Challenging stereotypes:
changing behaviour.
One week of men wearing nails = one measurable shift in culture, courage and conversation.
Hard As Nails is a national experiment where everyone at work can take part in exploration and conversation about identity. November 2026.
Evidence shows challenging identity norms and breaking stereotypes leads to lasting positive shifts in culture, attitude and behaviour.*
With academic oversight from Professor Brendan Gough at Leeds Beckett University, we measure shifts in Workplace Courage, Empathy, Identity Rigidity, Masculinity Contest Culture and more.
“We know that men’s health remains an important issue across the construction industry, and raising awareness is only part of the solution. Hard As Nails sparks the kind of conversations we want people to have and has the science behind it to give it long-term credibility.”
James Saunders, Chief People Officer, Wates Group
Methodology
How does it work.
Pop-up nail bars in reception, colleagues painting each other’s nails in the canteen, a trip to the salon. Whatever is the most fun way to get your men’s nails painted.
Prompts and practical tools provided for reflection, conversation and the investigation of identity disruption. Everyone experiences a new perspective.
Male participants report significant and lasting internal shifts in outlook, perspective and actions. Fear of judgement halves. Willingness to speak up for others doubles.
Validated scales are offered to everyone, before and after, to record the shifts in attitude and behaviour. These can become a company-wide insight report with recommendations.
What it looks like
A week in a real workplace.
Men who took part, photographed where they work.
Portraits and hand selfies sent in by participants during the week.
What actually happened at work.
Taken from the anonymous research diaries. Of 49 entries logged at work during the pilot, 35 were recorded as positive. Eight of them, exactly as typed.
✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with? Colleagues / Professional
✓ What was the location (in a word) Workplace
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
Other person asked about nails, leading to a really positive conversation about allyship.
Press Enter ↵
✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with?
✓ What was the location (in a word) Office
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
Conversation with canteen staff member. Spoke about toxic masculinity, Harry styles. I mentioned my new awareness of the male gaze as people have been having a good look at my nails. I can’t imagine what it’s like being a woman under the constant male eye.
Press Enter ↵
✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with? Colleagues / Professional
✓ What was the location (in a word) Office
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
Meeting in a factory. Before we got into the meeting agenda I explained the painted nails. It fuelled conversation around what it means to be a good man. Thoughts from others gathered around the topic. It became a great start to the meeting.
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✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with? Colleagues / Professional
✓ What was the location (in a word) Office
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
The president of the company I work for said he liked my nails, which was a big surprise. We were having a conversation in my office and out of the blue he said, ’I really like your nails’. I explained the experiment and he was genuinely interested. He commented on the colour suiting me, which was nice.
Press Enter ↵
✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with? Colleagues / Professional
✓ What was the location (in a word) Work video calls
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
I’ve been on multiple video calls and in some cases forgot my nails were done or sometimes scratched or something to show them inconspicuously but no one has mentioned anything or even looked as if they noticed or cared
Press Enter ↵
✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with? Colleagues / Professional
✓ What was the location (in a word) Workplace
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
I work in a GP surgery in Cornwall. Most patients notice the nails but havent commented. My colleagues in the surgery have primarily laughed and ribbed me a bit but it’s been a positive experience so far. Day 1 only!
Press Enter ↵
✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with? Colleagues / Professional
✓ What was the location (in a word) Office
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
Male colleague said “I didn’t realise you painted your nails”. I told him about the project, he said he feels like it’s quite well accepted nowadays that men might paint their nails, he told me a funny story about how he used to do his nails as a kid and put a dress on to entertain his grandparents and other relatives.
Press Enter ↵
✓ Was this interaction broadly? Positive
✓ Who was the interaction with? Colleagues / Professional
✓ What was the location (in a word) Office
4 →Please bring the interaction to life in a short story, what happened?
My boss and I had our annual salary review, he asked about my painted fingernails and was very supportive and said that he loves diversity and goes by himself to gothic festivals and enjoys alternative genres
Press Enter ↵
The evidence
What is the impact.
- Fear of judgementHalved
- Standing up for othersDoubled
- Three validated scalesSignificant movement
- Longitudinal resultsHeld at nine months
Overseen by Professor Brendan Gough, Leeds Beckett University. See how it was measured →
“Hard As Nails isn’t a wellbeing add-on, it’s culture and leadership work. It’s built on trust: creating the psychological safety for men to open the conversations they find hardest to start at work. … That’s exactly the kind of leadership Salesforce wants to be known for.”
Jocelyn Zanasi, SVP & GM, UK&I, Professional Services, Salesforce
Costs
Three ways to take part.
All options are one-off, and all are for an entire organisation.
Entry
£100
A complete pack of how to run Hard As Nails at work, emailed to you in September.
- Comms and content. Printable and digital assets, from posters to email signatures, to help engage the team
- A ten-step tick list. All you, or your CPO, need to know to run a successful Hard As Nails week
- The evidence base. A summary plus a detailed breakdown of the science, the scales we record and the reasons it works
- Facilitation guides. Simple meeting and reflection guides around the core topics, for company meetings or a one-off session
- Safeguarding. Conversation guidelines, what to expect, FAQs, and support services for anyone wanting to go deeper
- Webinars. An invitation to a series of webinars with co-founders Daniele and Sam on how to make the most of it
Most workplaces choose this
Experiment
£500 to £1,000
Everything in Entry, turned into a live experiment where your organisation’s data is processed, with academic oversight.
- A unique code for all your participants to enter on signing up, so pre and post scores match
- A bespoke dashboard with pre and post scores, insights and recommendations for your organisation
- A place on the UK-wide leaderboard, and a comparison table alongside the national data and the other organisations taking part
- Any number can take part. Ten men and women need to complete both the pre and post measures for the results to show useful variance
Up to 50 people, £500. Up to 100 people, £1,000. Over 100, get in touch.
Get involvedEnterprise
Let’s talk
Bespoke packages for enterprises.
- Keynotes, workshops, content and co-branded pop-up nail techs
- Join Wates, Salesforce and others in creating an immersive, organisation-wide and unforgettable experience
Hard As Nails is a Community Interest Company. Every price above is set to cover what it costs to run.
“Men are notoriously difficult to engage in health research. Hard As Nails produced significant shifts on validated psychological measures, with no movement in the control group. As a researcher, that’s what makes this worth taking seriously.”
Professor Brendan Gough, Professor of Social Psychology, Leeds Beckett University
What the FAQ.
Is this just for men?
No. The most direct way in is nominating a man who’d benefit. Everyone else logs a short observation of the men they work with, before and after, and both go into your report. The shift in empathy is a shared one, not something that happens to the men while everyone else watches.
How will painted nails help my team?
Ever sat in a debrief where nobody says the thing everyone’s thinking? Watched someone not step in when they should have? Wondered where the ideas went? Rigid expectations about how you’re allowed to be seen contribute to all three. We measure those expectations before and after, and show you what moved.
Is this a woke masculinity campaign?
It’s a measured study. It’s about identity, leadership, decision-making, and the emotional suppression that stops people speaking up. Those rigid ideas don’t stay outside work: they shape who admits uncertainty, who asks for help, who challenges a decision. Loosen them and people have more room to think.
What about the banter? Is this safe?
There’ll be less than you’d think: most men brace for judgement that never arrives. Participation is voluntary, anyone can take the polish off at any point, and the pack ships word-for-word answers. Every workplace gets safeguarding guidance, and discriminatory behaviour stays a workplace issue whatever it calls itself.
Men don’t usually get involved in diversity campaigns.
They don’t, which is why this one doesn’t look like one. 409 men took part in the pilot, which is engagement men’s health research rarely gets.
“Hard As Nails is one of the most interesting and original community approaches to men’s health we’ve come across. At Movember, we’ve followed their data closely, and we’ve been impressed by the team’s dedication to rigorous measurement and continuous learning.”
Gayathri Butler, Director, Global Social Connections Investments, Movember
The blockers
What if...
...your people can’t wear varnish?
That doesn’t rule them out. Construction is the clearest case and a flagship sector for us: gloves, tools and site rules all get in the way. Same in food production, care, clinical and cleanroom settings, offshore and uniformed roles.
Where your policy permits varnish, wear it. Where it doesn’t, don’t work around it: clinical bare-below-the-elbows standards permit none, not a thumbnail. Paint for the off-shift, the weekend, the journey home, or back the week without wearing any at all. Plenty of people do exactly that and it counts.
...we’re worried about safeguarding, data or wellbeing?
Participation is voluntary and individual, nobody’s answers are ever shared with their employer, and workplace reporting is aggregated. Every workplace gets safeguarding guidance and a full assurance pack covering data handling and escalation. Anyone who needs real support is pointed to CALM (0800 58 58 58) and Samaritans (116 123).
Your people’s data
Straight, on the record.
Individual responses are never shared with employers. Data is handled only by the research team and authorised partners, and reported only as anonymised, aggregated results. We work to UK GDPR and British Psychological Society guidance, collected and processed in the UK, stored securely in the EU (Dublin). Anyone can withdraw themselves and their data at any time.
* The evidence behind that claim. Broockman, D. E. & Kalla, J. L. (2016). Durably reducing transphobia: a field experiment on door-to-door canvassing. Science, 352(6282), 220–224. A single ten-minute perspective-taking conversation reduced prejudice, and the effect was still measurable three months later. · Berdahl, J. L., Cooper, M., Glick, P., Livingston, R. W. & Williams, J. C. (2018). Work as a masculinity contest. Journal of Social Issues, 74(3), 422–448. The paper that defines and validates Masculinity Contest Culture, one of the scales we measure in November.
Our full findings are open. The full working paper is publicly available, including unfavourable findings and a limitations section, and is currently under peer review. We publish what the data shows, not a selection of it.
Request the partner pack.
We reply within one working day.
Prefer email? Write to hello@hard-as-nails.com. It reaches Emma, and she answers her own inbox.