The state of health and financial wellness for U.S. employees is complex. While many employers are investing heavily in new programs to improve personal and professional wellbeing for employees, workplace stress, rising personal costs and financial instability remain persistent challenges.
To encourage better utilization of health and financial wellness benefits and produce more positive outcomes, holistic support is growing. Many employers now integrate physical, mental, and financial wellness with counseling, coaching, lifestyle accounts, and technology-based interventions - including AI-powered wellness platforms that deliver highly personalized insights.
The future of employee wellness means that employers must balance strategies that combine meaningful new health and financial benefits with real improvements in the workplace. In this LEADERS episode, Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat, Chief Human Resources Officer at AliveCor and Wes Burke, Chief People Officer and CHRO at Care.com discuss:
- How new benefits that drive better health, financial wellness and utilization are being assessed
- The shift in employer strategy – informed by workplace culture and generational differences
- Which benefit bundles make sense and why, as employers consider holistic employee support
- The use of AI-powered wellness platforms and the benefits employers and employees see
- How wellness benefits can become brand differentiators and how that is measured
Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.
Alyssa Place (00:14):
Hi everyone and welcome to Leaders. My name is Alyssa Place. I'm the editor in chief of Employee Benefit News, and today I'm speaking with Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat Chief Human Resources Officer at a Alive Corps and Wes Burke, chief human resources officer@care.com. And we're going to be discussing advancing wellness strategies to combine new health and financial benefits for meaningful employee and employer outcomes. And today we're really going to dig into employee wellbeing and the different challenges that employees are facing today. Obviously burnout is still a top concern, financial stress, and nearly half of employers employees are actually experiencing burnout today according to a recent poll by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And as much as you want to help them get through that, you're also dealing with stressors as well. Rising costs, a lot of different things, multi-generational workforce, and we're going to get into all of that today. So I'm super excited to have both of you here to learn about your strategies and advice that you would offer other benefit leaders as well. Alright, so let's get started. I wanted to start with a bit of a level set with where we're at with employees today and what are some of those biggest stressors that are really plaguing your workforce and what has been the evolution of that over the past couple of years?
Wes Burke (01:28):
Sure, I'll start. So first and foremost, thanks for having us. It's really great to be here in the studio with you today. One of the kind of interesting things about my role that I really enjoy specifically being@care.com, both as the CHRO, but also in a place that offers us as employee benefit is I get the opportunity to interact not only with our employee demographic but a ton of the other CHROs. And every single year we actually go through a comprehensive research on something called the Future Benefits report. One of the things this year that I would share with you that our findings told us is that 84% of companies today are saying that burnout is sort of the number one thing that's striving retention issues, but there's a huge disconnect in terms of what companies perceive in terms of their employees being burnt out versus what's actually happening.
(02:10):
And to give you that and sort of figures, employees, sorry, 69% of employees say that they feel burnt out, whereas employers perceive that as closer to 45%. So there's a huge sort of, we see it as a number one contributor to retention, but yet we don't necessarily see it within our workforce and what's happening. So I'd say that's one aspect of this. At the root cause of it, it's exactly what you said earlier, which is mental stress. I think that's the number one sort of driver and burnout that we see in the workplace today for us. An interesting sort of figure for you, 70% of our employers employees are working, families working, sorry, 70% of our employees are working parents, and so a lot of that stems from making sure that they have stability in the home.
Alyssa Place (02:55):
And that's so interesting what you were saying of that disconnect. And I'm wondering is there an element of denial in there where benefit managers are like, oh, it's not as bad. I mean, do you see that? Do you feel that or
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (03:05):
Yeah, I think that the point that West made is a good one because we don't see it because so much of it is private, so much of it is being held very close. You don't necessarily see employees expressing that stress in the workplace. They take that home with them. I think the other thing that we are finding as well is that there's this really interesting stress for this generation that has to do with what we describe as the uncovered dependence. People that are caring for elderly parents or grandparents, I think that is a contributing factor as well. I think the working parents think for sure adds an element of stress. So I think it's just how they show up to work is not necessarily indicative of what they're truly feeling.
Alyssa Place (03:56):
Yeah, I mean I think over the last couple of years, mental health has become such a hot topic and it's really interesting. I was having a conversation the other day where it's almost like before COVID, if you went to therapy that was something super secretive and now in certain generations if you're not going to therapy, that's something that you keep to yourself. So the pendulum has really swung so far, but it sounds like what you're saying is that employees still don't feel that comfortable saying, I'm dealing with caregiving responsibilities or financial stress. Can you talk a bit about why that stigma is still persisting of that idea of bringing your whole self to work?
Wes Burke (04:33):
One of the things I say quite often by the way that kind of fits in with this is what used to be a living room problem is now a boardroom problem. So things that happen in the house show up in the workplace and the key to have any sort of workplace stability really starts by making sure that there's home stability and that there's some understanding of what your employees are going through. I unfortunately was at an event last week with a bunch of CHROs and we were talking about what culture is today and what it means and it's really capability. How do you think about your organizational capability and thinking about that in terms of employee segmentation and understanding who your employees are and what they need. And so as you think about this generationally, each generation has a sort of different point left that they're at, but at the core of who you want to attract and who you think about as your employer value proposition, that's how you should design and think about your benefits offering and what you're trying to go after. So I'd say for us it's knowing who we're serving and then how do we cater or sort of wrap around the services around that.
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (05:29):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. One of the things that we talk a lot about is treating the whole person, not just the person, the persona that is our employee and really understanding what people go through day to day and trying to really lean into those relationships. I love the data because to me, all of our decisions really start with what's the data telling us? What are people actually using in terms of our benefits? What are they asking us for and are we asking the right questions? So really kind of meeting them where they are is I think really super important.
Alyssa Place (06:05):
And what are they using and what are they asking for at this point? What's really on the roster for 2025 when you're talking about the suite of benefits that you have?
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (06:15):
It's all over the place. We're at a really interesting time where the workforce is very dynamic, it's very diverse. There's huge generational gaps within the workforce and it's hard to serve all of them all of the time. My company, we're a startup company, we're a 15-year-old startup company, but we're a startup company. And so our challenges are really a little bit different because these folks are coming out of the Silicon Valley, they're used to having a lot of benefits. They're used to having a lot of things that I think historically had been taken for granted and now the expectation has been built. So we really try and again, look at the data and look at one of the most recent changes we've made is we noticed that as an employer we cover a hundred percent of the benefit costs for our employees and we cover up to about 87% of the cost for their dependents.
(07:17):
But we noticed that previously we had not been covering as much as high a percentage for single moms as an example. And about a third of our folks that have dependent coverage insurance, they are single parents and most of them are working moms. And so now we have a plan where those folks have a much higher percentage of contribution on the part of the company than they had before. So you got to look at the data, you got to look at what's really being used and really understand how, not with just the utilization, but why they're using it when they're using their benefits.
Wes Burke (07:57):
Yeah, I'd say for me you could say this is a daunting time to be in this space, or you could say this is the most interesting time ever. And I sort of tend to lean towards the latter than the former. There are so many options within benefits that we didn't have even 10 years ago, and this terminology of modern benefits is sort of coming into play. And how do you think about total wraparound solutions? So to me, there's a level of excitement around that. There's a lot of noise that it creates too, and it's both for the employer and then also for the employee. And I think John Paul, the comment you made is asking the right questions to get to a sense of what people want, what they need. I'll go back to the example I gave you before. We're unique in tech and the fact that we're 65% female and I think it's partly what we do care.com, but within that, going back to my point before, 70% of the people work with us have dependents at home. The way I think about this though is that tells us they have kids at home. It shows up on their benefits program, but what you said earlier is who are the unseen dependents?
(09:01):
A hundred percent either have parents or pets. And so as we think about the offering that we built around, that is super critical. And one of the things, I'll just give an example about it, it's kind of an easy aspect to tackle is time off. So we have an unlimited PTO policy, but more specifically, we shut the company down on all federal holidays, which indigenous people's day was just this last Monday. You think, well, that seems like an easy one. Well, all of a lot of companies don't do that, to be clear. And then a lot of our people have kids at home and so having to sacrifice time with my kid or coming to work. And so it is an easy ask for us, but I think secondarily, we look at things like the cost of care specifically and how do we subsidize that? The biggest thing that has scared me over the last five years especially is the amount of women dropping out of the workforce and the single mom thing is really, really resonates for us because it's very difficult to, as any parent knows, to raise a family to prioritize work, but also to fill mental stability around that.
(10:03):
And so moving beyond health benefits and even caregiving benefits, how are you then addressing the things that come up throughout the day, especially for single parents and we use enhanced EAP concierge like service, they can really triage anything for you. They can help you navigate care, but they can also help you deal with getting a plumber or finding a maid service or any sort of thing that life at your way.
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (10:26):
Yeah, one of the ways that we're addressing the challenge that you're talking about is very real. And one of the ways we're addressing that is that we're not jumping on the trend of forcing folks to come back to the office. We're a 100% hybrid workforce, and that really helps alleviate some of that day-to-day stress, which is great. The other thing that I would say is that there's a lot of benefits that are available today, but what's also interesting is how those benefit offerings are shifting in terms of how employers are seeing them and how they're being offered to us. I think we're all exhausted by the per employee per month model. I couldn't do another one, but so I think it'll be interesting to see how those benefits start to become packaged for us to better utilize them. And again, the data around the actual utilization of benefits. It's interesting because I think even for mental health benefits, I don't know if the utilization is there at the same rates as it once was because I don't think employers are covering as much of that benefit for the employee as they used to. And so I think this whole idea of how we as employers are paying for the benefits and how they show up in our plans is also going to drive utilization. We need to make it accessible.
Wes Burke (11:44):
The one thing I'd add onto this, I was talking to our sales team and some of our broker partners about this a couple of weeks ago. As A-C-H-R-O, you have so many vendors coming to you, everybody needs a piece of your time, everybody wants you to sign on to something and in some cases it's a big need. In other cases, you just want to scratch an itch.
(12:02):
And so I've kind of said this to our broker partners, I just need you to give me a good, better, best. That's right. Here's my problem, tell me what a good solution is, what the better is, and then what the best in classes and then the cost associated with that and let me click check the box on those things. But I don't know today that it gets presented that easy. It's just here's everything and you go decide what it is. And it can be very daunting as a benefits leader or as an HR leader. So
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (12:25):
Yeah, you
Wes Burke (12:25):
Need to
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (12:25):
Talk to your employees, you need to understand what they really need.
Alyssa Place (12:30):
And I mean, it's interesting you're saying it's a lot of noise, it's daunting, there's just a lot going on. And you also mentioned the importance of data. There's a lot of things though that go into that too. I mean, you were talking about single mothers and working women in the workplace, that's one demographic. You might have Gen Z, you have all the way up through baby boomer who are looking to retire. So how are you managing to personalize what you do have on offer for all those different groups and what goes into those decisions? You hear about the working moms and you're very drawn to that as a cause, but how do you make sure that the entire organization feel supported as well?
Wes Burke (13:08):
Yeah, I mean, I'll lean into something John Paul said a second ago. The one commonality across all of these different generations is flexibility. And flexibility can be in a lot of different things for a lot of different people. So if it's in your benefits design or if it's in the way that you show up to the work from an RTO perspective or hybrid perspective, I think that's first and foremost. And by the way, we've gone as far to define cases on what flexibility looks like depending on what it is, and then you can sort of interact and ask questions on that. I'd say beyond that, the other aspect of this in terms of accessibility or finding ways that you're not just behind a portal, and so meaning you log into a benefits portal, you see these options and then you have to decide for yourself, we're trying to use a third party and in our case, we are lucky enough to have what we call a care specialist team and they arbitrate for you on where the best solution is based off of your need. And so you can call in, I know a couple other, I used to work for Target, and similarly, target uses the same thing where instead of having to go and find these on your own, you go to a specialized person who will say, let me direct you to this piece of your benefits package or let me point you over here. That tends to be, I think the easiest thing for folks today, and I'm really kind of excited about what AI can offer here, but I would say that's how we're trying to tackle it.
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (14:24):
Yeah, it's similar. We are small enough that the HR team works with each of our employees to help understand what their situation is and it changes year to year. I was saying to someone earlier today we have five babies coming in, 180 a person company. We have five babies coming in January. And so the dynamics of what's happening in employees' lives changes year over year. So our HR partners are really in tune with each of them individually and helping them. The AI thing is going to be interesting because even as a Live corp, we're a cardiovascular health tech company and we have an employer program. We sell to employers, a solution for remote monitoring for cardiovascular health, and we're starting to see a lot more of this opportunity to give people support outside of the plans to give them the opportunity to really monitor and understand what's going on for them and their families in terms of health, putting more of the power of that in their hands directly so they're not waiting in the doctor's office and that sort of thing. And that's all being driven by ai. I think plan selection will be driven by AI very quickly, so it's going to be an interesting time. It'll be interesting to see how it influences what's being offered by the benefit providers too.
Wes Burke (15:52):
Completely
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (15:52):
Agree. I was going to say completely agree with that statement.
Alyssa Place (15:56):
Yeah, I mean it seemed like a couple years ago the trend was these individual point solutions that would manage one specific issue that an employee had. And it seems like what you're saying now is that you have one care coordinator that can manage all of that. So can you talk about what that transition was like? I mean, I'm sure maybe at one point you did have maybe five or six point solutions and you transitioned to this one-stop shop type of thing.
Wes Burke (16:19):
Yeah, look for us. So you've nailed it, right? And I think what we try to understand anybody is you go and you hear this feedback through engagement surveys, through anecdotal feedback, et cetera, and you go and find a point solution for it, and then you look at your utilization data and you're like, yeah, I spent on what, I spent this and nobody's using it. What's going on? I know there's a need because hearing the need, what am I doing wrong? And we always come back as benefits or HR leaders at our communication tactics and strategies and say, I'm not doing enough to communicate. The reality is that we sometimes overdo it too, where there's so much noise or so much communication that it drowns out all the other solutions. And so for us, I'll give you an example of the babies. Somebody's going out for leave, for babies, for baby specifically, sorry.
(17:06):
And what that does is for our aggregator that we use, and I know you asked about the transition, but our aggregator will then say, okay, you're going out to have a baby. Let's get all your leave stuff put together and I'll get you in touch with that specific team. In addition to that, we have all these benefits. We also need to think about your health benefits changing, but also this is going to be mentally stressful, so have you thought about what that's going to look like? And so it sort of triggers a chain reaction. The thing that's interesting on that though is it goes into the manager as well and it says, Hey, your person's going on a leave. Have you prepared for that? Let's talk about what that means for you. What's the communication look like? How are you following up on this? What's your coverage plan? What's your reentry plan when they come back? So there's a whole work stream that's just tied to what's happening with that individual. And that was born out of the fact that we saw people returning from leave and quickly dropping out of the workforce within the first year or
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (17:55):
Not coming back
Wes Burke (17:55):
Or not coming back, which is what brought the aggregator on. And it said, we said, we've got this problem specifically that we need to solve, and then we open up the use cases beyond that. And so again, we're lucky we offer a level of this to our clients and we weren't using our own services or what do they say? The cobbler sun has no shoes. And so we had to start thinking about how we treat our employees similarly to what we do for our client store care specialist team. So it's been good. I would say the thing that we still run into, and I think we'll show up even so with ai, people are hesitant to share too much information, so they give you just enough to get what they need resolved, but always not enough information to understand the full picture. And this goes back to this whole how do you get people to open up more about what it is? And I get it. I'm kind of the same way in some regard on being a little guarded. Right? Yeah,
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (18:44):
I agree. I think the other factor is not only do they not want to share as much information perhaps as needed to make good informed decisions, there's also this sense of wanting to do what's easiest and what's quickest, what's going to give me the result, the fastest kind of thing. As we're in this unique position, you guys are as well west, we're in this unique position in that we're selling into the employer market. And I can't tell you how many of our potential clients say to us, I do not want another point solution. And that's being heard across the marketplace. And so when you think about, and as an employer, when you think about how do you service your employees if everything is a point solution, and I think again, the best way to do that is to really understand what they need and provide those options, but also make sure that that people aren't buying or selecting benefits that they're not going to use or that they think they may need. But it turns out at the end of the year they don't. And so that's where a lot of counseling comes in, sitting down with them and really understanding where they are.
Wes Burke (19:58):
The
(19:58):
One thing I forgot to mention, you reminded me of John Paul. We have auto triggers that also pop up. So as an example, we have a holiday that comes around, example Juneteenth when Juneteenth pops up and it goes out with the communications, we put our chair to load donations benefit at the bottom, we talk about our volunteer efforts and how you can get involved and report that, but then also if you need childcare during that time, if you need anything related to mental. So those are all time to go out with specific communications that are event driven. Similarly, if you're reaching out for a leave, like I mentioned before, all of that sort of tied in together. Yeah,
Alyssa Place (20:35):
I mean as a relatively new mom, the leave process was the most confusing thing and the early days of having my son and I'm on the phone with everything. So I would've appreciated more of those triggers, but we got through it. So we're all good. But that sort of points to the own point that perhaps my company did have some of these benefits and I just didn't know about them. So I wanted to ask you, and you just mentioned that when these holidays come up, you start promoting those benefits then, but what are some of the other ways that you're getting employees to actually engage and to your point, to really know, oh, this is something that I do want and will use. How do you really get that message across to them?
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (21:16):
In some ways I think you lead by example. I'll give you a great example. Last week I try and donate blood every quarter. I have one of the rarest blood types and I go to do my blood donation and I use my VTO hours to do it. I take photos while I'm there and I post them on Slack and I say, Hey, this is a great way to use your VTO hours and this is a great cause and here's why. For holidays and things like that, we really try and help people understand what does this holiday day mean to the people that are celebrating that sort of thing. So a lot of it is really just through transparency and communication. And even with our plans, I'm a big fan of letting people know, Hey, this is what we've been presented with, this is what the cost is going to be for the company. These are the coverages. And oh, by the way, if you're the only employer, you and your family are the only family on this particular plan, let's look for another option for the good of the organization, but also to make sure you're getting the coverages you need. So a lot of it for us is about really the communication and transparency around what we're doing. I don't
Wes Burke (22:26):
Have anything to add to that. I think completely agree to that. Good job. Yeah, thanks. Good job.
Alyssa Place (22:33):
So we were talking before about the role of AI and technology and there's obviously some fear to that, but it can also be a really useful tool and even perhaps help you take some of the heavy lifting. So how are you utilizing AI and helping employees get over those fears?
Wes Burke (22:49):
So the AI fear is real, and I think all of us are trying to understand what this means. It's infiltrating every bit of our life in the workplace. It's a special real concern around privacy, the types of questions and things that will be shared. And I think it starts by some level of transparency and communicating what the rules of the world are and how we're using ai, how it shows up, what data is shared to the comments that John Paul made earlier. Communication, transparency, providing some level of feedback loop for us in particular, we've been piloting into AI over the past several months, and we actually go full live with our open enrollment this year. And the initial sort of learnings that we've had, there's a lot of questions around PTO as an example.
(23:33):
And so my hypothesis on why PTO is being asked is because it's not a common question that you typically go and ask your leader about. They're a little considered more easier silly questions. Similarly, I go on and ask Google Gemini odd questions that I wouldn't ask my doctor or my family, if that makes any sense. And also, I don't know that I would want some of those questions to get out there, but we are seeing a little bit of that. I do think we're going to see a level of pickup. And my point before is these are contained sort of back office things that only show up to a number, handful of people within our organization and also their themes. We don't necessarily report out by person is the other part that we've tried to use the aggregate data, but we're anticipating through open enrollment getting a lot of questions coming through.
(24:14):
And so I'm excited about that for us. By the way though, if AI gets to a point where it can answer a question, it flags it then for a ticket and puts it to a human. So there's still a human in the loop to make sure that we've got some level of coverage as we go through the answer. My goal in the next year or so is that 80% or so of our questions that are coming through around benefits are going through some level of ai and that it also helps with the aggregator that we kind of talked about before and directing people to the right benefits or serving up an answer that really helps arbitrate along the way. So I'm excited about that. I think it's going to be a huge lift.
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (24:51):
I think the future of ai, I think we're just going to scratch the surface the next couple of years as it specifically as it relates to benefits. But I think where we're going to see AI make a huge impact is the predictive analytics around people's journey from a health perspective, whether it's mental health or physical health, there's plenty of activity right now out there, companies that are starting to develop algorithms that are building predictive analytics around how patients are being coded, what treatments they're on, the progression of their disease. So I think what we'll see in the future is AI will eventually help us pick a health plan that won't just serve us today, but will serve us on whatever the analytics is telling us our health journey will be in the future. And I think that's where we're going to see the biggest impact.
Alyssa Place (25:51):
Yeah, I mean you have technology and you have all of these tools. I think at the end of the day, if people like their jobs or don't like their jobs, that also plays a huge role in their engagement with benefits, their engagement with your culture. I thought it was really telling that you do something like give blood and show that example, or perhaps someone who's having a hard time with PTO, maybe you say, I'm going off on a week vacation. So what are some of those strategies that you're using, those real just sort of basic workplace culture strategies that sort of set the tone? This is a place where you can be yourself, ask those questions, and here are all the benefits that we have to support that journey for you.
Wes Burke (26:30):
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm lucky to have a CEO specifically who lives and breathes some level of vulnerability every single day. And he's had some unfortunate things happen to his and his family specifically over the past couple of years. And he's been pretty open with the company about his journey and what that means. But how that then shows up with the rest of the leadership team is just what you said before, is modeling and talking about it. And we even go into the back to school season to say, Hey, this is a really stressful time. And so as you think about getting your kid enrolled in school, getting back to normal job routine, take some time, think about your amended work schedule. We're similar in the sense that we're back in the office three days a week from a hybrid perspective, but we're not doing active enforcement.
(27:17):
We tell our people, you're adults as a result of that, we expect you to do these things. But we also know, and I actually sent a note out about this this year, we anticipate we're going to be led in the office because you're juggling with the new routine, et cetera. So it's going back to this idea of flexibility and sort of some level of fairness within that flexes across every single generation within our workplace. And that level of treating people like adults, you'll get that in return. I mean, we're lucky in the sense that while we've said three days a week, most people are following that, right? We've got some exceptions here and there, but it's one that's worked well for us. So to me, I think that's sort of the two people like adults, given the flexibility they need to make the right decisions and then make sure they've got the tools that are accessible and model that for 'em.
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (28:01):
Yeah, I agree. I think it's good to hear that you also have a CEO that's very transparent and approachable in terms of what's going on with them. We are a little bit unique in that we're a mission-driven organization. I mean, we are very committed to cardiovascular health and bringing cardiology care to the 99.9% of the people that need it, that don't have access to it for whatever reason. And I recently, last year, I kicked off a project at the beginning of the year. It literally took us 12 months to identify our core values. And I did that across the organization. We have facilities in Southeast Asia, we have facilities in Europe, and I brought a group about 15 people together to work on this project. And it took us a full year, not because we couldn't decide on what the values were, but because we were challenged to really express just how much the mission and the passion each of our employees feels for what we do was being expressed and how do we measure that and how do we label that?
(29:13):
That was an unbelievable undertaking. I'd never had that project take me a year before. We had a lot of people involved, but in the end, it was their decision about what we arrived at and it was their decision about how we implemented it. And so today we have a standard that says anytime we're in any meeting or we're in any conversation, we're talking about performance, we're talking about the company performance, we need to root it back to what does it say to us about our values? And I think that's really super important to, people want to feel unified through common beliefs. And going through that exercise and having your employees really define what that means, I think is a really great way to embed that into the organization.
Alyssa Place (30:05):
Yeah, I mean, I think the world of work has certainly undergone such a huge transition over the last couple of years, and during COVID, it seemed like there was such a shift of employers saying, we will do absolutely anything to get you to stay here and sign on to our values. And now there's been a bit of a turn and it's almost the employee saying, please don't fire me. So how does benefits play a role in that? Do you still see that as being a top differentiator? Is that still something that you have to work so hard to say, we're top of class, this is why you should come here. How has that shift affected your approach to the benefits piece?
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (30:51):
I think for us, we've, we've really stayed committed to presenting to our employees on an annual basis their total rewards. And what that means is this is what we as an organization are investing in you and your family on an annualized basis so that they have a good purview of what that looks like. I think the other way that this shows up for us is, believe it or not, it's through the feedback that we get from our customers for the work that we're doing. And that's really, I can't even begin to describe to you how important that is. Every meeting we go into every company, all hands we have, we take a minute just to look at the reviews that we get on Amazon and some of the stories that people are telling us, we put them on the Slack channel. I mean, we have some unbelievable stories of the impact that our devices have made on people's lives and that we didn't even, it wasn't through our own efforts, it just so happened this person had our device and somehow it made a difference. And so we go out of our way to make sure our employees know that the work they're doing is meaningful.
Alyssa Place (32:12):
Yeah, I think that's really, really important.
Wes Burke (32:15):
Yeah. Similarly, I think we've tried to really understand what is the demographic that we want to attract and appeal. And I kind of mentioned this earlier in the way that our stuff shows up. And so I've been lucky in the sense that our turnover has been somewhat, I mean, look, anybody coming out of 21 and 22, those were not so years in terms of it. I think they've stabilized, stabilized off quite a bit. There is, I would say more sort of fear and uncertainty in the marketplace this year than I've seen in the past five years. And there's specifically in tech. So that's created some sort of interesting dynamics in the workplace because I'll probably not be the most popular person by saying this, but there are people that you do want to leave that are still there. So take that aside for a second.
(33:06):
When we've designed our benefits program and looked at our listening posts and our feedback, we've really, really tried to be laser sharp on who it is that we're trying to attract and retain and what that means for us in terms of our mission. And so it's interesting because I'll go even a step further on demographics. We're like 35 to 44 is 80% of our population today. And so that really says something differently about how we think about Gen Z than other workplaces are. Looking at it as an example, we recognize that we're going to have to address this in the future, but right now it's not the primary sort of demographic that we're looking at. So it's made decision making a little bit easier, but it's also made your conversations on retention easier as well because you're really focused in on what are the things that really help this majority of the population. So it means that we're probably losing out on some good talent as well, but this has been sort of our niche for the last five years or so.
Alyssa Place (34:02):
And just to start wrapping up, and also looking ahead, obviously employee stress, all of the challenges that we've talked about today, they're probably not just going to go away and budgets are going to continue to be sort of tight and constrained, but as you're looking ahead to 2026 and even beyond, what are some of those areas that you anticipate needing to make investments in and what are you looking at to do so?
Wes Burke (34:30):
Yeah, I mean, as we've just been all day talking about modern benefits and things outside of it, I do have real concerns about medical costs right now. I mean, I think the last I'd heard is, but insured companies are facing something like 18% on average increases. And so that has a very big downhill impact on how we think about the rest of our benefits and what we can fund and not fund. And so the inflationary impact on that is concerning, but I'm even trying to think about how do we look at cost containment a little bit more sharply, especially with the advance of immunotherapies, GLP ones like that. So that's one thing. But then if we just take the table stakes off, the health benefits off for a second, to me it's resiliency. As I think about the evolution of this and resiliency, meaning how do we make sure that we are building for not just this year, but two to three years in terms of stability? And then thirdly, because of this hybrid remote workforce, I think a lot of people are, the level of loyalty and connection to your company is less than it was before. And so I heard somebody say the other day, same zoom, different people. And so we're trying to think about that brand differentiation within the benefits offering. I think that's going to become more and more important unless something dramatically changes in workplace trends and where we are today. That to me is going to be the top way that we differentiate ourself as we go forward.
Jon-Paul Ales-Barnicoat (35:53):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with all of that. The only thing that I would add to that is I think especially in the uncertain economic times that we're faced with right now, I think that fear of losing your job is real. And one of the things we're thinking a lot about is how do we help people build resilient savings and income for the future? I chair our 401k committee, our participation rate is amazing. Our match is amazing. We talk a lot about the valuation that we are trying to achieve from a stock option perspective, but we are increasingly getting demands from our employees to understand what their financial futures look like. And that I think is where we're going to see a real spike in support that employees are going to want to have across the board.
Alyssa Place (36:54):
Well, thank you both so much for your insights. Obviously you have a lot of work to do, so I appreciate you taking the time to spend with us today. And again, thank you. Thank you for everything and thanks for joining. Thanks.
Wes Burke (37:05):
Thank you having us.
(37:05):
Appreciate it.
LEADERS is a flagship channel that spotlights C-level executives and top experts as they discuss transformative topics for an audience of key decision-makers. We deliver thought leadership on the most pressing issues driving financial services. The LEADERS series is made possible by the support from top industry collaborators including Inspira.
