workplace
mental health for men.
a structured, research-backed programme for organisations that want something that actually works.
They lead with more clarity, communicate with less friction, and build the kind of team trust that drives sustainable performance. When they are not, the costs are quiet but compounding: presenteeism, disengagement, attrition, and a leadership culture that runs on pressure without ever naming it.
Most corporate wellbeing programmes assume people will opt in, open up, and articulate distress. Women, on average, engage those formats. Men, on average, do not. This programme offers a different entry point: peer-led, performance-framed, and designed to build high-performing teams that can sustain growth.
A structured group programme that teaches participants how to reinterpret stressful situations before they turn into reactive behaviour. Instead of accepting the first story the mind generates, participants learn to pause, examine the evidence, and choose a more accurate and useful interpretation.
If a supervisor can spend three to five minutes in a regular team meeting talking openly about stress and fatigue, it shifts the culture. They leave with scripts they can use immediately, and clear escalation pathways for disclosures.
The HR Engagement Lead selects a sport or movement activity that works for their team. The same group, the same activity, building familiarity and trust over time.
The toolbox talks create conditions. The reappraisal training provides capability. The sport sessions provide continuity. Without cultural permission, the skill does not stick. Without a skill, openness has nowhere to go. Without continuity, interventions fade.
Two half-day training workshops covering facilitation principles, session structure, holding space without crossing clinical boundaries, and handling disclosures. Programme materials, session guides, a capability assessment before their first independent session, and ongoing support throughout.
Every session generates data. Pulse survey results flow to the FC Operations Lead, who analyses them and produces regular updates. Over time, the programme gets smarter about your specific organisation. The insights stay with you.
Particularly effective at inflection points: new employee onboarding, post-promotion transitions, restructures, high-performance periods, and post-POSH or grievance redressal.
A 60-minute scoping chat. We review your context, understand your culture, how your current EAP is being used, and where the gaps are. Post-discovery, we produce a short diagnostic summary for your internal champion.
Test with one team or department. 4 cohorts of 8 to 12 men for cognitive reappraisal training, 2 half-day supervisor workshops, fortnightly sport sessions. Ends with a pilot report including before/after data and recommendations.
Scale across the organisation. Expanded cohorts, monthly supervisor reinforcement, weekly or fortnightly sport sessions. Integration with existing HR touchpoints. By end of Phase 2, your HR Engagement Leads are independently operational.
Trust builds gradually. Skills require repetition. Culture takes time to embed. Meaningful change needs sustained measurement. And capability needs to transfer internally.
Our measurement design is a formative evaluation. We track trajectory and trends confidently. We cannot claim to have isolated the programme as the sole cause of change, and we are transparent about this. We commit to tracking at least one business-facing proxy metric with every client, agreed during Discovery.
The WHO estimates a $4 return for every $1 invested in mental health support. For India, Deloitte's 2022 analysis found ₹3 to ₹4 per rupee invested in corporate contexts.
An honest note: ROI tracking for preventive programmes is harder than for reactive ones. Returns accumulate over time and across many factors. We say this because overclaiming would lose the trust of the finance teams you need to convince.
Almost never a sign that employees don't have needs. It is a sign that the programme was not designed for how men actually engage. Men engage when the format is peer-led, the entry point is physical rather than clinical, and someone they already trust is creating the container.
Good. Keep it. This programme operates upstream, before crisis. A man who has spent three months in FC round tables is considerably more likely to call your EAP line when something goes wrong.
Participation is voluntary. When the format is right, men do engage. The Discovery phase lets you see this firsthand before committing.
What is shared in round tables stays in round tables. No information is reported to managers or HR. The only exception is imminent risk of harm.
This addresses a specific gap. Miles and Minds sport sessions can be co-ed. We can advise on complementary approaches for the broader organisation.
Fight Club facilitators are not therapists and do not operate as clinicians. This boundary is important.
When a participant discloses something that suggests risk of harm, the facilitator pauses the session, acknowledges what has been shared, and activates a clear escalation pathway. Our protocols meet the duty of care obligation under the Mental Healthcare Act 2017.
A copy of our safeguarding protocol is available on request.
Fight Club is not a wellness app, not a helpline, not therapy-on-demand. We are facilitators who create peer community specifically for men, grounded in research on how men actually engage.
This programme sits most naturally within L&D or People and Wellness / HR Operations budgets. We can help you prepare the right materials for the relevant stakeholder.
Fight Club India Foundation is registered as a Section 8 Company (incorporated 21 January 2026) under the Companies Act 2013. Registration documentation is available for vendor onboarding. Professional indemnity insurance is being established.
These are from community sessions, not workplace programmes. The corporate model is more structured. But the mechanism is the same: when the format is right, men talk.
| Phase | Duration | Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 0: Discovery | 1 to 2 months | Complimentary |
| Phase 1: Pilot | 8 weeks | Flat fee, scoped after Discovery |
| Phase 2 (up to 200) | 9 months | ₹900 to ₹1,600 / enrolled employee / month |
| Phase 2 (200+) | 9 months | ₹600 to ₹1,200 / enrolled employee / month |
Fight Club India is developing a research white paper on men's workplace mental health in India. The paper will examine why conventional corporate wellbeing frameworks consistently underserve men, what the evidence says about peer-led and movement-based interventions, and how organisations can design programmes that men actually engage with.
The paper draws on FC's field experience with over 50 facilitated roundtable conversations, 60 one-on-one dialogues, and mixed-gender community events, alongside published research on gender role conflict, behavioural activation, and social norm theory as applied to men's emotional expression in professional settings.
It will present FC's Loop of Change behavioural model and the Workplace Mental Health Model developed by Iti Bhargava, grounded in the gender paradox of suicidal behaviour in India where men account for 72.9% of all suicide deaths while being significantly less likely to access formal support.
authorship
Arjun's work sits at the intersection of men's mental health and research methodology. He brings a 130K-strong community of psychology students and professionals, and has written extensively on the structural gaps in how men engage with mental health support in India. His research background in psychology and statistics, combined with his personal advocacy, makes him a natural fit to lead this paper.
Mental health researcher based in Bangalore. Master's in Econometrics and Quantitative Methods from Yale University. Four years at J-PAL South Asia on randomised evaluations in education, gender, and labour markets. Developer of the Workplace Mental Health Model that provides the research foundation for this programme.
Contributing field data from over 50 facilitated roundtable conversations and 60 one-on-one dialogues with men in Bangalore. Providing facilitation insights and programme design context drawn from two years of community experience.
Publication timeline and access details will be shared here when available.
A men's mental health organisation based in Bangalore. We facilitate spaces where men talk about pressure, identity, relationships, and the things they don't say elsewhere. We are not therapists. We are facilitators who create the conditions for men to show up differently.
Section 8 Company under the Companies Act 2013. Incorporated 21 January 2026.
Research Partner
Mental health researcher based in Bangalore. Master's in Econometrics and Quantitative Methods from Yale University. Four years at J-PAL South Asia on randomised evaluations in education, gender, and labour markets. Her Workplace Mental Health Model, developed with Dr Nachiket Mor, provides the research foundation for this programme.
Ayesha Syed Asif
Founder, Fight Club India Foundation
Founded Fight Club India in 2025 after identifying a structural gap in how men engage with mental health support. Has personally facilitated over 50 structured round table conversations and 60 one-on-one dialogues with men in Bangalore. Her facilitation model is what this programme adapts for the corporate context.
Every workplace is different. The next step is to sit down together and work out how to translate this into a format that fits your people, your culture, and your operations.
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