How Peppy Supports Employees through Underserved areas of Health

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In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I spoke with Mridula Pore, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Peppy Health. Our conversation centred around how Peppy is supporting employees through underserved areas of health.

Mridula shared the Peppy origin story - how she and her co-founders saw a gap in the market to provide support for common health issues that affect people's ability to thrive at work, like fertility, parenthood, menopause, and more. Peppy partners with employers to provide their workforce access to specialist healthcare professionals to help navigate these challenges.

It was great to hear Mridula's insights on this important but often overlooked area of employee health. I encourage you to check out the full conversation to learn more about the inspiring work Peppy is doing.

Episode Highlights

How Peppy is supporting employees through underserved areas of health that fall through the gaps all too often including menopause, fertility and having a baby
How the role of the employer has evolved in recent years, especially in terms of health, financial wellbeing, and ongoing education
And How can HR adapt to these evolving demands

Recommended Resources

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Learn more about Peppy Health

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🎙️ Automatically generated Podcast Transcript

Mridula 0:00

We're all living and working for longer. Which means that actually needs to be a fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about individually managing our own careers over multiple decades and as organisations, how you actually make that work for your organisation. And with that comes a whole host of health challenges and just life

Chris Rainey 0:27

the data Welcome to the show. How are you?

Mridula 0:29

I'm very well Chris, thank you for having me.

Chris Rainey 0:31

It's nice to see you in person. I felt like after stalking you on LinkedIn for a while. You're real you exist. I am indeed that sounds really weird. But like there's so many people I connect with, like we connect with you on LinkedIn right? don't really see. But then when you finally see them in person, oh, it's so nice and refreshing. How you know how things

Mridula 0:49

really good. Thank you really good. What have you been up to time? So I mean, we're on the roller coaster that is the world of Pepe you know, constantly sort of onwards and upwards and, you know, keeping finger on the pulse of Yeah, particularly health and well being I mean, that's the space that we operate in, but really what's going on within organisations. And I mean, it's been a fascinating time to be on this journey, through pandemic, you know, business environment changing and, you know, the tech world changing as well. So, yeah, never a dull moment.

Chris Rainey 1:24

Before we get into that then and perhaps we could for everyone telephone a little bit more about your personal background. Sure. Then sort of the journey to Pepe. Well, sure.

Mridula 1:31

So I'm a healthcare commercial and strategy person. I started life though, as a research engineer. So my backgrounds in chemical engineering worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing in the States, at MIT, for a number of years working with pharma companies, came back to the UK in 2009 joined McKinsey as a healthcare consultant. So worked for pharma companies, healthcare systems, regulators, various or healthcare organisations on that route, though, just out of curiosity. So I mean, I joined a pharma project to begin with, as sort of an obvious transition. I just really liked the healthcare team based out of London and the the European team. And obviously, as I sort of got into that, then there's sort of two sides to the coin, right. There's the pharma company, and there's the healthcare systems they're selling into, so you sort of flipped between the two. I think that was an a really kind of shaping experience for me, because one I fell in love with healthcare, and B, I really saw some of the challenges of making healthcare change happen at scale, through the existing infrastructure. So after a few years at McKinsey, I then went into the blue chip world, I joined Sandoz, which is a Novartis company, ran a business unit for them in the UK for a number of years, then decided it was time for me to move it to the startup world, I'd always sort of had my eye on that space, could start to see some really interesting things happening in the European tech scene, particularly in London, met my co founders when we all joined another startup. And then within a few months, Pepe was born. And wow, here we are now, five years later.

Chris Rainey 3:09

What was the moment for you, though, when you decided that you wanted to make that transition? Because it's quite daunting to say, Hey, I'm gonna walk away from a career stable career and go on this journey itself, isn't it?

Mridula 3:20

Well, I think so it probably wasn't a very logical point. I mean, I just never is I had two very, very young children, the obvious time to say, you know, what I've got to pack in my corporate career and the unknown. I have to say, Pepe would not be here if it were not for the very, very supportive partners of the founding team.

Chris Rainey 3:43

Okay. I know how that feels. I would definitely, my wife would probably agree with that.

Mridula 3:48

But you know what I mean, when I was in MIT, it's a very, very startup focused environment is all about innovation, all about creating disruption through scientific and technological innovation. So I had been immersed in that world. And I was kind of just waiting for the European scene to wake up. And in the meantime, you know, it had some amazing experience, built an amazing professional network and started to develop a area of expertise which was which was healthcare, but also had that experience as a, you know, working in a large organised corporate organisation, being a manager, a business unit head holding a p&l. Also, you know, I have two kids that are going on maternity leave and coming back in what does that mean from a sort of professional point of view, all that experience really helps very much what I do at Pepe and my view on Pepe has certainly been shaped by all of those experiences. So what is Pepe? So Pepe is a healthcare company that enables employers typically large enterprise to support their employees through turbulent healthcare stages, things which are typically traditionally under served by the regular health care system. So we're talking about things like going through the menopause, going through fertility journeys, early parenthood, women's health issues. So for example, living with common gynaecological conditions, men's health issues, such as your genitori issues, or low testosterone, the things that are really in common with all of these is that for a lot of the time, people aren't acutely ill. But it's having an impact on their physical health, having an impact on their mental health, emotional health, it's probably having an impact on other people in their household, and it can have a knock on impact on their ability to show up and be their best at work. We've all had those colleagues where we know something's not right, what's going on, you know, in a personal capacity, if people are struggling with, you know, sleepless nights with a young baby, or the stress of going through fertility treatment can see you nodding their head, you know, or, you know, anxiety because of their menopause, and the fact that they're forgetting words in client presentations, all of these contribute to somebody's ability and willingness to really give their all in the workplace. You know, none of these are nice things, right? A lot every year in any organisation, you're going to have a number of people going through fertility journey, becoming parents going through the menopause. These are widespread issues. And when you look at it on an enterprise level, this is a significant problem.

Chris Rainey 6:28

One of the surprises when we first met is you got me thinking, I was like, Why do traditional health care companies not addressing a lot of these challenges that you just mentioned? Yeah.

Mridula 6:37

So I think if you think about what traditional healthcare is, it's there to deal with people who are sick, right, there is a problem and they fix it. That problem has to be kind of big enough thing that we see very commonly in these journeys, is it's a combination of lots of problems that build up over time. So there's a bit of a sort of can be a bit of a frog in boiling water situation, things build up, build up, build up until suddenly get somebody wakes up and goes hang on what the hell has happened to my life, but also, that they're not suited for somebody to seek help early, you don't go and make an appointment with your primary care physician or your GP, you know, the first time you have a night sweat, as a menopausal women, you think, oh, must have been something a bit weird, you wait till it's happened a few times. And then you go hang on what's going on, you know, you might chat with a friend. And really what Pepe is doing is I call it filling the gap between kitchen table and the doctor's office interesting. And the way that we do that it's a fully virtual platform. So we have specialist in house healthcare professionals. So you're not talking to a generalist healthcare professional, you're talking to a specialist, midwife, and menopause trained nurse practitioner, Counsellor about your mental well being, et cetera. And they're accessible to you on your terms and on your time. So it can be looking at content, you know, following a video series doing an online course or joining a virtual event on a particular topic that's relevant for you, you can chat to them, you can do consultations with them. So it can be as intensive as you need when you need it. But or it can be much more passive. You know, I'm typically a 10pm Pepe user, you know, browse content and send a message about something that's been bothering me that day. And then I get a message the next day,

Chris Rainey 8:20

I think it's really important, we you said, because for me, like I suffer suffer from anxiety and panic attacks for years, and the idea of seeing a therapist was like zero to 100. To your point, it was really daunting, the idea of physically travelling to that location to see that person. So that the fact that you know, I could be go on an app and slowly consume content, maybe go to a virtual event, and then slowly, maybe work my way through that conversation. I'm much more likely to do that. Right then actually go straight in it, which which is, and the first time ever, I actually did have a session was a virtual one. And for me, it was sort of I felt so much more comfortable. It was on my terms, it was actually about 9pm at night after after work one evening, and just took away all of the fear and lightens anxiety, you know, already suffered from anxiety, I'd have even more excited about it. And that was a real game changer for me. And some of the things that I learned in the course is just some little tools that like actionable tools that I could take away, whether it's breathing exercises, whether it's focusing on exercising and mindfulness, etc. Those really make the main difference. For me,

Mridula 9:33

you describe really succinctly there, Chris, what exactly the premise on which Pepe is built. And we've had, you know, new mums tell us exactly this. I went to my midwife check, you know, check in and they asked me if I was feeling down or are you feeling okay, and I just nodded my head. You know, I'm feeling really overwhelmed. Yeah. And this has been my first ever interaction with a mental health professional. Because I felt too scared. Yeah. And it felt like I was afraid. I felt like Because of failure to go and actually seek help,

Chris Rainey 10:02

yeah, because you're right, it's almost part of going there is admitting that you need help. That's really hard.

Mridula 10:08

It's very hard. It's very hard. And so the whole idea of Pepe is you kind of bring down the threshold for somebody to engage in their health. You don't wait for there to be a problem. That's, you know, kind of big enough people know if they're a new parent, people know, if they're trying to become a parent. If you are sort of a 40, something ish women, you're probably curious about menopause, given all the noise there is about outer. Sorry, if you're a 40, something ish, woman, you're probably curious about the menopause, knowing all the noise there is out there about it.

Chris Rainey 10:40

What is the role of the employer? It's kind of gone from when I first started, my career didn't even have this conversation. None of these things even existed to now where it's expected, then the sort of the new generation coming through their day almost demand services like this, if that makes sense. It's kind of gone, even the last sort of 10 years. It's been a huge transformation.

Mridula 11:03

I think there's two ways to look at it, Chris. I mean, there's one way to look at it, which is, you know, is this a perk for sort of entitled, employee base? Yeah. But the reality is, there is a growing business case for employers to invest in this type of healthcare. Like I said, it's not like a cancer diagnosis or somebody getting hit by the bus, you can guarantee in any organisation of a substantial size, that these issues are there, and they're hiding in plain sight. They are manifesting themselves in the organisation in terms of absenteeism, in terms of presenteeism, in terms of your ability to retain those staff during and after one of these sort of episodes in their life. One in 10, women who experienced menopause symptoms, leave the workplace according to some data, one in four, consider leaving the workplace. We know that issues around new parents, one in five men will not live till retirement age. Wow. And that is a shocking statistic, when you compare that men of working age will present at their doctors at a fraction of the rate that women will. They're dying of preventable causes by just not going Yeah, so this is this is this is a real financial cost, right? In terms of your, you know, everything from death and service, long term sick, all of these things, and you will find that there are clusters of these issues around these life stages. And the investment if you can make an investment where you can offer equitable health support to your staff, because Pepys typically offered to everybody shop floor to C suite, you know, it's an affordable way to really make an impact and really make a life changing difference to somebody in their moment of need. So there is a pretty substantial business case that's emerging. Especially, I mean, in the US anyway, employers are responsible for the health care costs of their of their staff, increasingly, in markets like the UK, we're seeing employers needing to take up more slack. Because, ultimately, you know, we have an ageing population in most parts of the world. Yeah. It also means that if you need to have your workforce, you need to be embracing that multigenerational diverse workforce in a way that you've never had to before. Because there just isn't the talent out there.

Chris Rainey 13:34

Yeah, I was gonna ask you about why the difference? Are you hearing different things from different generations or similar? Is there different challenges for different generations?

Mridula 13:43

There's certainly I mean, some of these things obviously correlate with age, of course, you know, so what's important to one generation, you know, what's top of mind, for one generation can be different to what's other. I think the interesting thing for me has been to see how much people take reassurance from seeing that other segments of their colleagues are being supported. So I've gone into organisations to talk about menopause support, been really pleasantly surprised to have you know, young male members of staff show up older male members of staff show up younger women show up. And there's really good reasons for that. Number one, you know, for the women, if you're biologically female, menopause is not just an, you know, an issue for midlife, it can affect much younger women. People want to know about how menopause might affect other people in their lives, partners, mothers, daughters, you know, sisters, as well as their colleagues. And they take a lot of reassurance from knowing that they work for an employer, where they will get that support at that stage in their lives, and therefore they feel like they could have longevity. Yeah, that organisation.

Chris Rainey 14:57

When shouldn't when shouldn't employees Get involved.

Mridula 15:00

My view is that it works best when there is sort of an ability to provide support, but at some arm's length, you know, a lot of these things are sensitive people coming from very different cultural contexts. The way that we designed Pepe is that it's there as a tool for the managers to provide a suite of support, we always say there's multiple pillars to supporting somebody who's going through a health challenge like this. So first of all, you kind of start with policies so that people know that there's permission to talk about it, the line manager training so that they're equipped to have a conversation without kind of panicking or freaking out exactly, then there's sort of the very practical things, you know, people needing lube, brakes, temperature control, whatever, those kinds of things that provision of kind of occupational health type of stuff. But then fourthly, that individual still needs to be able to access the health care support that helps them actually improve their individual health, because otherwise, you're still kind of leaving them there. And those details they will not want to discuss with their HR manager or their line manager. So what peppier lab allows a team to do an HR manager or line manager to say, hey, here's this tool, it is confidential, and there are experts on it. I'm equipped to have an introductory discussion to have the conversation around, you know, maybe adaptations to your working environment, time off, etc, the things that you know, are appropriate to have a conversation with another line manager, but you as the employee are not under pressure to divulge things that you may not feel comfortable. That's a tough one,

Chris Rainey 16:39

isn't it? Like for me over the years, like that was one of my one of the main reasons I didn't so tell like that I would make excuses for not coming in because of my anxiety, or even I'll be I'll be off sick for a week. But he's actually doesn't my mental health. But I was so worried about saying that to my manager, or my leader in case that they see me as weak or that I'm going to miss out on that promotion. Because can't hack it, if that makes sense. Right. And as you saw some research last year that it was something along the lines of like people would much more likely rather speak to a AI robot than their own manager about their mental health. That's pretty talent. Right. And it was, like 1000s of people that did rather talk to an app, you know, a platform like Pepe didn't actually have a conversation with their line manager. So

Mridula 17:25

what we give them the option to do is to speak to healthcare professionals and experts, right. But that information does not cross that. Exactly, yeah. So we will share, of course, aggregated anonymized data about uptake and usage of the platform within a given within their population. But nobody needs to know that, you know, Fred, from the accounts department has signed up to Pepi, fertility or, you know, Linda's on her third IVF cycle. Nobody wants to know that. Right, that can be held confidentially, but it's enabled by the employer. So one of the beautiful things that we see is people are very grateful to their employer for providing it. And they kind of see that it has been, you know, provided as a benefit to them. They appreciate it. We've had spontaneous LinkedIn posts that have you know, acknowledged the, that their employer, but they're getting that support in a very private way. So the employer is able to support them at arm's length. Yeah, with, you know, not having to overstretch on expertise, where it's not appropriate for a layperson to be giving, you know, advice around supplements or, you know, even lifestyle factors, let alone medical advice. But there can be a sort of seamless transition signposting into something like a puppy service,

Chris Rainey 18:42

what are the biggest challenges that you see when you're working with organisations?

Mridula 18:47

I'll tell you a challenge we were expecting but actually have been pleasantly surprised about. I mean, a lot of the topics that we talk about a very taboo, societally, right, be that menopause, or you know, Men's Health Topics. Even fertility, actually, fertility in the workplace is actually one of the most taboo topics, because people worry about what it's going to mean for them in the future, will I not be put on that important project? Because they're worried? Yeah, I'm gonna be, you know, get pregnant, because they know may not be considered for promotion, because, and you know, what, I might not get pregnant. So it's actually a lot more sensitive than some of the other topics. What I've been really pleasantly surprised by is how little it takes to create that permission to talk about a topic. So before that will be a lot more of a bigger challenge. We in the early days of Pepe, we thought it would be a lot bigger challenge, especially when it came to menopause, which you know, wasn't discussed as widely then as it is now. Now we're seeing the discussion open up not just in the UK, although the UK is a bit further ahead, but in all kinds of other geographies. There's a willingness to have that conversation in the workplace and for people sometimes if they're comfortable to share personal stories that has been really wonderful to see because it's just a massive leveller right? Suddenly everybody in that room becomes human, the hierarchy falls away, it does not matter if you are a VP or whether you are, you know, working in the in the post room like, yeah, those issues affect you. Where do you see the role of HR? Yeah, in all of this, that role of HR. And we've spoken about this quite a lot, Chris over various times, but it's evolving at such a massive pace. It's a lot to take on. I mean, if you think about the UK, which is the market, I know the best, you know, obviously, hrs come from a place of being largely Legal Policy procedural place to then starting to be much more about people development, culture, organisational kind of health. Now, HR leaders are being asked to take on responsibility for people's physical health and well being certainly something new to the UK, although, you know, in the US has been much more, much more well established. financial well being that's the new one, right? We didn't speak about that in the past. Exactly. Learning and Development in a world that's rapidly changing and technology skills are becoming increasingly important to be refreshed and keep that workforce alive. So workforce skills management upskilling, ongoing education, I mean, it's it's exploding, I think it's a real, real challenge. But this is where you come to the buy or build decision, right, as an organisation, are you going to be an intelligent buyer of those services from third parties rely on those expert third parties to provide you those services? Or is that something that you need to build a skill set? In house, I would argue that it's getting to to broader spectrum to be realistic to be able to do that to do to do it all in house? Yeah. You know, and, and quite frankly, that's, you know, that's why we founded Pepe, because actually, this arm's length organisation, which is kind of an extension of your HR processes can work really, really well. And actually, we think works better than trying to build in sort of first aid,

Chris Rainey 22:17

you're not gonna you're not going to be experts on all these different topics. It's just impossible. And

Mridula 22:22

again, as I said, in a multigenerational more diverse workforce, the range of issues that you're going to be faced with starts to broaden, probably some

Chris Rainey 22:30

we don't even know about right now. Right? That we will, we will challenge I hear from many HR leaders a lot of times is that there's so much noise. And there's so many like, every day, there's a new platform popping up in their inbox, that's claiming to solve all of these different challenges, right? And they're like, you know, Chris, I'm gonna nav in seven or eight different platforms, some actually overlap, some offer the same things. What advice would you give to him about that?

Mridula 22:53

I think the answer is to go back to the data. What is it that you're trying to achieve with your workforce? And what are the things that move the needle, we work with some organisations where their workforce is skewed, towards a much more sort of younger demographic, where the fertility and be you know, baby issues are the other other big issues for their workforce, and maybe some others, that we, you know, focus on other places have take real pride in having people who've worked there for decades. And actually, the vast majority, you know, and they've had sort of generations, go through their workforce for them something like the Men's Health and menopause, and being able to sustain those people productively in their organisation for another couple of decades, is really, really important. It's important to really understand the needs and listen to your organisation as well. So, I mean, I have a privileged ringside view, right, I get to talk to physicians about how they, how they think about their health and well being. But what I've seen works really well is when there's an ongoing dialogue, and they have feedback mechanisms, to keep checking what's on top of mind, especially given the last few years with all the changes with the whole dynamic, the remote working people coming back into offices, and so on, you, you cannot assume you've got to be data driven in your decision making, and really prioritise what you can focus on. And there will always be a long tail of other stuff. And put in make that systematic,

Chris Rainey 24:29

it's quite a different approach, right? Because in the past, if you looked at different things like this, as you said early, early in the conversation, it could be seen as like a perk, as like a nice to have right now is now we're seeing is a business imperative. Yeah. And also to your point, it's not just a nice to have, it's looking at what are the challenges that we're solving, and then working from there and work backwards and then figure out what platform solution that you need, based on those key challenges. Otherwise, you'd have to sort of boil the ocean. Yeah, and it's just gets crazy and If you're asking your employees to go to this app for this and go over there for their and guess what they end up using? Don't use anything. Exactly. This doesn't mean anything to Chris. I can't see myself in in a solution, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Mridula 25:13

And I think we're seeing in general, you know, the drift away from perks, and sort of things that are nice to have to things that are meaningful to people, and really make the difference on how they choose their employer, you know, choose to enter into a relationship with an employer, and also choose to stay as an

Chris Rainey 25:31

adult. And I started this, do you offer it to their family, people's families as well, as it goes beyond the the employee?

Mridula 25:38

Typically, its employees and their domestic partners?

Chris Rainey 25:42

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think I think that's super important. As long as asked that, right. It doesn't end at work, work is home and home is work, especially now. Right. So, you know, when I was using the platform, I was using that something my wife also could use. And it also helped us have conversations, right? Because she was both using the platform, right? So sudden, we're sharing having conversations, and it brought us a little bit closer together. So I think it's important that we go holistic, we go beyond just the employee themselves, and look at their partners.

Mridula 26:11

And I mean, I know you're a parent, you will know both parents can be going on different journeys, through the same parenthood journey.

Chris Rainey 26:19

Yeah, right. The challenges my wife went through, versus me completely different. And also similar at the same time, strange, as well. But it's important to have those conversations and have a, again, to open up a dialogue with us that perhaps it wouldn't have. Before, what are you most excited about moving forward?

Mridula 26:41

This is an absolutely fascinating time, we've had a massive shake up. After the pandemic, the demographics of just the global workforce, are really tipping us into a new era of how we think about our health and well being, we're all living and working for longer. Which means that actually needs to be a fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about individually managing our own careers over multiple decades. And as organisations, how you actually make that work for your organisation. And with that comes a whole host of health challenges and just life that happens during your, during your working life. So for me this is we're still just on the brink of an era where there's a lot of room for innovation. And a lot of room for us to really reset how we think about life and work for each of us individually. You know, it's quite fascinating.

Chris Rainey 27:46

Yeah, I think that was the pandemic was kind of a wake up call. And I do feel like that was one of the Silver Linings that came out of it. It's just focus, renewed focus we have on well being and I hope that we can sustain it. as well. I think that's one of the other challenges that I'm hearing from leaders that we speak to every day is how do we sustain this momentum and continue to ride the wave and make real change, lasting change?

Mridula 28:10

I mean, I understand it's a challenging financial environment right now for for all organisations, I think it's worth thinking about what's the cost of not sustaining it for individuals the question, right? I mean, and if we think about if we zoom out a little bit at a societal level, if people aren't able to work in their 50s, in their 60s, that has massive economic consequences for any society, not just in the UK or the US, but financially that just becomes completely unviable. And it becomes unviable at the organisational level as well. If you're not able to attract, retain some, some of those demographics

Chris Rainey 28:54

for let you go. Piece of advice. And then where can people check out Pepe?

Mridula 29:00

So you can check out Pepe at WWW dot Peppi dot health. That's P double py. I would say open the conversation. Ask people how they're doing what's going on. One of the huge privileges I've had, as being a co founder of Pepe is the number of stories that people share with me intensely personal stories. And it's often they're just under the surface. The minute you give permission, they come pouring out and ask the question, be curious, and you'll be astonished at what's going on with the people you're working with.

Chris Rainey 29:35

Listen, I appreciate you coming on. Obviously big fan of the work you're doing. And I wish you all the best until next week. Thank you so much.