Return on Wellbeing: How to Unlock the ROI and Cost Savings Potential

In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of employee wellbeing in driving productivity, engagement, and overall organizational success. Employers are increasingly investing in employee wellness programs and initiatives, but there is often a need to demonstrate the return on investment and cost savings associated with these initiatives. This panel will delve into the various ways in which organizations can measure and quantify the ROI of their wellbeing programs, providing attendees with valuable insights and strategies to enhance their initiatives. Burnout alone is costing companies around the world $322 billion annually in voluntary turnover and lost productivity. Wellness is no longer “nice to have” in the workplace – it’s a must.

Discussion points

Understanding the link between employee wellbeing and business performance
Identifying measurable metrics for ROI assessment such as reduced healthcare costs, reduced talent management costs, and increased productivity
Implementing effective wellbeing programs and the challenges of securing adequate resources and maintaining employee participation
Communicating the ROI of wellbeing to stakeholders and securing executive buy-in

Panelists:

Micron Technology: Marni McDowell, Senior Director, Global Wellbeing
Gympass: Denis Hickey, VP Total Rewards & People Operations
O.C. Tanner: Mindi Cox, Chief People Officer
Elastic: Evelyn Bassett, Group VP Global Rewards, HR Ops & Analytics
National Life Group: Michele Granitz, Head of Benefits, Total Rewards

Be sure to follow HR Leaders on Crowdcast, so you don't miss out on our upcoming events.

🎙️ Automatically generated Transcript

Chris Rainey 0:07

Let me introduce you to our amazing panellists. We've got mining with Tao, who's the Senior Director of Global wellbeing at micron technology. We've got Dennis Hickey, who's the Global Head of total rewards at Jim pass. Every ambassador is the Group Vice President of Global rewards, HR operations, systems analytics, workforce expansion and sustainability. There's a lot you're responsible there, by the way, Evelyn, I don't know how we got you. On the show today. At elastic, we've got Michelle grants, grants, who's the head of benefits and total rewards at National Life Group. Last night, nice. We've got Mindy Cox, who's the chief people, Marketing Officer at oC Tanner, nice to see all of your smiling faces today. I thought before we jump into the main chunk of the content and questions, is just to talk about how do you define wellbeing in your organisation? Dennis, you want to kick us off? Sure. Thanks

Dennis 0:57

so much, Chris. It's great to be back with you and really appreciate the opportunity to participate today. At Jim pass, we find that that the well being as a topic is so broad and all encompassing, it can almost be overwhelming. And there's so many different models, different pillars, we just think about it more simply in terms of body, mind and life. And we focus on it in that order. If you focus on your your physical well being without that it's hard to have a healthy mindset and have the other aspects of your life in balance. But if you can focus first on your physical well being then that can extend to mental well being and then behind

Chris Rainey 1:38

love that No, I definitely can relate to that it's difficult to focus on your mindfulness, if you physically are not feeling great, as well. So I always find that it's kind of one leads to the other if I stop exercising, like it then takes an impact on my mental health and vice versa. Kind of a vicious circle. How about you, Andy?

Mindi 1:58

Hi. Glad to be here. i Yes, I think one thing that I've noticed over the last several years is just the the broadening is Dennis said of the definition of wellness. We certainly focus on mental, physical, and also add financial wellness as a pillar add to our strategy just for the reasons Dennis Dennis mentioned just the interconnectedness of those elements in somebody's approach to health. But as far as our approach, I would say that we really focus at oC tanner on a personalised approach to being your best self. So we don't know what everybody needs in what moment of life that they're in. But we want to have enough options that people can self select into whatever's needed at that time. And you know, being your best means something different every day. So having just enough of a variety of options to meet people where they are and lift them to where they want to be.

Chris Rainey 2:47

Absolutely love that. That's such an important point you made there depending on what stage you are your life, right, and where you are. You made it may be something different for everyone. As well, Marnie, how about you?

Marni 2:58

Yeah, similar to others, we did do some work and actually defining it for our organisation so that we would all have a shared definition of it. And we anchor around five pillars, physical health, mental health, social well being. And that really is, is what we think of as inclusion and action. So this is where a team member feels they belong. And they have friends and we create opportunities for them to come together. career well being is also an important pillar, and then financial, where well being to and that's beyond the paycheck, it's a sense of stability and security. And, and we also felt the importance of defining well being is so that other functions could see their place in it. So it's much more than the work of a well being team. It's how does everyone have a handle on it? And so that that was a bit of the approach that we've taken. I think,

Chris Rainey 3:45

I love what you just said there. And I think one of the challenges is having creating the language to have those conversations. So once you are now you're defined that you open up, you give people the language right to have a conversation around well being because sometimes we're worried about saying the wrong things. Again, so so just giving people the language like is a huge step and a defining what that means, right? I love that. Michelle.

Michelle 4:08

Yes, I could almost just echo what Marnie said, we, you know, we do the same five pillars. We focus really on employees bringing their best selves and being their best selves, no matter where they're at in life. With five generations at national life, we have to make sure that we're offering wellness and well being activities and products that will find you exactly where you're at in life when you're ready for it

Evelyn 4:36

was close to everything that was just, and hello to everyone, by the way, but we quite simply defined it as B period. Well, so be well, and we're in over 40 countries, so it's exactly what my esteemed panellists said here. We want to meet people where they are on their journey with that, whatever that is. So, while the pillars are there, we're not specifically defining then because we we nest in quite a few things under be well, inclusive of which we've branched over into our Dei, our ERG groups. With our workplaces, we are a distributed company, which means you can work pretty much anywhere. But we do have 14 locations. And so we work with our workplaces, as well as as well as our elastic cares programme, which is our philanthropic arm. So it is a very broad concept, because as we get into some of the things that we offer, under being well, you'll see it branches out quite broadly into many different avenues, the physical sure of financial and emotional, but also community and social, all these sorts of things. So plus plus, and it's definitely a broader concept than it was 10 years ago or so when I ventured into it.

Chris Rainey 5:45

Certainly, right. Yeah, even you look back a few years ago, you didn't hear anyone talk about financial well being right. That wasn't something that was on the agenda for many organisations, as well as abroad. And I think that's a good segue evidence. So for yourself personally, what are some of the ways that you're working to deliver a better work life wellness?

Evelyn 6:03

Yeah. So again, I'll go back to I think it was Mindy, who said it, we were meeting are we call them the last additions, we meet our Les ditions as fast as possible where they're at. So while we curate a bunch of things that are available, all the programmes that you might think about emotional well being and so forth, we do things that are we attempt to do things that are more meaningful and relevant to them personally. So what does that mean? We do things like the company shuts down entirely one day of the month. And we encourage everyone to go and do your heart's desire on that particular day, don't think about work, shut it down. Now, of course, there's some essential stuff that needs to happen. And we talked about that. But we'll shut the company down, sort of segwaying into more of the day to day, we have something and we call it our source code, which is think about sets of values. That is called Space Time. And what that means is you take that space and time you need in your regular day to day and find something that enhances your well being. For example, for me, I do Pilates every day at 3pm. It's on my calendar, no apps encouraged, there's no thinking about why isn't she working during that time slot, it's because it's my overall health and well being you bring your whole self to work, I'm a better me if I'm doing things like that. And then segwaying into things like the charitable piece that I talked about our elastic cares, we we give one full week off fully paid to go and work with whoever you think community wise could could use your support and your help. So we're very community based. And then with that, we also give every elasticity and $1,500 to donate to a charity of their liking. These sorts of things are things that I'm talking about meeting people where they're at what's personal to that, and what's important to them. And of course, we have all these other curated programmes like fertility, and which is supportive of adoption and surrogacy, or emotional mental health and well being like lira, ginger, all these sorts of things. But I'll stop there, because those are sorted. That's how we think about it. How do we make it meaningful, relevant, and personalised to each and every person on their journey,

Chris Rainey 8:16

I'm gonna I'm going to be quiet. And I've learned just let everyone else jump in, because I'm sure I saw everyone not in a way in smiling. So I'd love to hear from everyone else as well.

Dennis 8:23

Thank you, everyone. First of all, I loved some of your ideas there, the culture of what you hit on around, giving people permission to take time off. And lead by example, I think is so important because having worked at organisations that didn't value it in the past, and if you put time on your calendar, to take care of your personal wellness, it was looked at as a negative, like you didn't have enough work to do. And, you know, I remember walking, you know, by empty fitness facilities that could only be occupied before 6:30am Or after 6pm Yeah, I think we're in a new a new phase now. And so, a few years ago, you know, when we made the commitment to live the mission, which was make wellbeing universal, our leadership team started to really embody that be open about setting aside their own time for you know, psychology sessions, mental health yoga sessions, and to talk about hey, that I break times in my day, and I block times off to take care of my personal well being, and I expect you to, and that's rippled through the organisation and now you can really feel where a lot of the interactions when you start with your one on ones start with sort of how are you really and pause and allow people to that space to feel comfortable that you care and the company prioritises their well being as much as as they need to,

Mindi 9:47

you know, we've found a lot of success when we invite families, partners, life, companions along the journey. We really believe that no individual can be success. Well, if they're if their ecosystem of support is not involved with their goals and that their shared goals, so just opening the doors whenever we have benefits to offer our employees that they know that that those benefits are available to the people that they care about as well. And that that has really inspired some success, because we all know in our own wellness journeys, there's peaks of momentum, and there's the valleys, you know, where we all need just a little bit of extra support. And so when you have those networks travelling together, everybody gets the lift, and it really becomes very consistent, very sticky, very attractive to our own place to to know that it's not just about them, but it's about the people that they care about to

Marni 10:43

micron is really at a trajectory of how do we position this whole well being concept a little bit differently and, and shift it more from organisational, we want to go to the organisational responsibility and take a little bit of the pressure off the individual employee. And so we're focusing on our leaders, and how do we arm them in a concept we're calling sustainable well being. So how do they help lead their people in a way that helps them have autonomy over how they approach their work. And some of those other psychological factors that at the end of the day really determines whether a person has a good day at work or not? Like, can we put some boundaries on the start and finish of a work day for a global company, which is really challenging. So that's, that's a little bit where we're at all those other things will always be really important. The tools, the resources, the skills, the education, but we're finding it's a lot more than that, right? It's it's issues that a meditation app can't solve. And so that's we're really trying to get a fair understanding and approach it that way.

Chris Rainey 11:41

Love that. It's been a lot of research hasn't there about the impact that someone's a manager, and leader has on their well being. We've all seen the numbers, and statistics. So if we can better support them, and educate them is a huge impact, as well. And I love some of the points that you mentioned. And one of the reasons that we partnered with Jim pass before is I actually use the app myself with my wife. So gym together, which was really cool. Like I could, she could pop out to the gym when I'm at home with our daughter, Robin. And I saw that kind of how it really helped her just take a break and just escape and just focus on herself for a little bit as well. So as part of like, you know, we had it for the company, but the fact that she could use it was amazing. And earlier, when we spoke about talking about our well being as a leader, I had kind of hidden my battle with anxiety for over 10 years, even from my wife and I was having panic attacks and struggling and to anyone. The first time I actually saw a therapist was within the gym pass app. And for me is sort of I was scared about like going to someone in person, I felt kind of a bit I felt a bit overwhelming for me. So being able to do it virtually. And just jumping on like a zoom call with someone for something about that just made that step easier for me to take, if that makes sense. It's still scary. But it kind of opened up a whole nother conversation with my team. And now I feel like we're a lot closer. And we're having conversations about like, I think like a week after that I had someone come to me saying, Hey, I'm not feeling great. Like, can I can I have a day off? And I was like, Sure. I don't think they would have come to me if I if I didn't share that I was also struggling. So this is super, super important, as well. So yeah, so let's add that in. I didn't want to add anything else into that? Absolutely.

Michelle 13:26

I just thought I would add that, yeah, stamping out the stigma, mental health is so important. Without mental health, you have nothing else. Yeah, and you can't do anything else. Unless your mental health is in a good place and encouraging our employees to we have an onsite counsellor at our Vermont location, that's where the majority of our employees are. And we have an onsite counsellor that they can see that they can just talk to struggling with whatever in their life, it could even be a work related issue, if they felt they needed some guidance, they could sit and talk to the counsellor and just get some feedback. And I think that that helps people feel much better about themselves and where they're at kinda like what you experienced yourself, Chris, when you're more comfortable with it in yourself, then you can talk about it. And we have an amazing, younger generation. And I'll say younger, mostly because they're younger than me. And we have a younger generation that's coming up that they are not as afraid to talk about it. And they're more open and they will say you know what, it, I'm just my anxiety is too high. And they will let you know. And I love that they are very comfortable and able to share that with us. But you know, it also depends on your culture, I guess. But our culture allows them to be very vulnerable and let us know and feel safe.

Chris Rainey 14:50

Yeah, I think yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the cultural pieces there, right? Because it's so important that you know the company I worked at 10 years before this one I think the one time I did say something my reaction was sort of my reply was man up and get on with it. That was literally the reply I got. So I never spoke about ever, ever since that day, right? I'm not going to bring this up, especially when I'm like, they're not going to promote me. If I if I, if I save this and show that I'm struggling, so I just kind of kept quiet and kind of got to the point where I was like, actually, I don't see a future here. If I can't be me and bring my full self, then I'm gonna leave as well. So there's obviously a financial costs directly.

Mindi 15:33

Chris, I just, you know, that story is just so illustrative of like, my deep passion for frontline leaders being really where any culture lives, no matter what, there is no programme, there is no system, there is no app, there is no amount of time off, or money that can compensate for a leader that is ill prepared to support their people in their in their wellness and their career journey and their growth. And I think that we skip over them. Sometimes when we think about these initiatives, you know, how do we reach the people? How do we? Well, it's always through, it's always through the access and enablement that their frontline leaders going to provide. And it It either is bolstered by or suffers from the frontline leaders, awareness or knowledge of how their behaviour is going to influence somebody else, you know, overall, so just respecting their position as leaders. And then knowing that being a leader over the last several years has been a really hard thing to be, you know, and especially middle management, it has been a shock absorber of a position, we've got so much macro activity going on in the world, there are people too, they have their people too, that they're worried about. And then they're dealing with all of the stress and anxiety and, and life that's flowing up from their team members and being asked to do a lot more. So you know, it's interesting, I feel very fortunate to work with the OC Tanner Institute, which is a research and assessment arm that looks at workplace culture globally, every year, we do a very deep dive. And last year, for the very first time, leaders reported faring worse than individual contributors. There's just a level of burnout right now that makes them ill equipped to even support their teams, because their own wellness is not in place. So we really need to just be mindful of pouring into having those leaders have enough of a well have enough to pour out so that that our wellness efforts and our intentions in our organisations can scale to every employee, because that's the means. That's the method. And I really deeply believe that that's what matters at the end of the day is just making sure that we've got that, that really continuous flow of alignment and understanding support systems. But also those moments, Chris, they like you're standing in the door, you're being vulnerable, you're asking for help and support. And a leader has that moment. And that's it, that moment of trust to either extend or withdraw. And it has, as you mentioned, lasting effects. It's not just about oh, I guess I can't have the day off. It's do I even belong here. huge ramifications.

Chris Rainey 18:10

And it also made me a bit more hesitant about having those same conversations with my employees. Does that make sense? Right? So if I'm like, if I can't take care of Chris, how am I going to take care of my team. So I realised that a certain point from my coaching, as well as like, I need to take care of me in order to be if I need to prioritise myself in order to be the best leader, the best husband, the best dad, it has to start with me, first of always, I can't be of service to anyone else. As well, it's a long while to get to that point to realise that, first me, you have to come first, not sacrifice your well being and mental health to try and please others and, you know, work like crazy and do all the things that we try and do, too. Be Seen, or how we think we need to be seen anyway. But yeah, I agree. And is that was already hard enough. Now you've got Harvard work, remote teams, that economic climate, all of those things piled on top to your point. It's a lot to ask of anyone as well. Anyone want to jump in on that?

Dennis 19:15

It just, I just want to say Chris, thanks for sharing and it struck me your openness and willingness to share is such a contrast to the leaders would that I looked up to when I began my career, you know 20 ish years ago that felt the need to always project invincibility and any any vulnerability in an open environment would be you know, looked at with with shame and so it was to be avoided at all costs. And maybe it's a new world maybe we've all learned something coming out of the pandemic but that takes courage and it sets a fantastic example and that's the the culture that that you know, we're trying to create here. It looks like you're doing a fantastic job with your team in in leading the way

Chris Rainey 20:00

I appreciate that I'm not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. I think he's just realise it's okay not to be okay. And in fact that all of those things that were insecurities for me became a superpower, you know, like be leading, being vulnerable. Actually, all the things I was worried about was the opposite effect, right, my team rallied behind me. We're more connected as a team, where everyone's happy to have a hard have hard conversations when we need to all of the things that I was worried about actually kind of turned the other way around. So being more present. And yeah, it's been a game changer. To be honest,

Evelyn 20:35

I was just gonna echo what you're saying. And plus plus on what Dennis said, it's so sort of open, transparent conversations from the leader level that you are human. And we are all in some way experiencing something that we need a supportive group of folks, particularly in the workplace, where you're performing, and it's performative. You need to have that ability to take a pause, thoughtful pause, we all oscillate, things go on and off, and sunrises and sunsets, and you need a moment, you just need a moment. So it doesn't make you less of a brilliant, you know, leader, but that authenticity, that vulnerability just makes you more human. And I think that's the new world order, right? The the years of trying to put on a facade, and everything is perfect, and you're invincible is just yesteryear. It truly is about authenticity and vulnerability and being the best bring your whole self to work, as I said earlier, come as you are, and just show that to the world. And it's quite the magnet, we're so we breed that, in our culture. That's why we do some of the things that we do. It's in our source code about taking those thoughtful moments and pausing and reflecting. And I will say one other thing that is important to us is flexibility. If you can offer your workforce flexibility, there's so much power in that choice and flexibility at that. But if for instance, you're having that moment where you did have, you know, some sort of anxiety or panic attack is there, like that flexibility to sort that day out and figure you need a moment or you need something for you. That's great, the team rallies around that. So we try to work that in spades like try to sort through what you need, come as you are, be be open about that we're here to support you. And, you know, take it from there, there is one other thing we offer. And I'm not sure all companies can do this. But there are times where you hit just really big things in your life. And we offer one full month paid, compassionate leave. So if there's anything, again, we obviously can't have everyone just taking a month off. But there are definitely times in your life when we don't want to lose people, we don't want to have them resign, just simply because they feel like they have to take a moment that's beyond a period, a short period of time they need a month or so. And we'll we'll do that for them. So that's what we think about as a company. But congratulations, and thank you for sharing your story. That was very powerful.

Chris Rainey 23:06

I know people in the chat, the title of the session. And the reason we put this together today is a lot of people are struggling about what does good look like and how do we measure that? And it's an ongoing challenge. It's always a question that keeps coming up in the audience. I'd love to jump in and understand from each of you, you know, what are some of the metrics you've identified to assess the ROI? And that you are moving the needle? Because sometimes it's difficult to see is are we actually having an impact? You want to jump in first, Dennis? Sure, Chris. Thanks.

Dennis 23:35

So I'd say I have a couple of obvious ones. And then a couple of not so obvious ones, and one that I think is particularly important for the moment where we are in, in the calendar and planning year. But attrition and quarterly engagement are the two that I follow religiously nutrition, I check at least twice a week. And you know, that's the ultimate indicator if you're failing. It's not necessarily an indicator of health, but it's one of those that is core to the business mission and results. And since we've made commitments, we've seen tremendous progress there. The quarterly engagement scores, we use pecan as our internal tool, once a quarter we do a pulse we get, you know, very high return on the surveys and we compare ourselves to benchmarks on to that I'm not sure everybody follows that. But I also track is our hiring accept rates, like see those in mid 80s or higher. So when we're you know, investing the time and recruiting and talent, are we getting to that accept rate with our candidates? And then I also external? What are people talking about? So all over Glassdoor I review our comments, you know, I get alerts when there's new updates there. I know our score and our CEO approval rating. I know what people are saying about our benefits and those are internal people that are giving the feedback for external people who are considering it. The big one that I think is really important this time of year is now as you know, we're about 1800 employees in the left And countries and we're going through our benefits renewals process in the year. And healthcare costs are one of the biggest, you know, expenses for us that, you know, line item that, you know, has significant cost for us year over year. And that's been rising. And so when you get to the point of the year, we are now and you're looking at your renewal for next year, it's almost like the test has already occurred, your utilisation rate for last year is what it is your health care consumption rate for the team is too late to affect your 2024 score. But the question is now what are you investing into bring down costs next year. And we just recently released a survey about 20,000 employees in Brazil, the findings of which make logical intuitive sense, but were a little bit surprising to us, which was if you compare active employees to not active employees, the health care consumption and costs for non active employees is about 35% Higher. And we've coupled that with some data from the Gartner excuse me, the Gallup report on workplace well being that was released earlier this year, where they said about three quarters of health care consumption is really tied to controllable expenses, lifestyle behaviour, and preventable expenses. The shocking thing is only about 4% of the total investment in health care for most companies is on prevention versus cure. You know, that old adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, it's actually I think the ratio is even a little bit more extreme than that, you know, that 1/16 would suggest. And so we find that creating that culture, we've been fortunate to have a very young, healthy, active population who really uses our, you know, our programmes and vailable partners heavily. When it comes time for renewal. We don't feel like a victim where we're just subject to taking, you know, whatever the healthcare companies pass on to us. We have some some pretty stellar utilisation rates, which enable us to have a better voice at the table when we're looking at, you know, renewing our costs for next year. I

Chris Rainey 27:11

love that, Dennis, thanks for giving us such a great overview of that as well. Like we could have done your own session there. That was amazing. As well and and telling the story, I'd love to hear from everyone else to do some other areas that they're looking at that we're maybe not thinking about.

Mindi 27:24

I love all the metrics that Dennis is talking about, I think they're really important. We have to be expecting some improved outcomes from the effort and the investment. That's just natural. I think in any business initiative is strategic imperative for sure. I think for us, though, our focus has been on how do we not just react to the lagging metrics, but how do we look at what good for us looks like utilisation access, relevancy, support, enthusiasm, you know, for the experience, the human experience that we're trying to create in the workplace. And two areas, I think that are really, really key to evaluate our access and enablement. So you may create access, you may build a health centre, you may give people time off, you may or make available, you know, certain amazing benefits. But if people aren't taking advantage of those, they might as well not exist. So what's in the way, if your utilisation is low? Or if something seems unpopular, or it just isn't hitting the mark the way that you thought it would? Did we not listen well enough? Do we not understand what the actual need is? Did we co create whatever the initiative is with the with our people? Did we have enough input? Did we have enough voices at the table to come to the right solution? And then do we have an enablement problem. So for example, we built a health centre on campus, which was really wonderful to have the support to bring health access closer to our people, specifically behavioural health support, which is difficult to find, and oftentimes just has a waiting list that I think is unacceptable when you're in a situation where you have some acute needs. So for us to create that access was really great. Except we needed to tell our people No, we mean it, you we want you to participate. This is the behaviour that we'd like to to see. So enablement for us looks like a special time bank that says Health Centre. Like you don't have to clock out. You don't have to use PTO. You don't there's not a cost when you go to the health centre. So participation is inspired because not only is the access convenient, but there's some systems that create specialised enablement, and we just go through every benefit and look at it that way. If we're not getting the participation, did we miss the mark? Or do we have an enablement problem? So then we can adjust and part of that just comes from staying in constant communication with our people. So one practice I would suggest, you know, as soon as you're able to do it is we really do have team members that are touching base with every single team in our company at least once a month. How are we doing? What would you like to see what's going I'm cool with your, you know, in your friends, workplaces, are there ideas that we need to explore? You know, what would make this better stay interviews have been a huge asset to us. You know, we're always talking to people on the way out the door, what went wrong, and it's way too late. So we take a group every quarter, and we do a say, interview, you're so valuable. You're making such huge contributions here. What matters most? What keeps you here? What do you know? What are the things that differentiate your experience here from and make you want to stay? And we learned so much from just talking? And it's the simplest, simplest thing?

Chris Rainey 30:34

Yeah, I love that when when Dennis mentioned earlier about the attrition, the first thing that came to my mind was, say, interviews. And by the way, I don't know why it just triggered that straightaway for me, because the amount of times that I've been in companies where people have left and you realise that it could have been prevented, like an 80% of the time, probably more actually. But you have the conversation, you realise why they're leaving you like, Oh, my God, this is why you're leaving. This is something that was such so easily avoidable. Right. But they perhaps didn't have psychological safety to speak up, or all of the things that we've discussed right now. So I love the approach. One of the things you mentioned, there is also about making it easy for people. And Michelle, what what are some of the ways that your kind of meeting ploy employee is where they're at. So it's kind of easily adaptable, convenient, Speedy, simple. Sometimes you can have to go through the spider's web of the internet, to figure out what we even have, right. And I speak to people don't even know that even have access to certain things. So how are you approaching?

Michelle 31:30

Yes, exactly. So you know, you can talk until you're blue in the face, but until somebody's ready to hear you, they're not going to hear you, they're not going to remember all the benefits that you listed during an open enrollment session. And we have everything listed on our intranet that they have access to. But we do other ways of reaching out, we do regular focus groups. And we even have started going back to old school, and we send postcards home. Because a lot of times, the person that you're trying to reach your employee is too focused on other things that when the partner at home, or in many cases, mom and or dad at home, get this postcard that says, hey, this is what's going on, this is what we have available to you, then suddenly, somebody else is telling them somebody very close to them is telling them Oh, I just saw this from your employer. And I think this is awesome. But we also, as Mindy mentioned, we have an on site Health Centre, it is, you know, cost free to all of our employees, unless unfortunately, you're on an HSA. But then we have a minimal charge for that. But all the preventive care, we do everything we can to make it as easy and as simple as possible for our employees, particularly in New England and in Vermont, it getting care, it is ridiculous. You know, and we have employees giving us examples all the time where it will take them a year to get a physical. I had an employee just tell me the other day I called the dermatologist because I was concerned about something. And they said they can see me in March, that was the soonest I could get in. I'm like, wait a minute, it's August, at the time it was and and she said yes. And March was as soon as they could get me in. Wow. So it takes a long time. And even me personally to go to the eye doctor I called last November and they said, Okay, our first available appointments in September. So actually next week, I'm finally going to get my eyes checked at the eye doctor. So you know, we we do what we can and we're always looking at ways to make it as convenient as possible. Our location. Here we have multiple acres, we have a park course that people can do, to get outside to walk to be in the woods to be what is seemingly felt like I'm away from everything. Because I'm walking through the woods, and I can't see my office building right now. You know, we even have snow shoes for when we get snow in the wintertime that people can go out and walk and you know, just just take advantage of what's available to you. But we also, I think in the in the age of the AP, we've so relied on that electronic connection, where if you need something, you know, all you have to do is go to the internet and you can find it and and like I said we started dialling back and going old school and letting our employees know if you need something we are here will help you.

Chris Rainey 34:33

I love the postcard idea. By the way. We spend so much money on things like the idea of they get a postcard with like, like a QR code that they could scan with their phone. Right? And it means that and immediately does it have a QR code on it? Is that actually most of

Michelle 34:47

the time? Yes, yeah. Okay. For more information, right? Yeah, just

Chris Rainey 34:51

make it easy right to use the phone to scan the QR code and all of a sudden they're presented with all of the things that that's such a great idea to engage them right Right, especially when everyone's fighting for their attention in their inbox, everyone's fighting for your attention on slack on WhatsApp, on teams on things. So just another way to just catch them right at home. And it's cost effective, right? People do well spending a lot of money. That's something that you could do the ROI versus the investment there.

Michelle 35:18

And the other thing we always provide is a phone number. And how often do you try to get service on something, and you go to the manufacturers website, and you cannot find a phone number? I just want to call somebody and ask a question. And you can't. And so we always provide a phone number. So they always have someone to call.

Chris Rainey 35:38

That's on the right, it also one of my friends who was really struggling during the pandemic, what was the thing that meant the most to you? And he said that I could phone this number and speak to someone. And he said happened. He said that phone call for me meant everything, the knowing there's someone there. And I was just I wasn't expecting all the things I expected him to say. I was like, Wow, just, in fact, what they were doing is actually calling once a month, they would call every employee and just check in and say how are you during the pandemic, and he looked forward to that call that he lived at home alone. And you know, no family was super isolated. Right? So for that one call meant everything, that someone's thinking about me in that moment and saying, how's Ben, how are you? How can we help you? So never underestimate those things? Like you said, right? So if you want me is a phone number. But yeah,

Michelle 36:24

it's huge. Somebody's on the other end of that

Marni 36:28

line. I think one thing we're focusing on at micron is is very similar to some of the other comments of how do we identify and help ease some of the pain points in people's lives. So everyone is just so busy, and there's so much going on. And there's always these things that just put people over the edge, and all of us included, right, these little things and, and they're actually really big things in people's lives. And one of the areas that we've kind of have a new focus on is childcare. So we know that that is a really stressful thing for families, whether it's affordable, whether they have access, whether the if the quality of it. And so we're really trying to and all of our locations, and we are, you know, geographically dispersed around the world, of how do we help identify a solution for people? So it's not necessarily that we're providing childcare in some locations we actually are. But how do we make sure you have a family that comes to work for you, they're new to a community, and they don't even know where to start? So how do we make sure we're able to point them in the right way, and just ease some of those pain points. So that's really you know, when you when you talk to people about what what makes the day so hard, and it's a lot of these other things outside of work, that really don't happen in the workplace. But they all come to work with people, right? They don't forget their apparent when they walk in the door that they have caregiving needs, for their, their own parents or those type of things. And so how do we really step in and try to lift some of that burden for them?

Chris Rainey 37:50

So funny sight I mentioned before we went live that my daughter started school yesterday. And the joke amongst all the parents when we're all leaving is childcare no more. There was I just had a sigh of relief of the stress of childcare, that everyone made a deal with all parents dropping off the kids for the first day ever made a joke about it to your point is super stressful. And something that I know, I'm very fortunate that I can do that not everyone can as well. So having that support is is huge. It's a huge How can you focus and be engaged at work? If you have something like that right, that you're worried about?

Michelle 38:22

Then that also goes to Evelyn's mentioned to the flexible work schedule, right? So we have so many employees that have difficulty getting the care as Marnie was saying, you know, we even had a daycare centre, unfortunately, recently closed. So we have many employees who now are struggling, because all the other centres are full with waiting lists. And we have one that just closed and so we allow people to work from home, when they have to until they're ready to come back to the office. It you have to meet your employees where they're at, and, and make it as easy as possible for them to do what they need to do.

Evelyn 39:02

I was going to add two more things because this is a tremendous topic in terms of how to how to make things accessible so that folks really get the benefit out of the well being that we we offer as companies at elastic, we're doing two additional things, none of which are new, but we're really leaning into them. So we've brought in the whole concept of caregiver. And we've partnered with a vendor, so aged parents, critically, Ill diagnosis specialists, those sorts of things. We're partnering with this vendor globally, that helps support so we'll find resources we'll provide some coaching so that's a really new place for us and we're getting huge utilisation. In our in our space we have an in any space but the things like autistic children and things like that you can find a resource that a place that you can get some support and help so that's kind of one area, the second area not new. But interestingly, it's been low utilisation. But we're really leaning into it. Is our advocacy programmes related to our health, our health insurers. So you can pay for and we do we pay for these advocacy programmes, what that means if you have some sort of diagnosis, and you're thrown into the world of healthcare, navigating that that landscape and all kinds of new terms are thrown at you and medication is prescribed. And you're what to do. You have an advocate dedicated one to one advocate that can help you whether get a second opinion, we have that we offer that as well. They've been under utilised. Now we're really leaning into that. And I think it's because people don't either know what's there understand it. So two other things that amongst the other things that have been talked about here, we're we're finding, leaning into that, and we're seeing it as proof points. On the other side, our claims ratio is low for we're a tech company and a mid sized one at that. And average ages is in their mid 40s, which is older for tech, some tech, and we're seeing a very low claims ratio. And then we're also on the flip side to Dennis's point. We look at folks coming to our organisation or offer acceptances in the mid 90s. So there's definitely the things that we've curated and how we're leaning into it working. And then on the accessibility side yet again, to keep this really fresh, we have a b Well calendar and we run campaigns. So we had a fruit and veggie campaign. And with that, we create a little competition out of it, we have prizes, we just ran asleep campaign and you complete an easy scorecard. You submit it, there's really no no adjudication out, you submit it, you get a blanket sent to you these sorts of things aren't like our elastic blanket, but we're really making it so that you can low barrier to entry, participate in walking campaigns, we had a sustainability campaign, you know, do eight things that can demonstrate your kind to the planet to each other again, and then we send we send some you elastic, branded item to them. And it really does when you add in that engagement in that fun and you can curate things and keep it very social and community based in one little touch of positiveness. That's the OS another aspect of participating and making it accessible.

Chris Rainey 42:31

Yeah. Especially when, like you said, you have a hybrid, or majority remote workforce, right? How do you create that connective tissue? Amongst the employees? They can share moments in, in the social media, I'm sure you have a social feed, right? Where people share moments stories, their blanket that they got. Yeah, you have to write that but connective tissue that keeps everyone together. And I think the two points you mentioned that you said they're obvious, but I think they are. I don't think we have enough conversations about about those two, two points that you mentioned. The first one I experienced firsthand, over last year, Shane, my cover and that he's listening right now he won't mind. You know, he's been taking care of his granddad. And it's been really tough. And I've seen the toll it's taken from him. And there's times where I've had to step up and say, hey, just go and be with your granddad take care of it, be there with a family and I never really understood the empowering part of what it wasn't to I was kind of part of, you know, that circle. I was like, wow, well, we're really not talking about this enough and having conversation and, and your other point, I think it's exactly the same thing about having someone could help guide you through those processes, whether it's healthcare, I literally last night, and it kind of kind of will get upset, even just talking about a really good friend of mine a CH RO, email me saying, Hey, I just found out I've got cancer I'm going through therapy is So Craig, Chris, but it's kind of made me realise that we don't have these conversations internally. And we also don't know how to navigate through that. Can we create a show a podcast or a panel to discuss this? Because I want to share my experience to help others through the system and what I've had to experience. And to your point, I asked that, wow, why? Why don't we have conversations like that and share and share no taboo topics, as she said, in the email? Well, so you kind of said those two things, but I still don't think it doesn't come up a lot. It is in my experience, personally, and I think that's super important. So I'm glad I'm glad you brought those up.

Evelyn 44:29

Yeah, I think and maybe I take it for granted because I'm in it. And so I'm talking about these things. But it's a fair point, Chris, that maybe not enough of us are think leaning into these. These are very real issues that can pull on us in many different ways. And if we're not if we don't have the support in the workplace that is to deal with, we don't talk about it and work life balance. We talk about it in integrating work life, because we do bring our whole selves to work and how do you stop and start your life? Do I now have an agent, grandfather or whomever I have me partner, whoever who's struggling with cancer that doesn't stop just because you start work. So we really do take an integrated approach. Within reason, of course, we're not there to blur, blend or blur the lines. But as much as we can recognise and acknowledge and openly talk about your human, these are real issues. It doesn't in any way change your value. We want you still working at this company. And so that's how we're leaning into things. But thank you for sharing that because I do take it for granted, I guess. But something we were more mindful of this how to lean into these areas.

Chris Rainey 45:40

I want to switch gears. I know we're coming towards the end of the session now, but to talk about no well being is, I think one of the silver linings of the pandemic was well being to the conversations and the focus. I've never seen so much focus, and it was great. But I do want to make sure we sustain that momentum. So I think I want to talk about well being and everything we're taught is also good business good for business, as well, let's not forget that part. As far as I want to emphasise that. And before it was very much, you know, a buzzword and now it's really companies are realising Actually, this isn't a business imperative. Not only is it the right thing to do, but also it's good for business, as well. So Dennis, could you share some examples on how employee wellbeing directly impacts business performance?

Dennis 46:27

Sure. Thanks, Chris. Um, yeah, it was it was really interesting. This July, I was at a total rewards leader roundtable in New York City, hosted by a big one of the big consulting firms. And they opened up the topic and gave us a variety of topics with exact comp pay transparency, well being was one of those. And I was shocked as we went around the table, the topic that every single that just kept repeatedly coming up to the forefront, everybody had different examples was on well being. In the breadth of that, I think, to your point, it's not just a sub segment of the benefits team anymore. It's really organisations are realising that this is a new way of thinking about employee engagement and achieving the goals of the organisation. And whether that's so you know, for us, we're a tech company at our heart, building the right teams, the right cultures, we're distributed a flexible first culture. So we're in many locations. So to build the culture and the teams that can help us develop that next iteration of our product is front and centre, it's a board of directors issue to get from our old technology to build a new evolution, which we're in the process of finalising this year, has really come to front and centre, you know, I could go into the depth but some of the investments that we made two or three years ago now are really paying off in spades in the in the form of reduced attrition, higher employee engagement, higher offer accept rates, and now we're on track to deliver the this new iteration of our software later this year, which is, you know, going to be a monumental shift for the company strategy, going forward from here and beyond. So it's front and centre, and it's, it's paying off in spades,

Mindi 48:11

I will just add to the clients that we're working with we are we're, we're so fortunate to be able to work as a in a recognition services company with with organisations that get it, they want to celebrate their people, they want to put systems in place that recognise great work and foster that in their organisations. But the conversation lately has been how wellness is really at the core for high performing organisations, you don't get high performance as an organisation if your people aren't okay. And it's not, I mean, that's not rocket science. But to see those dots connected and to see the proactivity, in, in the name of high performance in the organisation somehow has given new licence to higher level leaders to really treat wellness as a strategic priority. And as we lead them, you know, kind of through the research that we've gone from measuring employee satisfaction to employee engagement, you know, several years ago, and now we're really in this realm of employee fulfilment, what what does it mean for somebody to walk in your doors and have an experience that actually enriches their life instead of takes away from it, and then they have that little special thing that they can only volunteer to your organisation, you can't pay them to give it you can't direct them to give it. But they volunteered every day, and everybody leaves better. And that vision I see is really expanding. And that's a very exciting place to be. And I think as leaders if we can help to position to maybe some stakeholders that aren't seeing that yet, how widespread that movement is becoming and how critical it is that your workplace become a haven for fulfilment, as well, the better off and the you know, the faster your organisation is going to accelerate to that high performance that we all want for our companies. Because when when our businesses succeed, there's a lot that goes really, really well. Ain't for the employees that are there too.

Marni 50:01

Yeah, I just I love what Mindy said. And it really is, you know, the sustainability is where it's become. It's not an HR programme, right? It's part of the workplace culture. And that's the only, you know, sustainable approach that we'll probably see.

Chris Rainey 50:15

Thank you so much everyone that's joined. I would like really enjoyed the conversation and I know you all can't see the chat but the chats telling us the same thing and I really enjoyed the conversation there. Thank you for everyone who joined