Employee Wellbeing - Your Strategic Edge

In the book The Practice, author Seth Godin states, “doing what you love is for amateurs, however loving what you are doing is for professionals.” I love this quote because it sums up the sheer brilliance of Dr. Krystal Walker, CPTM and Vice President, Employee Wellbeing for Sweetwater (Ft. Wayne, IN). I’ve admired her for years and have watched her leverage her past experiences into a significant role. I asked Dr. Walker a few questions and her answers will help you I believe attract, activate, and advance talent.?

Q: What can companies do to elevate this position of well-being in their culture??

A: I think the first thing a company must do to elevate this position is to commit to the cause.?

We have to?be mindful not to jump on the latest talent trends,?jump off when they are not as trendy anymore, especially resources that impact a person’s well-being. Now that employees are getting use to such offerings, taking them away could make for a less than fulfilling employee experience.?

Another layer of commitment might include investing in the appropriate Human Resources to manage the ongoing demands of employee well-being. That might include hiring a leader to lead such initiatives, and administrative support to help manage programming. In any case, elevating this position has to?be about intentional action and not just a “nice to have” perk that could be taken away.?

Q: How do you measure your impact? Does your role also include HR, L&D, DE&I etc…??

A: For every service we provide, we ask our employees to provide feedback about the experience.?

For example, when employees meet with our on-site counselor, they receive a link to an anonymous voluntary survey to complete at their convenience. This year, our counselor completed 590 counseling sessions and 38% of employees who received counseling followed up with feedback about their experience via the survey.?

The overall rating was 3.94 out of a possible 4, and the respondents had so many wonderful things to say about the counselor. Of course, there are always opportunities to improve; hence the reason for administering a survey in the first place. That’s just one example of measurement.?

Our well-being model allows us to be intentional about other functionality as well.?

We focus on five specific areas: mental health, physical health, financial health, social health, and professional health. While the first three are pretty self-explanatory,?we define social health as the opportunity to help our employees build and nurture meaningful relations by way of inclusion and creating a sense of belonging.?That is especially important in an era where we are forced to social distance and accommodate remote work options that have the potential to breed isolation.?

Our diversity and inclusions initiatives are developed through the lens of social health. Finally, we define professional health as the opportunities we create for our employees to learn, grow, and develop. Our learning and development strategies unique to each business unit is governed by our desire to enhance one’s professional health.?

Q: How do you impact revenue or reduce cost??

A: Because we focus on very practical ways to support employee well-being,?we tend to shy away from more traditional wellness programs that offer employees a platform of videos to watch at their convenience in hopes for some sort of transformation.?

While that approach has worked for some companies, we’ve found greater value in offering convenient resources that support our employees in real time.?

I mentioned earlier about our on-site counseling services, we also have a free medical clinic with a doctor and nurse on-site to see our employees and their eligible depends right on campus.?We also have an on-site fitness center with a free personal trainer who has the capacity to not only work with our employees but also build custom fitness plans.?

We have other cost-effective resources like an on-site diner where we serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as?a spa that includes massage services, and a hair and nail salon and we offer employee discounts for these services.?

Rather than an employee having to take time off from work to take advantage of such resources, they get to experience the luxury of convenience and best-in-class services right at work. All of these perks and well-being resources help not only positively impact the bottom line, but they also add to what I’d say is an amazing employee experience.?

Q: How do you stay motivated and inspire your personal wellbeing?

?A: Honestly, I’m motivated when employees share feedback about how the resources and the experience we provide is changing their lives, and the lives of their family.?

I realize that have the privilege of positively impacting someone’s life every single day and that alone brings me joy and peace. I realize that my labor is not in vain because I’m helping to lighten the load for someone else…and I get to do it with a team of people who have the same heart and passion for serving. Our mission is and will always be to do the right thing. It’s what we do and we do it well!

Please follow @Dr.Kristal Walker via LinkedIn.?

Remember that I love you and believe in you O’ Brilliant One.?