MODERATOR: Alright. So we'll get started with an introduction before we begin today's webinar.
So welcome to Maximizing Employee Wellness: Crafting Your Health Strategy and Total Rewards Plan. We're glad you could join us. Today, we'll send out a link to the on demand recording of this webinar later, so watch out for your inboxes for that. And if you'd like to earn SHRM or HRCI credits for this webinar, we will share those codes at the very end, so be sure to stay for the whole time for that.
And if you have any questions for our amazing panelists today, please drop it in the chat. We will, I should have time for some Q&A at the end. As always, if you have any questions throughout, feel free to add it in the comments, and we can try to address those as we go on.
So today, we're lucky enough to have three experts in the area of employee wellness joining us.
We'll begin with Dr. Gabe Hatch. He is a senior researcher and licensed clinical psychologist at O.C. Tanner, where he specializes in quantitative research methods, interpersonal relationships, and mental health functioning.
As part of the O.C. Tanner Institute, he investigates how organizations positively and negatively impact the mental health of their employees with perspective and behavioral insights.
Next up is Amanda Boatwright. She's the vice president of demand generation at Personify Health. A strategic thinker with a passion for preventative health, Amanda is dedicated to empowering individuals to live healthier, more fulfilling lives.
Amanda's experience spans a wide range of roles, including product marketing and consumer engagement at leading companies such as Baxter Healthcare and Abbott Laboratories.
Finally, Emily Sharpe has led the Living Well program at TIAA since 2012. In her role, Emily oversees all all aspects of TIAA associate well-being.
Under Emily's leadership, TIAA's living well program has received national recognition, and she was awarded Health Links director's award for her ongoing efforts in supporting TIAA's associates.
Emily is a certified health education specialist and wellness council of America faculty member. With those introductions, we'll begin our webinar. So, Gabe, I will turn the time over to you.
DR. GABE HATCH: Thank you. Alright. Well, welcome, everybody. Excited to have you all here.
Let's just go ahead and jump right in.
So, overall, something that's unique about me is I also own my own private practice.
And as a good cognitive behavioral therapist, I'm gonna do my best to start out by giving everybody a little bit of an agenda of what I hope to cover today.
So first, I want to talk about how we can identify mental health concerns in the workplace.
Two, I wanna talk about how we can create and craft a total rewards program that's really well-being centric, and then ultimately discuss the ROI of recognition and how we can integrate that as part of our total rewards offerings.
So let's first start out by talking about mental health concerns and identifying them in the workplace.
So we just got done with our big global culture study here at the O.C. Tanner Institute. And when we were investigating mental health concerns and we asked employees to start defining what these looked like, I think you'll see common things that are probably said around your office or in your workplace, like excessive work demands, maybe lack of fulfilling work, no advancement for opportunity, under-appreciation, stress from financial insecurity.
These are phrases that people are commonly talking about. When I started to hear these, the thing that kind of came to my mind is these are common terms that start to really mask mental health concerns.
The subclinical symptoms, maybe burnout, also depression, you know, lack of satisfaction, sadness, not finding satisfaction in previously satisfying activities, or even generalized anxiety, that fear about an uncertain financial future. And so we really started to think carefully of these things.
Overall, what we ended up showing in our most recent Global Culture Report is that culture can really impact mental health. Poor workplace culture can really detract from mental health. I think this is kind of an intuitive statement and that we know that inhospitable cultures are probably gonna have a great impact on mental health concerns. But at the same time, we can promote healthy workplace cultures that uplift and alleviate mental health concerns.
And when we started to think about this, I specifically was really interested in how, and my my team as well, how we can find these indicators of mental health concerns within the workplace.
What I'm gonna encourage you to kinda look at is some of these top indicators, and I just ask people yes or no. Would you say this about yourself? Would you say this about your workplace?
And we have the top indicators of probable anxiety and top indicators of probable depression. And I'd encourage you to just look at some of these things and think about maybe that one coworker that you're like, oh, yeah, my coworker said that. One of my coworkers has done that.
Maybe they're feeling stressed about work. Maybe they're mentioning that the team is toxic.
Maybe they're not coming into work every day on time because they're struggling to get out of bed. Maybe they're feeling a little bit lonely.
And maybe at times, you've been seeing that they hate their job. And when these things start to come together, maybe we need to start thinking about, you know, are mental health concerns present? Should we be more mindful of these individuals?
From here, I wanna talk about the impact of a healthy culture. You know, we just got done talking about some of the indicators of maybe what could be part, what people could be saying in a negative culture. But what is the impact of healthy cultures? Right?
When purpose, opportunity, success, appreciation, well-being, and leadership are there, we see pretty sizable decreases in the odds of burnout, the odds of a probable diagnosis of anxiety, and the odds of a probable diagnosis of depression.
But something that I was really excited about, especially as a clinician, as well as somebody that wants to improve workplace culture is these last two here, which a lot of our most recent study was devoted to these aspects of, survive and thrive. And we see pretty large reductions in the odds of burnout, the odds of probable anxiety, and the odds of probable depression, especially compared to the rest of the areas that we investigated.
So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about how we can create a total rewards program that's really focused on well-being.
For the most part, I think one of the common approaches to total rewards is to just give our employees a buffet of total rewards offerings. We allow them to pick. We allow them to choose. And at the same time, I think what we started to realize was employees are kind of concerned about two fundamental questions when it comes to their total rewards programs.
Am I surviving here, or am I thriving?
And let me kind of explain what I think the two of these things mean.
So what does it mean to barely survive?
Are people financially insecure?
Do they lack opportunity?
Is there a poor work life balance? Maybe a lack of resources and hopelessness about the future? And maybe is there a lack of autonomy in the workplace?
Right? Overall, when we started to ask people about these things, we ended up finding out that approximately, what was it? I think it was thirty one percent of people reported they were just merely surviving at work. They didn't feel financially secure. They didn't feel like there was a lot of hope for the future, and they didn't really know a way out of it.
Let me contrast that with thriving in the workplace and maybe what it means to thrive. We have career development options. We have workplace flexibility, and we also have skill building opportunities.
So when we started to look at this, I think this quote from one of our focus group participants really starts to encapsulate what I think this is all about.
"Thriving is about enjoying the work you do, the people you do it with, and actively learning and growing to get you to the next role, the next opportunity. To me, that's thriving."
We wanna create workplace cultures where people not only have their basic needs met, but also go on to create an environment that is learning and growth rich, as well as enjoying the work they do. Like, this is the ideal workplace.
So one of the ways that we fundamentally can do this, we can move individuals from this survive state to the thrive state, and I think there is blossoming support for this, especially within the mental health literature, is making recognition part of total rewards offerings.
So I won't get into exactly all the methods that we use to get to this point. But, overall, we found that when companies had a substantial recognition program, we found that the cost savings was approximately two million when we assumed a company size of five thousand employees.
The way that this money was saved was through reduced absenteeism, and that was primarily caused by an increase in recognition.
Let me break this down a little bit further, especially when we consider just an individual employee.
That means per individual employee with probable depression, we saw that they saved approximately eight thousand dollars a year, in reduced absenteeism when a recognition program is in place.
So this is probably one of my favorite slides in the entire slide deck. The reason why is because I started to recognize that recognition programs can literally save lives. These effects overall might look pretty small, but overall, this is a reduction in physical injury or workplace injuries when we have a recognition program present.
And overall, if we kinda think about a hypothetical company of one hundred people, two people are getting injured a month. With recognition program present, only one person.
Similarly, with probable anxiety, maybe five people get injured a month. Now we're only getting three people. With probable depression, eleven people a month. Now we're only getting eight. Right?
And these effects overall are really small, but anybody that has had to work with some of these claims know how extensive they can be. And overall recognition, even just in a small way, appears to be put in a position where it can reduce injuries and potentially save lives, which I think is really exciting.
So, overall, I think my big takeaways here are a formal recognition program can demonstrate to your people that your organization has a commitment to helping your employees thrive.
And not only does this include, you know, the benefits to well-being, the ability to save lives, but it also has a tangible return on investment as well, which we're really excited about. With that being said, let me go ahead and turn this over to Amanda.
AMANDA BOATRIGHT: Thanks so much, Gabe. It's great to be with everyone today.
I'm excited to talk with you a little bit about the kinds of programs that we think can really impact some of the things that Gabe spoke about as well.
But I think it's important to level set around today's health care environment and the cost reality that all of you are facing. I know a lot of you are out there asking the question, is there a sustainable way forward?
At some point, we all know the math was mathing and you could keep an eye on your bottom line and your costs, and the health of your people. But at some point, the cost rose to a point of unsustainability, and many of you were probably asking the question about whether you can keep health up and cost down. And I'd love to share some ideas with you on how to get there.
So in the past, companies offered health care in a one size fits all approach. But we really know that at the end of the day, all people are different and one plan doesn't really work for everyone.
We recently surveyed over two thousand employees across ten different industries to understand their perceptions of their employer sponsored health and well-being plans. And we gained some really valuable insights that I'm eager to share with all of you.
To start, we asked employees to rate their employer's maturity to provide a tailored program to meet their needs, and they were given three levels of maturity.
Beginner, which was really a one size fits all approach, and it really ultimately had minimal effective management of costs.
Something that was more defined, health and well-being efforts that followed more structured guidelines, and aimed at impacting things like mental, social, financial health, and reducing costs.
And then optimized, a program that really was connected and designed to engage. In that type of a program, leaders have access to integrated analytics to guide their initiatives, optimize their spending, and really establish future improvements across the organization.
So based on our survey, we discovered that only one in four employees really view their employer's health and well-being program as truly personalized.
And when we think about these types of programs, this doesn't actually reference specifically the tenure of the program and plan. This could mean that your organization may not have adapted all of the practices that are truly optimized to deliver that personalized solution for your people.
And so while most programs aren't optimized and tailored to an employee population, we know that the majority of employees are dealing with complexities of health, through a program that is following a very defined approach or maybe a bit random and using a generalized plan and resource that isn't effectively tailored to the specific needs of the individual and the workforce overall.
So I wanna take a moment and pause and see if we can introduce a poll question.
I wanna understand how your workforce would rate the health and well-being program and solution at your organization.
We'll just take a few seconds here to give you a chance to answer. Alright. Whitney, how did we do?
MODERATOR: So for the beginner, we had twenty nine percent. So forty four people said beginner.
For defined, eighty six people, so fifty eight percent. And then optimized, nineteen people, thirteen percent.
AMANDA: Okay. So we're not too far off of what we see here on this slide.
So that's interesting. It's interesting to see that we've got some similar numbers here. Oh, great. This is helpful. So it looks like we even have more of these folks that are in a defined offering, and haven't yet gotten to that optimized point, which is great. That means we have opportunities to continue to grow and develop and as we look at your your program offering.
Well, let me double click in a little bit further on this view. From employees on their well-being programs, here's what we learned, and I think this is helpful for all of us.
Nearly forty percent of employees are independently navigating the health care system, and most feel like they aren't getting the best care for the lowest cost.
And with rising cost, we know that employers like you recognize the importance of helping employees to become more confident and effective users of the health care system.
But when we think about how and where they're getting help, it really varies pretty widely.
Twenty nine percent are using their employee health plan.
Twenty four percent say they're navigating using their employer's navigation solution.
Seventeen percent are leaning on their HR team, and I wanna specifically call that out because that HR burden means all of you.
And then there's that forty percent that are doing it on their own.
And the question is really, how are they navigating, and are they navigating effectively? Well, if we look at the right side of the slide, we can see that the chances are they're not navigating it very effectively. They don't have a lot of confidence that they're getting the best care for the lowest cost. Thirty seven percent are not confident, and then there's nearly another half that are only somewhat confident.
Interestingly enough, with sixteen percent indicating that they're very confident, it doesn't quite match with that, the set of stakeholders that say that they're referencing either a navigation solution or other resources inside or outside of their organization to get help. So folks aren't finding their way to effective care at low cost.
But then when we think about some of the solutions that exist particularly when we look at these these programs, these beginner health programs, what we see is that folks are spending more time managing their benefits.
And this is a challenge for employees.
They really want to manage their journey on to better health with minimal friction.
But the longer it takes for employees to find the right benefit program, or, you know, service offering, the more we see point solution fatigue and portal overload and even benefit confusion. And this results in employees being more likely to give up altogether, which leads to less preventive and condition specific care adherence. We see greater rates of attrition and lower rates of engagement, which ultimately means poorer health outcomes and value on their well-being programs.
And this is where the benefit of a single platform can really help.
So let's lean in just a little bit more and talk about the impact on health care costs.
Despite the associated cost of rising health care, there seems to be a significant absence of solutions that really seamlessly integrate all sides of care management.
Historically, the trends have indicated there's been a significant increase in health care spending over time, and we still see no signs of that abating in the coming year.
The business group on health said that we're looking at another roughly eight percent increase in the coming year. And despite those high costs, there's really a lack of effective solutions to streamline the health care experience.
It's still fragmented, which leaves employees and members feeling overwhelmed and disoriented. And that sheer, you know, complexity of navigating through all of these different options from rates and benefits to networks leave many feeling like they don't have a clear path forward.
So with all of that member frustration, they're not getting the care they need when they need it, and they avoid or they prolong their care, and that contributes to rising costs.
And, really, what we want is to be able to bridge that gap between rising costs and quality care delivery and know that that's essential for improving health care accessibility and affordability.
I think this also really reinforces the message that we heard from Gabe, which was, am I surviving Or am I thriving?
And this is so important for your people to be sitting in that thriving bucket. And we really wanna be a part of that solution where we're helping move people along that path from surviving to truly thriving.
So I'd like to make this personal.
You know, it's in our name, and we really care about the impact on the people that we work with. So let's talk about Grace. I wanna share a member experience.
There's probably somebody like Grace in your organization, and in fact, this may actually look like something that you've seen before even for yourself.
So I wanna talk about the hidden and not so hidden implications on your business of not having a personalized solution.
So for Grace, she woke up with a child that didn't feel very well. She couldn't get in with a primary care provider, so she had to call in late to work and had to go to urgent care and so she had to wait forty five minutes to get to see someone and ended up spending a hundred dollars.
And the total cost of time for her was ninety minutes.
She made the next stop on her journey, by having to cancel her counseling session. She was already late for her day, and she had an urgent meeting arise. She needed help getting a virtual provider, but she couldn't do so.
And she had to deal with the billing issue, and that cost her a hundred and fifty dollars and twenty minutes.
Then she went on to look for a colonoscopy facility for her husband, since they have a family history, and he's been procrastinating on it. That cost her thirty minutes and no dollars, but certainly her time during her workday.
After work, she's exhausted. She wants to make something healthy, but she doesn't know where to start, so she resorts to takeout instead and spends another hundred dollars.
And with all of these demands between work and home life, her back pain starts to flare up, so she books a physical therapy appointment, which cost her another a hundred and fifty dollars. So we're racking up money and we're racking up time, and this isn't just exclusively, isn't exclusively inside of her home. This is while she's at work too. So there's an impact all around.
Let's take another look at Cynthia, who's another employee who had a personalized solution.
She has a personalized health platform, and we can see some of the direct cost and time savings associated with her experience, which looks pretty different from Grace's. She booked a telehealth appointment right away with a provider that she found using her personalized health platform's care navigation tool. That only cost her seventy dollars and it was a forty minute appointment.
She felt stressed about her day, and so she started a stress reduction journey and scheduled time with a coach, to help her on the platform.
It only took her five minutes to schedule that. And instead of calling her doctor's office, she actually reached out to her personal health advocate to resolve a claims billing issue that she had from an orthopedic consult that she had. Those ten minutes actually saved her a hundred and fifty dollars.
Then between meetings, she texts her husband on how he can use the platform's price transparency tool to find an in network facility for an MRI. Five minutes, no dollars.
She was struggling to come up with something to eat for dinner, and she went on her health platform and found and used the nutrition guide to find a simple healthy dinner recipe, and it only cost her fifteen minutes. And in order to manage her back pain, she actually went online and started to use the Sword app on her personalized platform.
These are the kinds of experiences that are engaging. They empower your people, and we believe that these are the ways to better help.
We know that business today, as usual, is quite unhealthy, and we believe that there's a better way forward.
And we think about this through the lens of our four pillars.
First and foremost, we're really here to connect the disconnected. We know that an integrated solution creates a delightful, simple experience for you and your people and gives you everything from health care administration to navigation to healthy living all in one place.
We also know that personalization is power. We wanna get to know the unique needs and goals of you and your people so that we can tailor our solutions and services and experiences to meet them.
Our solutions are really designed to engage. We're using science backed methodology to create an engaging experience that will actually motivate people to manage and sustain their health and ultimately provide you with more ways to save. We're drawing from the billions of data points and AI powered analytics to personalize engagement and manage costs at every turn in people's lives.
So you may be asking yourself, how do I evolve my health and well-being program to support my people and achieve my goals to deliver better outcomes?
Well, we know that wellness programs that are designed to engage deliver better outcomes. So how do you build toward that? Right? It's really about moving along that maturity curve and taking the right steps to personalize and optimize the employee experience.
From that beginner stage, it really starts by laying the foundation. Start by identifying those initial data points that are important to you and the areas for improvement to move beyond that one size fits all approach.
As you enter that define stage, it really is about building structure and purpose in your program. So what are the goals and data collection methods that you would need to take to make good health and well-being programs that are more intentional and cost effective?
And then for so many of you who are in that define stage and looking to get to optimized, it's really about realizing the impact. How can you leverage analytics to drive strategic investments, achieve measurable ROI and long term cost impact? And at Personify, we really wanna help employers to progress confidently along that curve to personalize that experience, that aligns with your business goals.
So I wanna highlight some of our latest research on how we're enabling our clients to achieve true health outcomes and cost savings.
So we recently conducted several third party validated studies that look at the data on our programs, and the data shows some very strong results when it relates to cost and health outcomes.
We recently did a two year study, that was conducted by Merative Health Insights to understand the effect of well-being efforts on medical and pharmacy cost.
It examined sixty one thousand Personify Health members versus a control of over two hundred and ninety three million lives. And, I'll give a little bit of foreshadowing, that Emily and the folks at TIAA were a part of this study.
We adjusted for things like age, gender, geography, and more, plan type. And it really highlighted some very powerful results when it came to the health of the impact of our well-being program.
And I think you can see the numbers here, but I wanna give a little bit of color here.
When it came to higher preventive care utilization, what we saw was that engaged participants spent twenty one percent more on preventive health and had twenty six percent more preventive visits compared to the control, which really indicated a proactive approach to managing their well-being.
We also saw, and I think this is really important following Gabe's presentation, lower mental health cost trends. So engaged participants experienced a three percent and fourteen percent cost efficiency improvement when it came to depression and anxiety.
And they also had three percent less cases of depression and a six percent lower growth rate in anxiety, indicating that they had positive mental and emotional health outcomes from the well-being program.
And this is especially true in the post pandemic years. We saw decreased inpatient utilization. These members had less, eleven percent less acute admits and twenty five percent less avoidable admits than the control, likely driven by higher preventive care utilization and better management of their health and well-being.
They also saw, that these engaged participants had greater shift from inpatient to outpatient utilization. So we moved from higher unit cost to lower unit cost compared to the market.
And these lower costs really translated into fourteen percent lower cost overall year over year or roughly seven hundred dollars per member per year savings.
And these were, again, across inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy when compared to the adjusted market benchmarks.
So, you know, with that, we believe that health is personal and are really committed to delivering programs that meet and engage members where they are to deliver these personalized programs.
And I'm delighted to be able to hand the mic over to Emily Sharpe. She's a mutual client of O.C. Tanner and Personify to speak to how TIAA has developed a program that's maximizing the health of their employees.
EMILY SHARPE: Thanks so much, Amanda, and hi, everyone. Gonna talk a little bit about Living Well at TIAA.
And, as Amanda just mentioned, at TIAA, we are fortunate enough to work with both O.C. Tanner and Personify Health. And with these partnerships, we have been able to integrate Living Well--we say living well a lot here at TIAA--to integrate Living Well with our employee recognition and rewards.
And so with Living Well, we address total well-being through eight dimensions of well-being.
So if you're looking at the model here, it's physical, mental, spiritual, intellectual, social, environmental, financial, and occupational.
And with the goal of Living Well really being total well-being, we have been successful in driving engagement, not just to our wellness program, but to various aspects of total rewards, and our total rewards offering at TIAA, but also company culture activities and more. And it's that holistic approach that isn't just focused on well-being, but really on that total associate experience.
So just a little bit about our program. So, again, these are through those integrative partnerships with Personify and O.C. Tanner. And through those, we're able to drive engagement in both directions. So ninety two percent of our US based associates, and I say US based because currently this is for our US based associates, our Living Well program, but we're expanding, to our global population next year.
So ninety two percent of our US based associates are enrolled in our wellness portal, which is through Personify, and each week over thirty percent of our associates are using the platform.
Engagement is sustained really through our ability to provide choice. So I know Dr. Hatch called it the buffet, right? So it's not just the buffet of rewards. It's the buffet of options available to meet the individual's needs.
And then a strong majority of our associates are also engaged with Applause. That's what we call our O.C. Tanner platform. So eighty four percent of our associates have engaged with Applause so far this year from sending e-cards to nominating others for awards or receiving awards themselves.
And then last year, ninety five percent of associates earned applause points through the various methods to do so for our rewards and recognition.
And similar to how we offer the choice through Personify Health, O.C. Tanner really allows us and our associates to have that choice, in how they utilize those rewards. And, you know, we hear from people all the time, some spend it as soon as they get it. It's like my nine year old, the minute she has money in her pocket, it's burning a hole. Right? And we have employees that approach their rewards that way.
And we have others who it's fun to hear them talk about how long they've been saving those points for. And a lot of times they're like, I don't even know how much it's worth. I'm just saving it to see how many I can get.
So it's fun to hear them talk about that, but then also hear about all the fun ways that they can use those rewards as well. And then within our Living Well platform through Personify, what associates do is they reach levels within Personify Health, and then at those levels, they earn Applause or rewards points with O.C. Tanner.
And each year, a significant portion of all rewards earned in Applause are tied to our Living Well program.
So in 2023, that was twenty six percent. And then so far this year, it's thirty four percent. I anticipate it'll decrease a little bit as we see end of the year rewards given, but it's still a very strong number that is associated between the two in that partnership and integration.
And with Personify Health, we link directly into our Applause or O.C. Tanner platform so associates can see what is available to them. So if you go into Personify, you are linked into Applause to see what's available. When you are in Applause, you get linked back to the wellness portal. And I know I keep using those interchangeably, but wellness portal is Personify, Applause is O.C. Tanner for us.
And it really just helps to build awareness of those two things and also how to tie them in.
But it's more than just rewards.
It's also, you know, supporting the creation of the environment that Dr. Hatch mentioned. Right? So through total well-being, we seek to bring people, you know, into that thriving environment.
In addition to that, we also utilized the research from the Merative study for Personify and found that for every dollar we are spending, we have an ROI of three dollars and seventeen cents. So we know that what we're doing with the rewards is, you know, meeting our goals of not just encouraging healthy behaviors, but it's also saving us money.
But more than anything, I think our associates do just appreciate the options. Again, that buffet, because we make that available to them so that as they are taking action or healthy action, they then have, you know, choice in those.
So maybe someone is focused on physical activity. Maybe someone is focused on meeting with a counselor, and focused on their mental health. Maybe another person is, you know, really focused on engaging in volunteer activities.
So we give the choice through Personify, but we also give the choices available of O.C. Tanner for how they spend those rewards.
And, you know, that is exactly how we are making well-being personal by giving those options to meet each individual's unique goals, helping them meet those unique goals, but also meeting their unique needs.
So we do this in a couple of different ways.
I'm not gonna go through all of these, but I wanna highlight just a few, but you all are welcome to read them as I talk, and ask questions if you have any. So when we're building out our annual plans for Living Well, we look at the data that is available to us in those eight dimensions and more.
So from current trends in the market, to claims data, up to date research, engagement data, and then also associate feedback.
So we look in, you know, we look for those collaborative opportunities internally within those eight dimensions of Living Well. And, also, associates earn what we call wellness points. That's what they earn within Personify for participating in their choice of activities.
We don't say "you must do this." We give them all the opportunities in the world.
And these are just some of the ways that we have accomplished this. One of my favorites is something that we did through Personify is we created a custom challenge that explores TIAA offices around the globe.
We first did this during COVID as a way to kinda bring people together, without bringing them together.
But with our global launch next year, we've actually updated that challenge, and it will be the first challenge that we do with our US and global associates. And we'll actually, quote, unquote, "visit or explore various TIAA offices." So it'll have a picture of the building, and it'll maybe share a fun fact. Like, one of our offices has its own sizzle reel, because it's been featured in so many different films and television, or just film generally. So it's just a fun thing to do, but also brings people together, no matter where they are.
We also use points to drive participation in preventive screenings and vaccinations, and this has helped for us to maintain strong adherence, year over year, to those different screenings and vaccinations.
But those rates are well above the benchmark from our medical plan provider, and we are continuously told by our medical plan account team that our incentive design is what is driving that.
So we know that the reason why so many people are adhering to those screenings and immunizations is because we're rewarding them for doing that. And we've heard that anecdotally as well. I cannot tell you how many people have said to me, I only got a mammogram because I wanted the five hundred wellness points, and that saved my life.
So just one example. Right?
Another way that we collaborate and promote ways of living well and our company culture is by providing rewards for engagement and volunteer activities. So if associates log at least eight hours of volunteer time within our community dashboard in a quarter, they are then eligible for wellness points for that quarter. And this supports what we really strive for, that culture of volunteerism at TIAA while also promoting spiritual and social well-being.
And we also support things like our business resource groups, you know, in any events that they offer that may be, you know, focused on a well-being topic or even just engaging in a BRG, we think is important enough to reward points for that.
And then as a company focused on supporting individuals in achieving financial well-being throughout their lives, we too focus on financial well-being for our own associates.
And so we provide points or rewards for engaging with a financial advisor, participating in financial workshops, and other partners available through Personify Health.
And then just to wrap it up, we have also helped to drive engagement in O.C. Tanner by promoting campaigns around recognition and gratitude as part of Living Well. So we're able to tie in, you know, the science of gratitude with also utilizing O.C. Tanner as part of that.
Again, I'm not gonna go through all of those. I already have talked enough, but I'm happy to answer questions.
The key here, in my opinion, is that Personify and O.C. Tanner allow us to provide that choice for earning and using rewards as part of our total rewards program.
And we truly believe that associates' well-being isn't just the right thing to do. It's necessary for developing a thriving workforce.
And so with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Whitney for Q&A.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Let me pull this up.
So one person said, how does this program, Personify Health, integrate with the Canadian health care system?
AMANDA: I'm happy to answer that question.
You know, our programs really are intended to be designed around your company's specific business goals and objectives, and we can follow-up with you specifically to discuss how the this works in Canada and the Canadian health care system. Obviously, there's nuances that may be relevant for you in Canada that look a little different than they do here in the US.
But at the end of the day, our programs are really intended to focus on your company and your specific needs, and then we can look at how that integrates with the health care system as well.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Another one. This is for Emily. It says, Emily, is either Personify or O.C. Tanner or another platform component, the front end of the solution? Do you promote a single source or one stop shop? If yes, who is the front end?
EMILY: So no. We go in both directions.
So when you go to our Internet homepage, that's pretty much the front end. And then from our Internet homepage, you can SSO into Applause, and you can also SSO into the wellness portal.
But we don't use either of them as the front door. Really, our intranet is the front door for all things related to our associates and communications.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Okay. Let's see.
This one is, are there any other recommendations for smaller companies that might not qualify to use the O.C. Tanner platform? And if so, would these recommendations also work with Personify or or other wellness portals?
DR. HATCH: I can maybe speak to this a little bit, and then, Amanda, I'd be curious to gather your thoughts and, similarly, Emily. I think, one of the things that we studied basically, specifically within the Global Culture Report or just recognition programs in general, in creating that culture of recognition.
And so something that I might recommend just generally is how can you start or generate a culture surround that has personalized aspects of recognition where gratitude is present, and how can you consistently reward your employees for doing those specific things?
So do I think or do I know that O.C. Tanner specific programs help? Absolutely.
And at the same time, do I think that a smaller business can maybe create a home grown solution? I think that's the case as well.
AMANDA: And, certainly, I think just to build off of that, you know, those kinds of home grown solutions are things that you can then plug in, in certain cases, into the Personify platform. I think it would depend on design, and that would have to be something we just have to have a conversation about and sort through.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Okay. It's this one is from Nick. He says, Emily, you mentioned a specific dollar amount you saw when analyzing your ROI. What was your methodology or at least as much as you can share to calculate the ROI number?
EMILY: Sure. So, Amanda can speak to this as well. So this was available to us as a Personify Health client, because it was part of the Merative study that they worked with a third party on. Amanda, you can chime in here as well.
So I believe it might be proprietary to Personify, but I'm unsure of that.
AMANDA: Yeah. So our data really was looking at, we pulled the end data from a number of larger employers and had about sixty thousand plus data points from our clients. And so TIAA was one of those clients that was included in that study, and that was compared against a control of over two hundred ninety million lives.
And so it was looking at the impact of their well-being program across inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy, and starting to pull down specific data and numbers as it related to their well-being program.
And, ultimately, you know, I think we sliced and diced that for some of the clients that participated in that, and then we had broader overall numbers that I shared around some of the impacts on inpatient costs, mental health, outpatient, etcetera. So there was data that we were looking at, and you're right. I mean, I think it was it was based on the study data, and so this was very specific to that specific instance.
MODERATOR: Great. This is for all three of you. So can you share more examples of a strong recognition program? For example, what can employees be recognized for, and how do employees recognize one another?
DR. HATCH: So maybe I can start out with oh, I'm gonna let you go first.
EMILY: Okay. I was just gonna share what we do.
And I know, Michael, who oversees our O.C. Tanner account is on here, so hopefully, I do it justice.
So we have several different ways. So it's not just our living well program, but they can do ecards, which are like a thank you or great job or, you know, thumbs up.
But they can also nominate people for awards that are tied to those points that they can also earn. So if we're doing something great.
And then we ask some, like, qualifying questions. So, you know, someone might be like, oh, I wanna give this person that award, but maybe, you know and I think we did this specifically for our population, Gabe can maybe share, but you can set it up to where certain, you know, qualifiers have to be met to earn a certain level of reward. And then it goes to a manager for approval.
But I just think it also has to be part of the culture. Right? Because if you don't ever say thank you, that's one thing I think you have to build upon, but, also, just a simple thank you can go a long way.
But what I love about O.C. Tanner is that you can give that thank you, or you can give that nomination award, and then we pull it into that person's annual review. So it's not just the manager saying, "hey, you did a great job this year." It's anyone else in the entire company can give you feedback on a job well done or share how you went above and beyond during the year.
DR. HATCH: Yeah. And I think, one, what I'm gonna say is, I'm gonna speak to some of what Emily has already mentioned, but two, I think what Amanda has mentioned as well and is consistent with our survive to thrive model is really recognition needs to be personalized, and I think it needs to fit the moment as well. And I think that's what we pride ourselves on here at O.C. Tanner.
Sure, are there the little things around the office to just, you know, be grateful for, to say thanks for, to recognize for? Absolutely. And do those necessarily have to be monetary aspects of recognition? Well, you know, maybe some of them are, maybe some of them aren't.
At the same time, I think to bring, to make this a little bit personal, I think, my father-in-law, for his twenty years spent as a nurse, received a little plastic trophy, and they said, you're the best nurse ever. And that was extraordinarily invalidating for him. Right?
But with those lifelong aspects of service, we can develop highly customized, and beautiful rewards specifically to recognize the lifelong amount of effort that they put towards that company.
And then, obviously, infused into infused into various reports. And so I think this is a very long way of me saying, but I think it's incredibly consistent with what we've talked about thus far, is it really needs to meet meet the situation.
It it really needs to meet the expectations of that employee and be commensurate with the effort they've put forth.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Those were all the questions that we received so far. If there are any others...
EMILY: Can I mention one other thing that I forgot that I love?
So, you know, Gabe just mentioned, you know, a tiny little plastic trophy after twenty years. One of the things that we also do through O.C. Tanner is do some of those, like, service types of awards. Right? So at year one, you go in and you choose an item. At year three and then I think five, and then it's every five or something like that.
But in addition to that, you also have the opportunity to get a yearbook.
And in that, associates can write in other people's yearbooks. Like, "oh my gosh. I can't believe it's been a year already. Thanks so much for helping me on this project."
Or, you know, I just got a notification today that it's a colleague's twentieth anniversary. And so we can all go in there and, you know, just add that.
Because that, to me, is better than like, I love the blanket that I got. I got, like, a picnic blanket with a TIAA logo on it. I love that, but that is nothing compared to that yearbook at those milestones. And just to hear your colleagues, like, give you those well wishes and the things that they say in those, I just think is so powerful.
DR. HATCH: And something I will add to this is, believe it or not, I am somewhat humorous.
I am even described by some to be hilarious.
But with that being said, with with my personal yearbook, it was it was filled with my colleagues just bringing inside jokes, and talking about different jokes that we had developed over, you know, my years at O.C. Tanner. And so, you know, it turns into one of those things that, yeah, one of one of the coolest possessions I think I have is that yearbook. And so I appreciate you bringing that up, and so I could give that a shout out too. It's really cool. Thanks, Emily.
MODERATOR: That's awesome. Are there any other last minute questions that anyone wants to submit? Oh, we got one. Okay. Is it best practice to offer year one and year three milestone recognition?
DR. HATCH: I'm sure it might differ between companies, but that is what we do at O.C. Tanner. We offer year one, three, five.
And, Whitney, maybe I can ask you above and beyond that ten and then twenty like, the twenty milestones. Twenty five, thirty five.
Yeah. And so, you know, pretty regularly are people recognized at these milestones, and, commensurate recognition is given along with that.
MODERATOR: And Celeste said that they do it at their company, and it's, you know, very well received. So it's great to hear all of this feedback.
Becca asked, are all of the tactics/activities for driving engagement and the Living Well facets, meaning physical, mental, social, etcetera, tracked within Personify Health?
EMILY: Yes. So in addition to kind of the standard offering within Personify Health, we have it built out for lots of different things.
But I will tell you, if anyone on here is a Personify Health client and you are not using the vouchers, you've got to start. So I actually gave a presentation at, formerly Virgin Pulse, now Personify Health event.
And I said to the attendees that the voucher is the gateway drug to all things Virgin Pulse, because we use it for everything. So, you know, if we have a webinar, we don't have to do the administrative work of saying, "okay. These two hundred and fifty people need wellness points." We just display a voucher code on the screen and let them take a screenshot.
So we use the voucher to best integrate and eliminate a lot of the administrative burden. So definitely talk to your account person if you have Personify Health.
But, also, I think no matter what, if you have a different wellness platform, ask if they have something like that. Because I will tell you twelve or thirteen years ago when I started in this role, I tracked every employee, and there were seventy four hundred at the time, via Excel spreadsheet.
I got an updated spreadsheet of employees every single week. I had to track everything they did myself. We have completely eliminated the administrative burden of our program, by utilizing Personify Health, but definitely through that voucher offering.
AMANDA: Emily, I'm I'm gonna keep that, like, close at hand. The voucher is the gateway drug.
MODERATOR: Emily, one more question for you, and this is probably our last question. But Nicole asked, are you able to give more examples of wellness opportunities?
EMILY: Yeah. So, Whitney, if you wanna I think you have control. If you wanna go back a slide and you can just highlight those.
But, I mean, if you follow the model and our Living Well model is based off of like, if you look at SAMHSA, this is very similar to their model, but you can see what each of these dimensions of well-being means. And I think that for so long, employee well-being programs were really just, like, eat right, get enough sleep, exercise, and we all hope for the best. But it's so much more than that. If you want your employees to thrive, you really have to think about their total well-being.
And it is very hard for me to not be able to tie something to an employee's well-being. Right? So if you think about, like, intellectual well-being, we could tie any required training or, you know, optional training to intellectual well-being.
We can tie a social event to social well-being.
We work a lot with our sustainability action team to focus on environmental well-being.
So there's very little that you can't tie to well-being when you truly understand what those eight dimensions are and how they impact total well-being.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Thank you. And, one person asked, do people get more wellness points by doing activities in all the different areas?
EMILY: No. They have choice, and we tie higher point amounts to things that we wanna drive engagement to. So for example, our highest point allocation is for completing mental health first aid certification, because that is what we want people to do, and we believe that that training is truly the gold standard when we wanna drive mental health awareness in the workplace.
But then we do, you know, other things like we do a thousand points a month for working with a counselor. So seeing a counselor, you get a thousand points a month.
You get up to a hundred and forty points a day for physical activity. So we try to spread it across, but the things that we want to drive engagement in, and we change it. We can change it by quarter. We can change it by year. The things that we wanna drive that engagement in is where we put the higher point values.
MODERATOR: Awesome. Thank you for that. I know we're at time, so I wanna just thank everyone for attending, and thank you for our amazing panelists for your wonderful insights. We have this slide up here that has your credentials.
As a reminder, we will be sending a recording of this out to the emails that you listed for this. So, stay tuned for that, and we'll have another webinar coming in December. So please join us then as well. Thank you all for attending.
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