Since 2017, we have been the industry leader in workplace mental health through consulting, and movement building. We partner with nonprofits and global business leaders in retail, tech, hospitality, and finance to prioritize both employee well-being and business success. Our work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Washington Post, Forbes, Fast Company, Good Morning America, and The New York Times.

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