Employers Prioritizing Whole-Person Health: The Interconnectedness of All Aspects of Well-Being

Employers invest in human capital for both their internal and external communities. At MI Health, we view the workplace as its own community, in which organizational leadership is uniquely positioned to introduce, model, communicate, and normalize a “whole-person” approach to health that prioritizes physical, mental, and financial well-being equally. Investments in whole-person health can come in the form of expanded health benefits, changes to internal policies and programs, shifts in workplace culture to allow people to bring their “whole selves” to work, and increased levels of opportunity that recognize the many roles and responsibilities employees take on, such as caregiving.

Sabrina Spitaletta, senior director, Public Health at the Milken Institute, and Cori Davis, chief people officer, Genentech, sat down to discuss the ways leadership within organizations can lead with a whole-person health approach in mind.

Employers are defining "whole-person health” in various ways. From your perspective as an employer, how do you envision a whole-person health approach in the workplace and in community investments from the employer??

At Genentech, we believe all aspects of well-being (physical, mental, financial, social) are interconnected. When you’re struggling in one area of your life—let’s say you’re worried about finances–every other aspect of your well-being is affected. You lose sleep, which lowers your immune function. You produce high levels of cortisol, which increases your stroke risk. You withdraw socially, which exacerbates symptoms of depression.

Our benefits program is built around these connections. In addition to comprehensive health-care coverage, we offer an onsite health center, free gym and fitness classes at our South San Francisco headquarters, healthy eating programs, mental health counseling, career coaching, financial planning services, mindfulness tools, and much more.??

We’re equally invested in the health and well-being of our local and global communities. Through our corporate membership in the American Diabetes Association, for example, we’ve hosted community screening events, addressed barriers to care in underserved populations, and scaled pilot programs to reach additional cohorts of patients. We’ve led similar community-level health equity initiatives over our four years as a corporate member of the American Cancer Society—a partnership that’s resulted in 500,000 cancer screenings and 11,000 detections. And this year, we’re beginning a new relationship with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, working with researchers to identify “neurology deserts” to determine how we can better support people with multiple sclerosis who live in areas with limited resources or access to specialty care.?

What are the risks if employers do not adopt or move toward a whole-person health approach?

The risks of delaying the adoption of a whole-person health approach can be significant. Some of the downsides of a disjointed or unequal approach to employee health and well-being are obvious: higher health-care costs, lower productivity, increased turnover. But the stakes are even higher for an organization like Genentech and our parent company Roche. For our employees to deliver on our commitment to discovering and developing medicines for people with serious and life-threatening diseases, they need to feel healthy in every sense of the word.?

What steps are employers uniquely positioned to take to normalize and achieve a whole-person health approach?

Employers must foster a culture in which employee well-being is ingrained in the organizational ethos—it’s embedded in its policies, programs, and practices. We ask people managers to prioritize and actively promote whole-person health—to remind employees that we provide paid time off for preventive health screenings, begin team meetings with a mental wellness check-in and promote our mental health services, and encourage team members to take time away from work long before they reach the burnout point, for example. These are small steps to take, but they can go a long way toward demonstrating to employees that we value their well-being.?

We’re similarly committed to promoting whole-person health in our work with community organizations, health-care providers, and industry partners. The Resilience Effect is our flagship philanthropic initiative committed to addressing the negative effects of childhood adversity on the health and well-being of San Francisco Bay Area children and families. The Equity Express is another external partnership in support of holistic health. This retrofitted double-decker bus, built with funding and guidance from Genentech, provides farmworkers on California’s central coast with virtual connections to health-care providers, mental health services, and educational support.?

In your opinion, which organizational leadership roles or positions need to be involved for this integrated approach to be adopted across the organization and in the surrounding community?

For any significant initiative to be successful, you need all leaders and engagement at every level of the organization. Employee resource groups—we call them Diversity Network Associations, or DNA Groups, at Genentech—help ensure our whole-person health programs address the unique needs and perspectives of all employees. People managers are another very effective channel (we ask team leaders to reinforce the importance of well-being by modeling healthy behaviors), as are groups like our Mental Health Champions network: more than 400 employees representing all geographies, areas of business, and demographic backgrounds who volunteer their time to help colleagues understand and access our robust suite of mental health benefits.

As part of Genentech’s commitment to making a positive impact in our communities, our annual Genentech Gives Back tradition invites employees to support the causes we care about through volunteering and giving. Each year, the program benefits organizations whose values and goals are aligned with our own—strengthening diversity in STEM, advancing health equity, and building vibrant communities. Since the program’s inception in 2010, we have contributed millions of dollars in grants and employee contributions, and employees have volunteered more than 118,000 hours.??

Employee volunteers also power Futurelab, our award-winning STEM education initiative that gets kids excited about science, helps improve their college readiness, and inspires them to pursue careers in STEM fields. Since its launch in 2015, we’ve invested more than $35 million in premier science and engineering programs and financial resources for all 8,000 K–12 students in the South San Francisco Unified School District, and our employees have invested more than 75,000 volunteer hours. Futurelab+, which grew out of this concept, is a nationwide, first-of-its-kind high school biotech curriculum. Free to all teachers, it introduces critical concepts such as health equity, inclusive research, and social determinants of health. We expect to reach 2 million students through Futurelab+ by 2026.

How do employers build a sustainable whole-person health approach that anticipates the ebb and flow of the external environment, whether those are shifts in the economic, social, or political landscape?

Good science is data-driven. So is a good benefits program. We constantly review our program—plan components, utilization, perceived value—to ensure that it’s relevant, effective, and responsive to our employees’ changing needs. We actively engage them in the process, seeking feedback through surveys and focus groups. We also leverage the collaborative partnerships we’ve built with our benefit plan vendors; they know we pride ourselves on being early adopters of new coverage options and that we’re open to evolving our program as new research and resources become available.

This proactive, flexible, and adaptable approach has helped us not just navigate periods of economic, social, and political uncertainty, but thrive in a dynamic and evolving landscape.?