Faith Technologies incentivizes self care with paid time off – The Business Journals
Healthiest Employers recognizes the innovative organizations that have created robust healthy workplace programs.
Faith Technologies Inc. (FTI) leadership is of the mindset that taking care of employees allows them to then take care of the business. This is why the company is ranked No. 2 in the Healthiest Employers list for 2022 in the Large Company ( 500-4,999 employees) category.
Alyssa Kwasny, FTI’s wellness program manager, answered questions from the Chronicle about their program.
What does health and wellness mean to your company and why do you focus on it? As Richard Branson says, if you take care of your workers, they’ll take care of your business. When you put your people first, everything else falls into place. Supporting our team members with our wellness program and Culture of Care is just a piece of that. FTI strives to create a working environment that shows genuine care and support for their wellbeing and meets them where they are at in their journey. It is invaluable to provide our team members with the tools and resources they need.
Please tell us about some of the most popular and unique health and wellness initiatives at your company. Through our Culture of Care program, FTI introduced a new paid time off benefit in August 2021 called Time to Recharge. Each full- and part-time team member receives two hours of paid time off every month to use toward self-care, personal development and/or professional health services. To date, over 36,000 hours of Time to Recharge have been used by 90% of employees, 87% is toward self-care. Every month, FTI also shares an employee story highlighting how they are using their Time to Recharge.
Can you share an anecdote or example of how a health and wellness program worked at your company? One employee said they realized they were “substantially overweight,” had allergy-induced asthma, and was diagnosed with prehypertension and high blood pressure. “All of these situations had a potential to make it harder for my body to recover if I was infected” with Covid-19, the employee said. They began tracking habits with the Virgin Pulse wellness program and app [we offer], participated in challenges and, the employee said, “By April 2021, I had lost 71 pounds in 14 months. I am also no longer considered prehypertensive!”
How do you measure the effectiveness of your programs? We measure effectiveness through surveys that are both internal and through our wellbeing partner, Virgin Pulse. Nearly 80% of all team members and their spouses are enrolled in the Virgin Pulse wellness platform, 40% higher than Virgin Pulse’s benchmark comparison. Average monthly engagement in the program is 62% versus the benchmark comparison of 49%. 85% of employees and spouses on FTI’s health insurance earned a premium savings for the 2022 year through the Virgin Pulse Program. The company paid out $258,000 in cash rewards through the Virgin Pulse program, with 84% of all employees and spouses earning an incentive (compared to 58% benchmark). The Virgin Pulse wellness survey showed some positive results year over-year as well, when looking at 2021 compared to 2020.
What tips and advice you have for companies looking to create or add to a health and wellness program? Survey employees to gauge interest and find out what they want. The wellness program is built for them, so you want to ensure you are providing benefits and support that are valuable to them. Look at the wellness program with a holistic approach including mental, emotional, financial, social and occupational wellbeing. Get leadership buy-in.
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