Health equity, inclusivity, and the talent war: Why family-building should be the foundation of your benefits plan

Paola Peralta, Associate Editor, Editorial Arizent; Abbie Buck, Chief People Officer, Collective Health; Leslie Neitzel, Chief Human Resources Officer, Carrot Fertility; Shawna Oliver, Head of Global Benefits & Wellness, Manulife; Eric Thompson, Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer, Vantage Bank

Transcription:

Paola Peralta (00:08):

Well, hello and welcome to Health Equity Inclusivity in the Talent War, why Family Building Should Be the Foundation of Your Benefits Plan. And I will briefly introduce my lovely panelists. We have Abbie Buck, chief People Officer at Collective Health, Eric Thompson, executive Vice President and Chief Human Resource Officer at Vantage Bank. Shauna Oliver, head of Global Benefits and Wellness at Manulife. And Leslie Neitzel needs a Chief Human Resources Officer Officer at Carrot Fertility. So if you guys would just like to go ahead and give a brief overview of your companies and what you provide for the employer employee space.

Abbie Buck (00:45):

Sure. So, Hi I'm Abbie. It's so nice to be here at Collective Health. Of course, we power employers health plans, self-funded employer, self-insured employers, health plans, and really work to create amazing outcomes for their members through a variety of different means, which I know we'll have an opportunity to talk about.

Leslie Neitzel (01:05):

Thanks. I'm Leslie. It is wonderful to be here. Thank you all for joining us. I'm excited to spend some time with y'all on obviously a very important topic at Carrot Fertility. Fertility care is a fundamental part of healthcare and we work with companies to customize the benefit to make fertility care and family forming affordable and accessible to everyone who wants it and needs it regardless of their age, their sex, sexual identity gender, marital status, and even geographies. So working to customize that benefit through financial support, emotional and medical support for your employees.

Eric Thompson (01:43):

Well, Thank you. My name is Eric Thompson and I think I'm a little different cuz I'm not a provider I'm actually an employer and I'm up here really I guess to talk about what we've done in our space especially over the past couple of years to really focus on just the healthcare equity and how we've changed and what we do to listen to our associates and try to make sure that everybody's included.

Shawna Oliver (02:12):

Thank you. Good morning. I'm Shawna Oliver. I don't work for Vantage Bank but I lead global benefits at Manulife John Hancock. We're 40,000 life employer and we like to pride ourselves and decisions made easier and lives made better and really look to work with our customers and improving their lives through the insurance products we offer and really embrace that mentality when we look at what we offer our employees.

Paola Peralta (02:40):

And this might be kind of a loaded question obviously, but if you guys could just go briefly over in your respective fields, what is kind of the landscape right now that you guys are perceiving with family benefits family building benefits?

Abbie Buck (02:54):

Well that there's so much to that. A couple. Obviously politically speaking, it's a very charged environment. We've got the pandemic, so whether you're talking about family forming or other types of needs, there're just a lot of growing employee needs to manage through the full spectrum of reproductive care and family forming benefits to behavioral health. So there's a lot going on right now and trying to create an inclusive environment where people get what they need when they need it is top of mind, but layered on a lot of other things that benefits and other HR leaders are wrestling with right now.

Leslie Neitzel (03:44):

Yeah, I would have to agree and I'll double click a little bit on what Abbie said. I do think while the last couple of years has been obviously quite interesting for all of us, the pandemic sort of accelerated this convergence of work in life and I think employees are expecting a lot more from employers to support all stages of their lives. And when it comes to family forming that starts with the intending parents. We're seeing a strong demand for that. And again, as Abbie alluded to, even just a lot of what's happening from a reproductive health is creating different needs and demands that employers are asking for. And I think as employers, if we don't respond to that, your employers will find them employers that do. And so I think it's learning to hear what those needs, the varying needs of are your employees to support them along their journeys.

Eric Thompson (04:38):

And I'll say exactly what Leslie, for us, the talent war I'm sure is just like it is for everyone. Not only retaining but also trying to attract in the past two years has been challenging. But what we have found is that our associates are asking for things that they've never asked for before and they're much more willing to ask for them. That's been the other piece to it is used to they would keep quiet but now they're very vocal about what they're looking for. And time has been one of the big keys to that. And not only time as far as their ability to work flexible schedules, but also their time off and then their time with the family. And that's been one of the challenges that we've been juggling and learning from over the past couple of years.

Shawna Oliver (05:31):

So, I actually think this is a really exciting time to be in the benefits space. And we've all talked about recruiting and retention and the need to really focus on employees and all of the big consulting houses. Their studies are showing right now that if you look at what are keeping employees at companies or what is bringing them into a company for the first time in over a decade, benefits has moved from five or six to two or three. So we're getting some benefits is finally getting some play right? And so all of us in this space are really happy. So it's our time to start asking for things that we've been told no for years. So even though we're in an environment where we get it, the economy's hard, there's a lot going on, it's rough in a lot of ways out there but now is not your time to cut benefits. Now is the time to be bold and ask. And so it's a really great space to be in.

Paola Peralta (06:31):

And I love that concept of asking for things that you used to not want to ask for you were told no to before. And I know that Eric talked about a little bit about things that he is seeing that employees are asking for, but from the provider space, I'm curious, what are some benefits that you guys have seen kind of popping up in the trends that maybe you didn't see before or things that maybe you guys have had to get ahead of as demand has risen?

Abbie Buck (06:54):

Well, I can highlight a couple of things and I'll talk about it from the standpoint of how we work with clients to how we're also supporting our own employees because it's a two sided coin for us. One of the ways that we are responding to that, and I agree and I think it's a really powerful time because there's so much interest and benefits in my mind have moved from something that was probably maybe table stakes to something that has true attraction and retentive value for a workforce. And so as one of the things, and Carrot is one of our premier partners and working with like-minded partners to provide sort of a full suite of options including point solutions for things like behavioral health, for things like family forming benefits for things like access to oncology. There's just a lot out there. And so creating something that's integrated and can help clients meet those needs is really part of our powerful value proposition from an employee perspective. I would say too, this is one of those places where part of the title of this talk is about inclusion and thinking about how you provide inclusive benefits to someone. As Leslie said, no matter where they are on their journey or no matter what their specific situation is or how they identify or what their role is that we are providing access to different things and a more expansive view of things like family form forming. It's not just about the actual helping through conception or adoption, but also responding to childcare needs and the like. So I think it's about expanding our own mindset as well in order to serve our employees needs.

Leslie Neitzel (08:54):

Yeah, I would agree. And it's interesting especially in the US employees largely look to their employers for their healthcare needs and as I mentioned a little bit earlier, the expectations are shifting dramatically in terms of what that is. And in talking about the inclusivity a little bit, as Abbie mentioned for intending parents, so thinking about care fertility for intending parents a one size fits all even within that doesn't apply anymore. Largely when you think about family forming infertility is something that might come to mind specific for a female, but the reality is that leaves out the entire LGBTQ plus population for them infertility is not something that is covered or not part of their journey. So things like adoption and donor assisted journeys are fundamentally part of that. So you're leaving out large employee populations if you're isolating in terms of one approach to how you wanna handle family forming, for example again, thinking about benefits from an employer perspective, it's how you build trust with your employees. It's saying, Hey, I value you in the workplace and I value your life at home as well. And so I think we need to be opening our minds up to again, the broad range of the life stages that individuals may go through.

Eric Thompson (10:24):

And I'll say, I want to give Shawna what you said about the whole idea of benefits used to be down four and five, you're spot on mean. It has become now, especially when we're focusing on trying to hire top talent the thing that we're finding now is, yeah, I know about my salary, but tell me about your benefits and beyond just the medical and dental because you know what, I can get that anywhere. So, now it's become what can we offer? And you're right now we are at the point where we can go and say, look, I need to budget this and I need to put this and I need to offer it if I want to attract that top talent. And that's been something that of course the board but also our C F O is becoming more open to and saying, okay, yeah, you're right, we need to make sure we're including this.

Shawna Oliver (11:17):

Yeah, I think one of the realities that Covid brought to us is many of us in this space, and I'm sure Eric you saw this is throughout the pandemic, every two to three weeks we all got an email that said, what can we do for our employees and what benefit could we offer for our employees? And for a lot of us we offer great benefits and after a while at Manulife we said maybe we're not asking ourselves the right question and maybe the question is, are our benefits not working the way we intended them to? And so I think a lot of reflection has come over the past 18 to 24 months to say, we spend so much time building this ecosystem and we put this benefit platform in place and we put medical dental and we assume this one size fits all and that when you flip it over, everybody comes up and they all have the same experience, but it's not. And so now's really the time to say you might have a fertility benefit, you might have a mental health benefit, but when everybody goes to access that benefit, your employees are not having the same experience every single one of us on this panel when we go to access that fertility benefit or that mental health benefit or going to have a foundationally different experience. And if in the system that you built you don't like how your employees are going to access that, then it's your duty to fix it. And that's where we're at in benefits today.

Paola Peralta (12:41):

Absolutely. And you touched on the LGBTQ community, but obviously equity and inclusivity play a huge part in in family building. And so what does it mean to have equitable and inclusive family building plans and whether that can be something that you guys particularly offer or things that you would like to see the landscape offer more? Yeah. What does it just all mean for providers and for employers?

Abbie Buck (13:04):

Well, let's maybe a good place to start in responding to that is that family accessible, family forming is part of dealing with the fact that people have different levels of privilege and absent a point solution like a carrot or the others that are out there it's a really expensive process to go through and that alone can eliminate that as an option for people. And so I think if you start with privilege and think about how do I create access for my workforce no matter what level of privilege they have, how they identify what their role is in the company how we pay them, et cetera, that they have access. So sorry. So one of my, our solutions really is to work with valued point solution providers so that we can create an inner and integrated and connected experience building on what Shauna said. And so that's one point I'll let the other panelists speak, but I think we have to start there because if it's not available then you're naturally just shutting out a whole set of constituencies.

Leslie Neitzel (14:30):

And I do really like what Shauna said around the unique experience that people have with the benefits that you offer. So sort of double clicking on family farming and making sure it's inclusive and equitable. There's so many nuances. I talked a moment ago about the lgbtq plus population and the fact that they are looking into adoptions and donor assisted journeys but there's also this whole swath of just understanding the emotional aspect of family forming. And when you look at some of the different populations and different demographics, their experience can be more or less stressful than someone else's. So having access not just to the financial benefit, which is quite significant obviously as Abbie was alluding to in terms of the cost of things like adoption, but also understanding what's available, the impacts of the legal process through something like an adoption or access to a clinic that has been vet for LGBTQ plus affirming care. There's so many experiences where these demographics, these people experiences have arguably a discriminatory process when they're thinking about their family forming journey. So it's the financial benefit while incredibly wonderful and provides a ton of support, there's a whole aspect of the emotional, the education that can go into creating a more inclusive experience for employees.

Eric Thompson (16:01):

And as an employer, I think the first thing for us was we had to understand and get to know who our people were Before Covid, we were just like, I'm sure many organizations offering just a blanket set of here's your products here, here's the medical, here's your dental. And it was one size kind of fits all. But when we really started doing engagement surveys and we started doing pulse surveys and we started looking at our people analytics and determining what are our demographics, everything. And we really started to dig in. We saw that the products and services that we were offering, those benefits that we thought we were offering to everybody really weren't equitable. The large Gen Z population that we have at our organization, they had no benefit from some of the providers that we were offering, whereas our not so large group of individuals that were almost at retirement. For them it was great. And so we really had to start thinking about, okay, who's getting the most out of these benefits and who utilizes 'em in the best way? And that's where we've started going in and for us is truly making decisions of who's going to use these and how are they going to use. And what we've found even in family planning has been a big one. We believe it or not, banking is not generally the most progressive I know, but family planning was one of our biggest areas. We did start seeing a lot of these Gen Zers coming in and saying, Hey, we want something to help with our family planning, whether it's adoption fertility, benefits, and those were the areas that we started saying, wow, that's what we need to change. And that not only from a retention standpoint obviously we want to hold, but as a title says their talent war, that's been the questions we get asked. Tell me about your family, tell me about your leave policies. If I have a child or if I adopt, tell me what you can provide.

Shawna Oliver (18:21):

Yeah, I think that what I would add here is when we talk about inclusivity, it can start with the littlest of things. It can start with making your communications gender neutral. It can start with reviewing your fertility policy and taking out words like maternal and putting in words like gestational carrier, right? Little steps like that go a really long way as an organization acknowledging that we're all in this together, however you identify for us, we at Manual Life partner with Included Health who I don't think they know that I'm promoting them, I think they're next door, but they have an LGBTQ plus two concierge for our employees. So for anything and everything that our employees may need I can honestly tell you that my account partner has taught me something every time I talk to them. And I try to consider myself a pretty open person and I learn every day. And I think it's really amazing what they bring in addition to the concierge and helping our employees find benefits and helping through gender affirmation or the fertility process they have really partnered with us to bring real conversations into our workforce. So we're launching this fall a family series of conversations called My Child's talking to me about gender identity and I don't know how to talk back how do I deal with bullying with my kids? And really just real life examples. I don't know, I'm sure a lot of you in the audience have children. When I was in school we didn't talk about gender identity weren't, people didn't talk about being non-binary or binary. And when my son starts asking me these questions, I don't know how to handle them your employees are going through these same conversations. So these are very real topics and even inviting those types of conversations into your workforce is making them more inclusive

Leslie Neitzel (20:25):

I was just going to say, I don't mean to interrupt, but something that both Shauna and Eric actually touched on made me think too, you know, mentioned the surveys and getting feedback from your employees. You mentioned things like the inclusive language. You have so many resources at your disposal within your workforce. So a lot of us have employee resource groups which have become much more prevalent within organizations. They are a great resource for, even for HR and benefit leaders to tap into understand what are the broader needs of the workforce, how can we be more inclusive in our education materials regarding our benefits or the offerings that we have. So I would just encourage employers to be leveraging not only the voice of your employees, but also these resource groups, which could be a great representation of the demographics within your companies

Paola Peralta (21:17):

And marrying what you had just said before about how it's our responsibility to change those things. And even just on the question I just asked, and this may seem obvious, but what are the consequences if employers do not? And Eric, I'm interested in knowing your take on this as well as an employer if they don't make more progressive benefit choices and what's going to happen in the long term.

Abbie Buck (21:41):

I mean I think it comes down to as we've all talked about, the ability to attract and retain even given a chaotic sort of macroeconomic environment right now people for the most part have a lot of choice. And so I think it is a war for talent, if you're talking about and whatever role it is, great sales people, great software engineers great HR leaders, whatever it is, I think being curious and attentive to those needs sets you up to really compete for talent. And building on what Leslie said too, I think your willingness to listen to learn and to be curious is so vital. And I too learn every day. There's new language, there are new concepts, there are new ways of thinking about inclusion that I like to think that I'm a lifelong learner on all of this. And I think that that's not only is it important, but there's real business value in it because employees will vote with their feet.

Leslie Neitzel (22:57):

Yeah, I mean, I'll echo the sentiment around retention being a big part of the consequences of things like this and the attraction from a recruiting perspective, but I think I alluded to this early on, family forming in particular again is it can be a very stressful experience. And so even the productivity that you get from your employees, knowing that you're providing more inclusive benefits can go a long way. And not doing that can result arguably and people not bringing able to bring their best selves to work every day. The other side of it is any experience you have with an employee, however long that is, they're an extension of your brand. They will walk out of your organization and they will talk about their experience with you as an employer. And so thinking about that sort of domino effect, the world is small and I think Covid has, and the pandemic has shrunken even further because so many of us work from home or have flexible schedules or work arrangements. I think being mindful of them carrying their experience with you to another employer is something to be mindful of.

Eric Thompson (24:13):

I think, and I apologize, I don't know who said this during one of the previous sessions, but one of the things that if you don't start making these changes someone had mentioned some a program like Comparably which goes out and one of the things that will happen is unless I said your folks are going to go out and they will talk and whether they're posting a comment or something on a comparably or some site, if you don't make those changes, you will become known as an employer that doesn't focus on these areas. And that when you're talking about war on talent is huge because that is something that happens now folks, and we all do it. It's that age of where we always look for feedback. And so when an individual is looking to go switch jobs or they have a recruiter call or something and Hey, would you be interested in coming to XYZ location? Well, and I do it as myself. First thing I do is I go out and I search and I said, I want to know what are some the, what's feedback that I'm hearing not from the CEO but from the employees themselves. And that's going to drive a lot of that. If your employees are saying this place isn't an inclusive work organization, they don't do anything to help me from a family standpoint it will get out and that will hurt your efforts.

Shawna Oliver (25:41):

So I won't repeat what my esteemed colleagues that up here, but I'm actually just, I'll make a statement. I think in the same vein relevant in that all of the research coming out of academia right now is saying not only that is expected from employees, but from a consumer expectation perspective, millennials and younger expect you as a corporation to take a stand and people's purchase patterns of your products will depend on whether or not you take a stand. So, these issues about inclusivity, about where you stand as an organization go far beyond what your benefits are. The time, there was a long period of time where corporations stayed silent and didn't say things but that time has vastly changed with the interest of what we're seeing from the younger generations. And so it's time to get with it. It's plain and simple

Paola Peralta (26:37):

And I love that we're bringing up the younger generation because I'd be remiss to not bring up the fact that they're going to make up some of the largest demographics of the workforce. And so what are some of the biggest discrepancies between what the younger generation wants from their family building benefits and what maybe the older generation wanted and how do you make sure that you're recruiting and you're offering enough for both and recruiting for both demographics?

Abbie Buck (27:02):

I almost feel like Leslie should maybe start.

Leslie Neitzel (27:05):

Yeah, Happy to start. I think it comes down to being inclusive and flexible in the offerings that you have because the younger generations are not going through maybe the family forming in the ways that some of us have. And they could be single intending parents, they may want to freeze eggs for the future. We talked already about the LGBTQ plus population. It's just very different ways and journeys to parenthood that these individuals are expecting, experiencing and contemplating. And so I think having a variety of ways to support them is really the biggest difference between, I won't age myself, but maybe the things that I went through in my own journey to become a parent. So I think just sort of short and sweet. I think it's some of it's the variety and being as inclusive as possible.

Abbie Buck (28:02):

I agree with that. I think sort of responding to this question, but also reflecting on your previous question too, I think one of the ways that it's important to think about these things is also aligned with values. I think we talked about employees willingness to speak up and ask for things. I also think people are expert at recognizing, sort of experiencing and articulating cognitive dissonance when values and actions are not aligned. And so if you are saying that you value inclusion and every company out there says it, I myself have worked for companies where the values and the experience were not well aligned, I think that is extremely problematic. And so thinking about these things broadly and Leslie's done a nice job I think, of articulating sort of all of the different paths. And I know one of my early experiences at Collective Health, someone asked me why we didn't provide bereavement leave for someone who has suffered from a miscarriage. And that's another, I mean it's just a small example, but it's another one where it's like, well, we need to take a step back and think about our time off programs. Why don't we include that? Why wouldn't we offer that? And that's where that willingness to learn and the curiosity kind of blends beautifully with employee feedback cuz it gives you an opportunity to respond to different needs.

Eric Thompson (29:35):

Willingness to learn in that curiosity. That's great because I had someone we were trying to bring over to the organization, tell me, I don't care about your healthcare because I'm not going to use that. This was a younger individual who I'm healthy, it's not important to me. Tell me what else you can offer. And those are the things that really required us to start thinking beyond. Cuz we were just, I'm sure like many organizations, for us it was always healthcare. What do you do for the healthcare portion, not everything else. We offer the health of the dental, et cetera. And those are extremely important benefits to Gen X but it's not driving the Gen Zers and millennials. And that's where we had to start going. And one of our biggest has been our time off policies. We totally changed our time off policy and that has been one of our biggest drivers. And I get more comments in our engagement in our pulse surveys on, thank you for doing that.

Paola Peralta (30:46):

And I know we're over time, but Shawna?

Shawna Oliver (30:47):

Yeah, so I'm just add real quick and for those who know me I tend to sometimes make statements that stir the pot a little bit. So I'll end with some of those. I would challenge everyone. I feel like when it comes to family forming benefits and benefits in general, there's always this statement that goes out there that the minute you say something, they're like, that's so expensive. And I think fertility is one of them. So everyone's like, fertility is so expensive, or mental health is so expensive. Is it really? So we offer unlimited fertility at Manulife. You need to go once, you need to go 30 times, you can go, right? Drugs are fully covered, your fertility costs are fully covered. It is less than 0.25% of our total costs, right? No stress associated with it. You go, we offer unlimited mental health, no cost at Manulife. It is less than half a percent of our total costs in healthcare. So I want everybody to just think about that as they're leaving the room today. These are amazing benefits for family forming. They're amazing. As somebody's going through this journey, they get help, their partner gets help, they get what they need, it takes the stress out of the cycle, the dollar limit, the help they need. And in the scheme of things, that is not even 1% of my total costs. So that is my challenge to you. Just think about it and do the right thing.

Paola Peralta (32:09):

Well, thank you everyone for joining and thank you to my lovely, Panelist. I feel like we could have talked about this forever. Thank you. Yeah.