Investing in Workplace Well-Being Drives Peak Performance

It was a pleasure to join Arianna Huffington and Ellen McGirt at yesterday’s #GPTW4ALL Summit for an important conversation around employee well-being — a topic that is starting to get the attention it deserves and is especially relevant as we commemorate Mental Health Awareness Month in May.

I have to admit, I’ve come a long way on the subject of wellness. I learned over the past few years, as did many of us, the importance of family and health. I knew we needed to evolve how we work in order to better integrate our work and home lives and achieve better outcomes, both for our employees and our business.

Synchrony radically rethought the traditional ways of working and supporting employees. We began to co-design solutions together with our people to integrate wellness into our daily lives. It’s been several years now since we went all-in on offering flexibility and choice for all, and we continue to see strong business results.

Leaders Must Be Well to Lead Well

Our CEO Brian Doubles established clear leadership expectations to embrace the mindset shifts needed to extend our culture of active listening, candor, empathy and accountability.

Building on the initial success of our hybrid work model, we designed a year-long training program for our top 300 executives, collaborating with Great Place To Work US on The Great Transformation research initiative. The program equips them to lead differently so our people can be their best and drive strong performance in an ever-changing environment.

And we brought in additional help, too, partnering with Joe Hubbard , Chief Training Officer of Thrive Global , an organization dedicated to redefining productivity through well-being. Together, we focused on how both mental wellness and total wellness are critical to driving peak performance and encouraged well-being conversations between managers and employees.

Starting this year, we will train our VP-level leaders and then engage our frontline leaders to help us create a culture that embraces the mantra “leaders must be well to lead well.”

Synchrony and Thrive Global

Together with Thrive, we brought well-being tools and technology to our employees directly in their flow of work – from our executives to our frontline associates. We launched “Thrive Resets”, 60-second breaks that aim to reduce cumulative stress through breathing, stretching, mindfulness — and personalized videos. You can see my own personal reset here:

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive after we piloted the program with thousands of customer service associates – a group that often experiences stress from handling back-to-back customer calls.?I was surprised to learn that nearly 80%?would rather receive a dedicated 60-second Thrive Reset than have the time back. Many were able to reset mentally and prepare for the next customer conversation. As a result, we have now expanded these resets to thousands more of our frontline and fraud specialists.

Our leaders and teams also have access to Thrive’s personalized tools and resources. For example, by taking small, science-backed actions known as “Microsteps,” they can build healthy habits and ultimately make big changes in their lives.

Investing in employees’ total well-being

Our approach to well-being is holistic, recognizing that well-being and equity are fundamentally connected. People cannot bring their full selves to work if they’re struggling.

Working with Synchrony’s eight Diversity Networks, our employees and their families now have access to an expanded roster of 22 diverse well-being coaches who represent them. We also provide career coaches, financial wellness counseling, established a sabbatical program with up to 12 months of leave and offer robust child care, eldercare and parental leave benefits.

Our investments in well-being and flexibility are paying off in an engaged workforce that can be at their best at home and at work, which ultimately drives strong business outcomes. We’ve seen high levels of employee engagement, low employee turnover and a 30% increase in our applicant pools in 2023.

As we continue our journey, we’re not slowing down. For leaders, investing in employees is investing in your business. Taking steps that lean into prioritizing mental health will unlock peak performance.