“MINDS has undergone a meaningful shift in its management approach, moving away from a traditionally top-down, directive model toward a more collaborative, holistic, and team-based culture.”
Manager at MINDS · from the 2026 Trust Index™ survey
Company size
Around 1,200 employees across schools, hubs, homes and community services in Singapore
Segment
Social services: disability support and special education, with a frontline-heavy workforce of educators, allied health and care staff
Recognition
Great Place To Work Certified™ April 2026, Singapore, on its second survey
In April 2024, MINDS scored 58% on its first Great Place To Work Trust Index™ survey and missed Certification. The organization could have shelved the result. Instead it handed the findings, weakest areas included, to every people manager in the building.
Two years later the Trust Index sits at 71%, attrition has fallen from 17% to 11%, and headcount has grown from 900 to around 1,200. Singapore’s oldest and largest disability services agency, supporting people with intellectual disabilities since 1962, is now Certified. This is the story of how its managers did it.
April 2024
58%
First Trust Index™ survey
Certification missed. Results, bottom-five focus areas included, shared with every manager at the first Annual Management Retreat.
2024 – 2025
+11%
The action-plan cycle
AMR24 and AMR25: localized action plans, six-monthly reviews. December 2025 pulse shows an 11% lift in the focus areas.
April 2026
71%
Certified™
Trust Index™ up 13% in two years, measured across 626 respondents. MINDS is Great Place To Work Certified™.
The Challenge: a Strong Mission, Unevenly Experienced
MINDS’ first Trust Index™ result in April 2024 came in at 58%, an 11% improvement on its 2021 internal engagement survey but short of Certification. The detail mattered more than the headline. Employees rated the mission and the organization’s commitment to wellbeing highly. Their day-to-day experience, though, varied noticeably from team to team.
Management had invested substantial effort in organization-wide policies and benefits. The survey showed those investments landing unevenly, because workplace culture is shaped significantly by the daily experiences employees have with their immediate managers. Two teams under the same policy could feel like two different employers, which blunts every dollar spent at the corporate level and erodes trust where it is hardest to rebuild.
Attrition was running at 17%
Staff attrition stood at 17% in 2023, in what MINDS describes as a competitive manpower landscape. For an organization whose work depends on stable, trusted relationships between staff and clients, every departure costs far more than a recruitment fee. It interrupts care.
Growth was outpacing the culture machinery
MINDS was heading into a period of expansion that would grow headcount by a third. Management concluded that accreditation would take a whole-of-management effort, and that corporate initiatives alone would never get there. The Employer of Choice strategy needed frontline managers to own it.
The Solution: Two Roads, One Retreat
Across 2024 and 2025, MINDS ran a deliberate two-pronged approach: strengthen corporate-level initiatives under its Employer of Choice strategy, and equip frontline managers to actively shape employee experience in their own teams. The Trust Index™ survey supplied the map. An annual gathering of every people manager became the vehicle.
The 2024 Trust Index™ results, including the top five and bottom five focus areas, were tabled in full at the 2024 Annual Management Retreat. A dip-stick pulse survey in December 2025 then measured progress on the weakest areas ahead of the 2026 survey, so nobody had to wait two years to find out whether the plans were working.
The Annual Management Retreat: culture as a standing agenda
Introduced in 2024, the Annual Management Retreat (AMR) brings frontline managers, middle managers and senior management into the same room. At AMR24, Business Unit leaders and frontline managers worked through the survey findings together and built localized action plans addressing staff concerns around collaboration, impartiality, care and respect.
AMR25 reviewed those plans and reached consensus on three priority themes: workplace psychological safety, collaboration across individuals and teams, and future readiness.
MINDS notes a clear shift between the two retreats, from bread-and-butter concerns towards strategic discussion of organizational culture. Each unit now refines its action plans with progress reviews every six months.
Giving people what they need to succeed
HR introduced biannual HR Master Classes for people managers, covering flexible work arrangements, effective appraisal conversations and Individual Development Plans (IDPs), among other practices. Culture responsibility arrived with actual training attached, which is rarer than it should be.
Under the Employer of Choice strategy, MINDS revised its staff competency framework and rolled out IDPs for every employee. Development program Project Metamorphosis was enhanced with structured training and stronger leadership engagement (participant satisfaction rose from 85% to 89% for the 2025 group).
Salary ranges are reviewed annually against NCSS and MOE sectoral guidelines. And under Project CARE, career pathways and remuneration for foreign employees were brought into closer alignment with those of local staff.
Leaders who keep showing up
The CEO and Deputy CEO speak with new hires at every monthly orientation. Employees confirmed in service are invited to a CEO Tea Session. Senior managers get a 100-days conversation with the CEO, and school and cluster employees an annual dialogue. Add the Annual Workplan Seminar and the Annual Planning Forum, and the CEO’s calendar starts to look like a permanent listening tour with occasional breaks to run the organization.
The Results: the Hardest Areas Moved Most
In April 2026, MINDS recorded a Trust Index™ score of 71%, up 13% in two years, with 626 employees responding. Over the same period attrition fell from 17% to 11%, the workforce grew from 900 to roughly 1,200, and a December 2025 pulse showed an 11% improvement in the very focus areas that had scored lowest in 2024.
“My work has special meaning: this is not ‘just a job'” scored 88% in 2026, six points above the 2025 Singapore Best Workplaces (Large) benchmark of 82%. The same 88% of employees feel good about how MINDS contributes to the community, and 86% are proud to tell others where they work.
Employees describe what it feels like from the inside
“What makes this company unique is its empowering work culture. I am very fortunate to have supportive leaders who trust us to manage our responsibilities independently without micromanagement. This enables us to maximize our strengths and deliver our best performance.”
“The organization places a strong emphasis on a Person-Centred Approach in everything it does, from how clients are supported to how staff are developed. Every individual, whether a client or an employee, is valued for their unique strengths, needs, and contributions.”
Another employee describes “a healthy and respectful work environment, where teamwork and open communication are practiced”, one where people feel “comfortable sharing ideas, raising concerns, and contributing beyond their job scope.”
Where Culture Work Starts
MINDS’ numbers moved because its managers did. If your culture depends on how a few hundred people managers show up each week, the Trust Index™ will tell you exactly where to begin, and the data will tell you when it is working.
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