Corporate Wellness Rollout: SafeHers as an Employee Benefit

Background

A financial services company with offices in Accra, Nairobi, and Johannesburg was developing their annual employee wellness programme. Their People team had identified that existing wellness offerings — gym memberships, EAP counselling — were valued but did not address one of their female employees' most frequently cited wellbeing concerns: personal safety, particularly around commuting, travel for work, and online security.

The Head of People, herself a SafeHers Certified Educator, proposed integrating SafeHers training as the centrepiece of the women's wellness track for the financial year.

The Challenge

The programme needed to work across three geographies with meaningfully different risk environments:

• In Accra, mobile money fraud and keke/trotro safety were top concerns
• In Nairobi, transport safety and carjacking were priority topics
• In Johannesburg, home security and violent crime prevention were the primary focus

Additionally, the programme needed to be perceived as an employee benefit — not a tick-box compliance exercise — to drive voluntary participation and genuine engagement.

The Approach

SafeHers delivered three geography-specific workshops — one per office — each adapted to the local risk environment while sharing the same core framework and facilitation quality.

Accra session (60 participants): Full three-pillar curriculum with extended mobile money and online safety modules. Evening session to accommodate market-hours workers.

Nairobi session (70 participants): Extended personal safety and transport module. Included local emergency service numbers and NGO contact list specific to Kenya.

Johannesburg session (50 participants): Extended home safety module with South Africa-specific context. Partnered with a local women's safety NGO for supplementary support resources.

All participants received the digital resource library and were enrolled in a cross-office WhatsApp safety community managed by the three office champions.

Results

Post-programme survey results (n=164, 91% response rate):

• 94% reported feeling safer or much safer commuting to/from work
• 87% had changed at least one regular safety habit within 30 days of training
• 76% had shared at least one resource from the SafeHers library with a family member or friend
• The programme was cited in the company's annual engagement survey by 38 separate respondents as a reason they felt the company genuinely cared about their wellbeing

The Head of People reports that SafeHers training has become the highest-rated element of their annual wellness calendar, displacing the previously highest-rated financial wellness seminar.

What Worked

The geography-specific adaptation was essential and appreciated. Employees consistently noted in feedback that previous "safety training" had felt like generic content imported from elsewhere. The local specificity — correct transport names, relevant scam types, accurate emergency numbers — created immediate credibility and engagement.

The cross-office WhatsApp community created unexpected value. Women from Accra, Nairobi, and Johannesburg were sharing experiences and resources with each other weeks after the formal training ended.

Lessons Learned

Remote delivery of the Nairobi session (hybrid format with Zoom) worked less well than in-person sessions. Facilitation quality and participant engagement were noticeably lower. The hybrid model is not recommended for SafeHers workshops — in-person delivery is strongly preferred.

The programme surfaced several participants who disclosed prior incidents they had never reported. The company's EAP provider was engaged to follow up with these individuals. This highlights the importance of ensuring referral pathways are in place before delivering this type of programme.

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This case study was prepared with client consent. All identifying details remain confidential.