Improving mental health and workplace resilience: The insights of the 2025 QBE National Resilience Challange
Mental health is increasingly a focus across workplaces, with an estimated 12 billion working days lost globally every year to depression and anxiety.1 Encouragingly, we have generally seen organisations are taking a more proactive approach to support wellbeing and resilience – but in our view, there remains the challenge on how to turn good intentions into consistent, effective practices that drive change.
In 2025, we set out to explore this challenge through the inaugural QBE National Resilience Challenge; an eight‑week, team-based program delivered with the support of health and wellbeing platform Moving Mindz. This challenge was designed to measure and where possible help strengthen resilience and mental wellbeing in a practical, insights‑driven way.
Measuring workplace resilience
Mental health can generally be an important factor which can positively contribute to any workplace. However, without clear measurement, it can be harder to track.
This gap between intention and insights was the starting point for the QBE National Resilience Challenge.
As an insurer and long‑term risk partner, resilience is at the heart of our approach – not only to individual wellbeing, but to organisational performance, decision‑making and the ability to respond when things don’t go to plan. The 2025 Challenge was designed to generate practical insight by pairing high participation with validated measurement, enabling a clearer view of change over time.
What is the QBE National Resilience Challenge?
The QBE National Resilience Challenge is an eight‑week, teams‑based participation program, delivered via a purpose‑built digital app and designed to integrate into everyday working lives.
Participants took part in teams of five, participating alongside others within their organisation as well as teams from other businesses. Each day, participants received a short wellbeing “nudge”, shaped by behavioural science and nudge theory, encouraging small, repeatable actions rather than major behavioural change.
The program focused on seven pillars of mental health and resilience, including:
- Sleep
- Connection
- Movement
- Gratitude
- Nutrition
- Mindfulness
- Laughter
Pre‑ and post‑challenge surveys were built into an app, using validated psychological instruments. This combination of engagement and measurement set to encourage organisations to move beyond awareness toward real insight.
Who took part in 2025
The inaugural 2025 Challenge involved 390 participants from 17 organisations across Australia, spanning a mix of industries, business sizes and roles.
Participation was voluntary and de‑identified, with insights reported only in aggregate. The program was intentionally designed to be inclusive, practical and time‑efficient, recognising that sustained engagement depends on initiatives that work alongside (not against) day‑to‑day demands.
The insights: what changed over eight weeks
The outcomes of the 2025 Challenge showed statistically significant improvements across multiple indicators of mental health and wellbeing, measured using internationally recognised tools.*
Across the cohort:
- Overall mental ill‑health reduced by 34%, measured using the DASS‑21 composite score
- Depression symptoms reduced by approximately 39%
- Anxiety symptoms reduced by approximately 39-40%
- Stress symptoms reduced by approximately 27-34%
- Overall wellbeing improved by 33%, shifting the cohort from “poor” to “good” wellbeing on the WHO‑5 scale
- Resilience improved by 9.4% overall, with larger gains observed among men
Importantly, the distribution of mental health risk also shifted. The number of participants classified in the severe or extremely severe claims area of the business reduced by 40%, from 65 individuals at baseline to 39 post‑program. At the same time, the proportion of participants in the “normal” range increased across depression, anxiety and stress.
Beyond symptom reduction, the Challenge delivered broader wellbeing improvements. Sleep‑related impairment reduced by approximately 12.6%, indicating fewer daytime impacts from poor sleep. Social connectedness increased by 11.6% overall, with particularly strong gains among men, who moved from “at‑risk” levels of connection into a healthier range. Loneliness reduced, and measures of happiness and gratitude showed positive movement.
Engagement data provided further insight into what drove change. Participants who showed the greatest improvements completed an average of 45 wellbeing nudges, compared with just eight among those who did not improve. Across the eight weeks, participants generated more than 20,000 engagements on the platform – an unusually sustained level of participation compared with typical digital wellbeing programs.
All outcomes were measured using two internationally recognised tools*, which helped to support meaningful benchmarking over time. The full analysis is available in the 2025 National Resilience Challenge whitepaper.
What made the difference
Several consistent themes emerged from the 2025 Challenge data.
- Small daily actions matter. Participants were not asked to overhaul their routines, but to engage in achievable behaviours that reinforced wellbeing over time.
- The team‑based design created accountability and connection, helping to normalise participation and reduce stigma.
- The program’s opt‑in, autonomy‑supportive design helped to reduce friction and support sustained engagement.
- Measurement before and after the Challenge created visibility and momentum – supporting participants and organisations to see change, not just feel it.
What organisations might be able to take from this
The 2025 Challenge reinforced that resilience initiatives are often most effective when they are:
- Structured but flexible
- Data‑informed
- Designed for real working lives
By measuring impact, organisations can move from viewing wellbeing as an abstract concept to treating it as a tangible capability – one that can help to support performance, safety and long‑term resilience.
How to get involved: register for the 2026 Challenge
Building on the 2025 insights, we’re inviting organisations to take part in the 2026 National Resilience Challenge.
The Challenge is open to eligible organisations seeking a practical, scalable way to support workforce resilience while gaining insight into mental wellbeing and psychosocial risk.
1 Mental health at work | World Health Organisation
* At the start and end of the Resilience Challenge, QBE conducted two different surveys, lead by Moving Mindz. The first survey was the DASS21 (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale tool), which was conducted to measure self-reported mental health perceptions of each individual.
The second survey was the Brief Psychosocial Hazard Survey. This was a specific tool developed by Moving Mindz with Prof. David Cameron-Smith, Dr. Natalie Flatt and the Psychology Dept of RMIT, headed by Prof. Karen Hallam.
All data reports and interpretations are those of Moving Mindz.