Gympass and Headspace team up to promote mind and body wellness

MENTAL HEALTH: At well-being benefit platform Gympass , a recent partnership with mindfulness and meditation app Headspace is helping employees connect both their mental and physical selves. Headspace will now be available to Gympass's own employees, as well as their 10,000 employer partners, providing meditation tools,?sleep help?and other?mindfulness exercises.?

For Headspace, making mindfulness and meditation as easy and fun as possible is crucial to getting employees engaged in small steps that better their mental well-being, says Désirée Pascual , the company's chief people officer.?

"Just like we exercise daily to strengthen our muscles to be strong and healthy, a daily mindfulness practice helps us cultivate that resilience, emotionally and mentally," she says.?

Read: Mind-body connection: Gympass adds Headspace to employee benefits plan

FINANCIAL WELLNESS: Stock purchasing options are a great way to sweeten employee benefits, but they're not always within financial reach for every worker. Which is why Ally Financial Group took a more direct approach: Each employee at the bank receives 100 shares of company stock through the #OwnIt program.?

Those who were working for Ally at the end of the 2019 calendar year were the first group to receive this benefit in 2020, and after a three-year vesting period, they will now get to decide what to do with the approximate $2,900 available to them based on share value and dividends. Moving forward, all employees have their 100 shares put aside the calendar year after they are hired.

Read: At Ally, financial wellness benefits include 100 free shares of stock

PERK UP! Our EBN podcast will be back starting tomorrow, February 14. Be sure to tune in for a latest season -- and spend time catching up on our previous episodes: from the benefits of napping, to inclusive work environemtns amid remote work, to all the other perks that make work fun.

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