Choice Hotels

The context

For Choice Hotels, partnering with Mind Share Partners was about turning an existing vision for a mentally healthy workplace into reality. It wasn’t just another HR initiative. Instead, it was about weaving well-being into the everyday employee experience through managers, leadership, and the broader organizational culture.

Michelle Shirley, Senior Director Benefits, Wellbeing & Belonging, noted that Choice’s work culture is highly performance-driven, and they had already made meaningful strides in making employees feel welcome, wanted, and respected. But the pandemic surfaced a deeper need to support work-life balance and employee mental health in a more intentional way.

Seeking a partner in this work, Louise Slark, VP, Total Rewards at Choice Hotels, first came across Mind Share Partners through a Washington Post article, which then led her to the organization’s biennial U.S. workplace mental health report. One line in the report caught her attention: “Workers want healthy work cultures, not self-care perks.” That single line really struck a chord. “It completely resonated with the journey my colleague and I had been on,” Louise recalled.

The solution

To ensure this was not just another HR-led program, but instead a true grassroots initiative, Mind Share Partners partnered with Choice to launch a custom culture transformation strategy grounded in employee voice.

The work began with diagnostics and discovery to assess mental health symptom prevalence and attitudes across the organization, benchmarking results against Mind Share’s national study. Mind Share then presented the findings to Choice’s HR Senior Leadership Team and shared a recommended strategy with the C-suite. To reduce stigma and build connection, Mind Share facilitated two in-person storytelling events that highlighted employee experiences and reinforced available resources. Mind Share collaborated closely with the HR team, from coaching storytellers and shaping the event scope, to drafting communications to build awareness and attendance.

In the second phase of work, Mind Share delivered mental health champion training for Choice’s employee resource group leaders, equipping them with skills to support colleagues through allyship and empathetic listening. The team also hosted two panel discussions focused on reducing stigma and sharing practical approaches for self-care and supportive leadership. Further, with support and guidance from Mind Share Partners, Choice launched an employee-led Mental Health Subcommittee under their existing Diversity Advisory Council, embedding a cross-functional and grassroots-oriented mental health initiative within their existing organizational infrastructure. This committee provides feedback on the broader mental health strategy at Choice, and represents a channel through which employee voice can help drive priorities.

The next phase of work will encompass deeper strategic advising in partnership with executive leadership at Choice. Aims include understanding how to maintain business goals and high performance alongside a high level of support for employee mental health, continuing to uplift and empower employee voice via the Mental Health Subcommittee and other initiatives, maintaining investments in existing stigma reduction campaigns, events, and resources, and expanding trainings internationally and for people managers tailored to Choice’s unique culture, giving managers real-world practice in supporting mental health.

The impact

Choice Hotels has seen meaningful culture shifts since launching its partnership with Mind Share Partners, particularly in openness, trust, and greater confidence around supporting mental health.

One of the most visible changes has been a significant increase in employees’ willingness to talk about mental health. Post-event surveys and anecdotal feedback show that the storytelling panels played a pivotal role in breaking down stigma and encouraging more authentic conversations. “So many more people are willing to have conversations about mental health because of the panels,” shared Shirley.

Choice’s HR leadership shared that having an independent, trusted expert was essential to the success of their well-being strategy. “Employees can be reluctant to open up for fear information will be used against them,” said Slark. “That expertise and independence instills confidence in the guidance being shared.”

This work continues to lay a strong foundation for Choice’s long-term well-being strategy. Choice’s HR leadership shared that the engagement helped clarify how mental health fits into the company’s broader well-being vision and Total Rewards strategy. “Before working with Mind Share, we wanted to do the right thing, but we didn’t have the years of expertise and research,” Shirley reflected. “What Mind Share brought has shaped what we’ll do going forward, including integrating mental health training into our onboarding for managers and new hires, ensuring conversations continue long after the initial programming.”

Across the board, Choice HR leaders affirmed they would partner with Mind Share again. “You’re the easiest partner to work with — responsive, thoughtful, and the way you facilitate meetings is exactly what you want in a partner,” Shirley added.

Leadership engagement has remained strong throughout the process and even expanded, with an executive sponsor becoming actively involved as the work progressed. As Slark noted, “We’ve always had commitment from the beginning, and now we have even more leaders leaning in.”