Who is Story House Early Learning?
Story House Early Learning (SHEL) is a fast-growing early childhood provider with 50+ centres and 1,700+ employees across NSW, VIC and QLD. Known for its people-first culture, Story House wanted to go beyond traditional wellbeing models to support its highly distributed, mostly frontline workforce. By embracing a digital-first care strategy with Sonder, Story House has improved employee retention, boosted engagement, and won national recognition for its wellbeing approach.
When “leave your problems at the door” isn’t enough
In a sector built on care, Story House Early Learning knew they had to lead by example when it came to supporting their people. With more than 1,700 mostly frontline employees across a highly distributed network, ensuring consistent access to wellbeing and safety support was becoming increasingly important.
Many employees were managing the physical and emotional demands of people-facing, shift-based roles, often without easy access to support. Story House needed a solution that delivered care at the individual level, whenever and wherever it was needed.
Breaking down the barriers to care
In late 2023, Story House partnered with Sonder as part of its digital-first wellbeing strategy. The goal was to give employees and their families access to practical, on-demand support across all holistic areas of life, including: mental health, personal safety, and medical support.
Sonder’s platform enables employees to connect with medical and mental health professionals 24/7, access confidential resources, and use safety tools like location tracking and wellbeing check-ins. Importantly, support is available without needing to go through a manager, making it easier for employees to seek confidential help on their own terms. Sonder also provides guidance for leaders, helping to create a more consistent and supportive safety-net across the organisation.
By removing barriers such as manager approval, and offering 24/7 chat-based support, Sonder gave employees practical tools that aligned with how they actually live and work, whether that’s mobile, shift-based, and often outside of traditional hours.
Sonder recognises and supports what we had known for quite some time, which is that people are whole people and the old adage ‘leave your personal life at the door’ just isn’t reasonable or feasible. How well someone slept, their current mental load, their emotional state all impacts how they come to work and ultimately how they interact and engage with the children in their care, so continuing to only offer a traditional EAP when so many other factors impact our Story House-ers and their direct family members wasn’t sufficient in our minds.
Head of People and Culture, Story House Early Learning
Wellbeing results that drive business success
Sonder has helped Story House strengthen its people-first culture and deliver measurable outcomes. Since implementing Sonder as part of their broader digital-first wellbeing infrastructure, Story House has:
- Achieved 10% YoY improvement in employee retention
- Grown its employee Net Promoter Score
- Earned the AHRI Award for Best Health and Wellbeing Strategy
- Achieved Great Place to Work recognition in 2023, 2024 and 2025
In our more than 95% female workforce, our commitment to holistic wellbeing and safety is paramount, and Sonder plays a crucial role in this. In the competitive early learning sector, attracting and retaining talent is challenging and costly. By celebrating our Story House-ers access to Sonder, we significantly strengthen our employee value proposition, confirming our commitment to safety and wellbeing goes beyond words or policies. Offering such valuable and practical support helps us attract and retain talent, ensuring our children have the best Educators in the sector to care for and educate them.
Head of People and Culture, Story House Early Learning
With Sonder embedded in its broader wellbeing ecosystem, Story House is setting a new standard for holistic, human-centred care in the early childhood sector — and seeing measurable returns as a result.
Why traditional support falls short, and how Sonder can help
- 74% of support occurs outside 9–5 — highlighting the need for flexible, 24/7 support
- 46% of cases are medical-related — showing the importance of integrated physical and mental care
- 92% of support via chat — digital-first truly meets employees where they are
Calculate your ROI
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