The Equitable Employee Experience: How Total Rewards and Career Development Go Hand in Hand

BY Wanly Chen | October 02, 2023

Jason Cerrato, senior director of product marketing at Eightfold, a talent intelligence platform, discovered a downward trend in companies during the pandemic: women at every level were leaving their jobs at high rates, with working mothers bearing the brunt.

In the early months of the pandemic, one in four women in the U.S. lost or left their jobs due to lack of childcare, nearly twice the rate of men. The pandemic exposed the gaps in companies’ benefits, with demand for childcare, once deemed a luxury benefit, to become a necessity.

Demand for childcare support wasn’t the only change benefits packages saw: mental health benefits and workplace flexibility have also become a talking point for job seekers as well. In a panel discussion during From Day One’s Boston conference, moderator Janelle Nanos, business reporter at The Boston Globe, spoke with Cerrato and other industry leaders on how the pandemic reshaped the world of benefits and what leaders must do to keep their workers supported.

Ditching the One-Size-Fits-All Approach

With an increasingly diverse workforce, companies need to offer benefits that cater to different demographics and life stages. “The benefits landscape has drastically changed in the post-Covid era because of the diverse demographics coming into the organization and the level of awareness that the employees have,” Shahina Islam, vice president of HR at IT service management company Zensar, said.

“The focus used to be mostly just compensation, but the conversations happening in the post-Covid era are now ‘You’re offering me compensation, but what else can I look forward to if I join you?’” Benefits should be made to serve every employee, however, that’s not the case. In the U.S., only 61% of employees are satisfied with their benefits.

The disparity calls for greater scrutiny and a problem HR leaders need to be constantly working to solve, says Shawna Oliver, assistant vice president and head of global benefits & wellness at insurance company Manulife Financial Corporation.

“We presume that everybody was having this delightful experience with their benefits. But Covid gave us the permission to say that’s not what happened because we started getting real about the things that we talked about,” Oliver said. “Everybody in this room has a different experience when they go to see their provider, their clinician, their specialist, their mental health provider. And I want everyone to ask themselves, is that what you want from your benefits? To me, when I offer a program, I want everyone to have that really amazing experience when they cross that line. And if that's not happening today, it’s my job to work with my team to make sure it does.”

Data from benefits usage can tell a compelling story for companies, Oliver said. Employee engagement is among some key metrics that can provide data to help companies improve benefit offerings.

“We all look at claims data, we look at engagement, we’ve counted how many people are using value, return on investment, but who here really looks at who’s not using your benefits? That’s just as meaningful,” Oliver said. “If you have pockets of employees with commonalities that are not using your benefits, there’s something wrong with your benefit. Look at your data, look at who’s not using your benefit because it’s really those two combined that’s telling you the full story about what's going on in your program.”

Including Employees in the Benefits Talk

In transitioning to a post-pandemic workplace, employees are making sure the benefits that came about during the pandemic are here to stay. Today’s employees are learning to vocalize their needs more than ever, with employees contributing to the conversations.

Janelle Nanos of the Boston Globe moderated the executive panel discussion.

As Head of Technology at C&W Services, a facility services company, Jodi Enggasser discusses the success she found from involving workers in the benefits conversation. Straying away from the traditional top-down approach and leaning into a discussion forum allows workers to discuss their needs more openly, Enggasser said.

“The decision that was coming from executive leave or leadership was going to be pushed down on us. It didn’t let us have a say or a choice,” Enggasser said. “But now you can raise your hand to be part of a council where that council has a slice from the various types of populations in the company and you have an opportunity to review the types of benefits. It helped us feel like we were a part of the process and like we were part of the solution.”

Supporting Managers

Managers are often the ones interacting with employees the most and can learn of problems and conflicts workers may be dealing with. For managers to best serve employees, managers must be trained and equipped properly, Jess Marble, director of Care for Business, said.

“Your managers are on the front lines of your workforce. They’re the first to hear about a child missing school or a parent being sick. They’re the first to identify some of those triggers that are going to be disruptive to the workforce,” Marble said. “If you empower managers to have the tools to help employees get started on solutions, it’s going to benefit you as an employer because managers are going to be empowered to come to you and ask for solutions that will address some of the pain points that they’re hearing in the workforce.”

The benefits of providing employees with adequate resources and substantial support not only lead to increased employee satisfaction but can increase work productivity and employee retention as well. By removing obstacles for the employees in and out of the workplace, companies are also investing and supporting employee’s career development as well, Cerrato says.

“We build a process that helps with the career side of this career development and sometimes it’s just the visualization of that and making that a reality [for employees],” Cerrato said. “But sometimes that’s not what’s holding that person back. Sometimes it’s the availability of work, the schedule, or returning to the office. When we start to combine these worlds and have some of these, “How are you doing?” conversations, then we’ll be able to have career development conversations.”

Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City. 

RELATED STORIES

Balancing Tradition and Transformation While Hiring Thousands of New Workers

Amtrak is seeing a new era of rail travel.With billions of dollars in new investments, the company has added over eight thousand employees in the past two years alone, with an expected four thousand additional workers for the rest of 2024.The rapid growth leads to an unexpected characteristic for the company: by the end of 2024, 50% of employees will have been there for less than three years.The new wave of workers ushered in requires a fresh perspective in managing, says Robert Grasty, Amtrak’s executive vice president and chief human resource officer. At From Day One’s Washington, D.C. event, Grasty spoke with moderator and Washington Post reporter, Lori Aratani, to discuss how he’s leading the new generation of employees in this age of railroad travel.Presenting Opportunity at RecruitingGrasty never thought he’d enter the transportation industry, let alone lead a major train company. The attraction, however, was the promise of an impactful career.“There’s a lot I didn't know about trains so it was an organization that I didn’t think I would ever go and work for,” Grasty said. “But when I think about the impact we’re having across the U.S., to make sure we are providing transportation and connecting with more people in more places, I became very excited.”The transportation industry can seem silo for some job seekers, but a company like Amtrak also leans on workers who can offer transferable skills across various industries. The trick to recruiting top candidates is identifying those skills needed at the right time, Grasty says.Robert Grasty, Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resource Officer of Amtrak spoke about the growth of the company“If you think about what we do, we bring a lot of different types of talent into the organization, from engineering to project managers,” he said. “We compete against companies like Google and Amazon for the same talent they’re getting from the IT perspective to all of the functional, corporate support areas.”At Amtrak, employee referrals played a large role in attracting talent to the space of transportation. Programs that reward employees for bringing talent through the door are typically more successful, with one case showing employee referrals correlated to a 30% hiring rate compared to the 7% average from alternative sources.“Through our strong referral program, we have employees who can speak on the different initiatives that have added value, not only to the railroad space but also to where we want to be and where we need to go in the future,” Grasty said.Leveraging Data to Make ChangeWhen Grasty first arrived at Amtrak, he realized the company was not utilizing the results from employee surveys to the best of its abilities.“What I noticed about employee surveys was that all the data that was in those reports was what we did and what was coming out of it never changed. The same thing we saw years ago is the same thing we’re seeing today,” Grasty said.When used correctly, data from employee surveys can tell a compelling story about workers’ experiences and can push leaders in the right direction of change. Grasty knew he needed to change Amtrak’s approach to employee surveys and leverage the data collected from the surveys to make impactful change.“We took the data that we got from all the feedback and created a strategy that aligns to what our employees are saying,” Grasty said. “We didn’t want the strategy to just be the strategy, we wanted it to connect to the people who do it every day out there on the front line.”The shift in utilizing data has been beneficial to Grasty and his team, who have seen improvement in employee engagement and synergy amongst different parts of the company.“Everyone understands the organization, where it’s going, and how we all connect and impact our company. So, for us, utilizing our data in the proper way is a big success for Amtrak,” Grasty said.Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City.

Wanly Chen | May 10, 2024

Do Your Workers Feel a Sense of Belonging and Recognition?

Employees thrive and remain in organizations where they feel included and valued. Creating a comfortable space where everyone feels that they are heard and seen is crucial to recruitment and retention. During a panel discussion at From Day One’s conference in Salt Lake City, four experts offered tips and tricks on helping employees feel that they have a part in the conversation.For Emma E. Houston, chief diversity officer at the University of Utah, it starts with ‘hello.’ “One of the things that I make a habit of doing is saying, ‘Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.’ Because what is important is for individuals to be seen. So when you’re thinking about how you help people feel included, acknowledge their presence. Simply acknowledge their presence, and then the conversation can start from there. Just greeting someone on a regular basis, making that pause and making that acknowledgement that ‘I see you’ is one of the very first steps in creating a space of inclusivity,” Houston told session moderator Robert Gehrke, government and politics reporter at the Salt Lake Tribune.Matt Frisbie, chief marketing officer at AXOMO builds rapport in the workplace with stories, sweets (he prefers Snickers) and swag, which is appropriate since Namify manufactures branded gear. “The shortest distance between two people is a story,” said Frisbie. “We all have a story, we all have experiences that we can share. Ask open-ended questions and invite that [sharing], and try to get to their story.”Every Thursday at two o’clock, they walk the whole manufacturing facility with a box of snacks, says Frisbie. There’s everything, chips, Snickers, and healthy snacks, too. “But the point is actually to just walk in and smile, and say hello.”Weslie Porter, the director of culture and engagement for the state of Utah’s Department of Government Operations, shared a unique example of how different groups can have different needs, and they need to feel comfortable expressing those needs. He began by surveying attendees, asking who was right-handed [most of the audience], and who left [a few], and named scissors as one tool that is commonly engineered for right-handed people.“I have a left-handed friend,” he shared. They have to be very deliberate and strategic on where they sit when they go out to eat, he says. What’s interesting about this, as right-handed people, sometimes we think that things are just the norm. And so when we think about how we make people feel included, and feel welcome, we take a minute, and we realize that sometimes the norm comes from the majority.“And so the first step, specifically leadership, and even HR, when we're developing our job description, interview questions, whatever that might be, is to stop and realize, what about my experience is transferring into everything I do? And how do I get the different perspectives?” said Porter.The panelists discussed the topic "Do Your Workers Feel a Sense of Belonging and Recognition?" in Salt Lake CityWhat we can do is realize those perspectives will allow us to make better decisions. And more importantly, “it’ll allow our people to feel like they’re heard, they’re included, and recognized.” When they’re recognized, that’s when magic can happen, he says.Whitney Harper, the senior VP of people at Extra Space Storage, agrees. “I love the analogy of the left-handed versus right-handed. It’s imperative to “[create] those opportunities to listen to those perspectives, and to be open to that” she said.She adds that inclusive language is essential to creating an inviting and inclusive community in the workplace. Leaders need to ensure that “language is accessible to individuals to make sure that when we talk about DEI, we talk about inclusiveness, that we’re not using language that all of a sudden feels jargony.”Houston explained how the University of Utah has sought to achieve that goal, bringing stakeholders together to define what DEI meant for the school to create a consistent language. “We had 75 individuals in the room, creating the definitions of what we believe equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging access would mean at the University of Utah. So now we’re all holding ourselves accountable for what those consistent definitions are, and what the language is, and how we attach those to our values.”Porter has experienced how the language in job descriptions can impact diversity in the applicant pool. “When writing job descriptions, we have a tendency to use words that can mean different things that are bigger than they need to be.” Simplicity is key, he says. When the language is accessible and understood by all, there will be more applicants.He also touted Governor Cox’s initiative towards skill-based hiring, and his own experience being onboarded and welcomed as a completely remote employee. “We focus on the onboarding piece. Some of the data suggests that if you have that good onboarding experience, at the beginning, your attrition rate is going to go low, and [employees] are going to stay there longer for retention. So we really focus on that. In particular, those first couple of weeks are absolutely crucial to make sure that they feel that they can belong, and they can thrive. And we’re seeing some dividends getting paid.”Cynthia Barnes has written about everything from art to zebras from more than 30 countries. She currently calls Denver home.

Cynthia Barnes | May 07, 2024

Cultivating a Strong Corporate Culture in a Changing Work Dynamic

Everyone waited for business to go back to normal following the pandemic. But the pandemic has created a ripple effect that may have changed the workplace forever. Take the tech industry, for example. Jennifer Christie, chief people officer of DocuSign, says that before the pandemic, tech talent was at a premium. But as everyone went remote and everything shifted, tech jobs were less in demand. Christie spoke about the changing work dynamic at From Day One’s conference in D.C. The biggest shift, she says, has been the relationship between employers and employees, especially trust and shared values. But there were other changes.“Loyalty started to increase a little bit because people didn’t want to leave during the pandemic,” she said. “But they also wanted a lot of flexibility that companies were willing to take risks to offer.”Now that people are used to not commuting, they’d rather not go back to commuting. Same goes for any other benefits that arose during the pandemic. Some companies are having to dial things back, and now there’s more labor to choose from. The power dynamic is shifting–but so are expectations. “We’re having a new relationship dynamic. And just like with any relationship, when all those things shift, you’ve got to kind of recontract.” Employers and employees are having those hard conversations and figuring out a balance.Hybrid work has emerged as one give-and-take between employers and employees. Moderator Taylor Telford of the Washington Post asked how businesses can create a strong culture in a hybrid environment. “What does that look like at DocuSign?” They looked at specific roles when deciding who should be in the office and when, reclassifying the roles as necessary. But to make it fair, if someone was hired specifically as a remote worker, they could stay remote until they changed roles. “We’re not going to bait and switch you right in the middle of this. We knew this was going to take a while to evolve, and we’re going to let that work it out.” About half of the roles are remote and the other half are hybrid, with a specific schedule of when they come in.“But what I think we’ve moved to is not obsessing so much about where someone works, but how people are working,” Christie added. Obviously, they didn’t want people coming into the office just to sit on virtual calls the whole time. The return to work needed to make sense. Focus on Progression Generally speaking, employers strive to retain employees. But if the number of people leaving is super low, that leaves no room for anyone else to be promoted. That’s why Christie says progression has become more important than ever.“Promotion is not always progression,” she said. “There has to be development and learning.” Rotation programs can be helpful in giving people a sense of growth and development without taking a new role or a promotion. Gen Z workers are especially craving this kind of development.“I think they’re just a sponge right now. Because they have missed so many opportunities to observe and to have mentors and just to learn organically,” Christie said.Jennifer Christie, Chief People Officer of DocuSign, right, was interviewed by Taylor Telford, Corporate Culture Reporter at The Washington Post Speaking of various generations of employees, paying attention to their different needs is important in all aspects of what the company can offer, from growth opportunities to benefits. During the pandemic, benefit offerings may have expanded and changed. Now that we’re post-pandemic, it can be hard to take away what people are used to having.“The multigenerational employee bases that we have is challenging,” Christie said. Some want student loans paid off, others couldn’t care less about a 401k, and others care more about family planning, and more people are looking for caregiver support. “It can be all over the map,” she added. At DocuSign, they’ve taken a core benefits approach of what most people want and offer a menu of options to personalize them as much as possible. Yet another way things have evolved in a way that hopefully benefits employer and employee.Empower the ManagersPerhaps the most unprecedented phenomenon to emerge from the pandemic has been the rise of the middle manager. As Christie said “They were our frontline or defense. They knew how their people were doing, they were the ones to flag to us when things were going wrong, especially because we didn’t have our eyes on people in the same way.”“Managers have to be more agile and meet their employees where they are. If their employees need someone who can connect with them on a more personal level, they’ve got to lean in and do that.” Other employees may need less personalization and more direction. Companies need to prepare managers so they’re ready, no matter how things may shift.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Carrie Snider | May 02, 2024