Creative Benefits to Attract & Retain Top Talent

[00:00:00] David Rice: Welcome everybody to, um, our latest in our community events series, uh, here at People Managing People. I’m happy to be here. This is gonna be, uh, we’re hoping to see these grow all the time and we look forward to doing a lot more of them. So thank you for your feedback so far and for joining us today.

For those of you who don’t know, uh, my name is David Rice. I’m the Senior Editor of People Managing People and I’m your host for the day. Have a great day. Today’s session is going to focus on creative benefits to attract and retain top talent. And we’ll be speaking with some of the top voices and thought leaders in this space.

We have with us Kara Barnes. She’s the founder of Good Karma Consulting. Kara, if you want to introduce yourself real quick, we’ll just go one by one.

[00:00:50] Cara Barnes: Oh, yeah, sure. Hi, everybody. My name is Kara Barnes, and I am the founder and fractional HR manager for Good Karma Consulting. We provide fractional HR [00:01:00] services for small nonprofits and startups.

I’m happy to be here.

[00:01:05] David Rice: And I am sorry. I knew it was Cara and sucked into the, just seeing it and saying it right.

[00:01:11] Cara Barnes: Uh,

[00:01:13] David Rice: next up is Tara Henning. She’s the founder of Superkin. You want to go ahead?

[00:01:18] Tara Henning: Sure. Hi, thank you. I’m so happy to be here today. Uh, my name is Tara Henning. I’m the founder at Superkin and we are helping companies create holistic employee experiences for parent and caregiving employees, which is around 75 percent of your organization.

Um, in some cases and, um, seeing how benefits programming workshops, um, connect the dots on better retention, talent, attraction, and productivity. So I’m happy to be here.

[00:01:48] David Rice: And then finally we have, uh, oh, excuse me, Aubrey Varot. She’s the Corporate Benefits Director at Centra Health. Aubrey, welcome. And, uh, please introduce yourself.

[00:01:57] Aubrey Varraux: Yeah, thanks, David. Um, yeah, [00:02:00] I’m Aubrey. I am the benefits director at Central Health, which is a, um, midsize hospital system in central Virginia. We have about 7500 employees or so. Um, so I get to spend a lot of time planning and programming, um, you know, what’s best and most attractive to our health care.

population.

[00:02:24] David Rice: Excellent. So we’ll get started with the, with the discussion in just a sec. I do want to just do a couple of housekeeping items though, before we get fully going here. And I’d love to hear where you’re tuning in from today. So please leave that in the Q and A or the chat function. We’ll definitely, you know, say welcome from wherever, from wherever we are.

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We have a few, you know, guests from outside the our community today. So, uh, this is, you know, 1 of our monthly series of events for people managers that we hold. Uh, you can learn more about this and. events like this and the membership as a whole at peoplemanagingpeople. com forward slash membership. So please do head on over there and check that out.

All right. So, uh, as we were discussing, you know, before this, there’s a lot of different benefits out there these days that are important to people. And it’s important to sort of tailor that to people’s needs, you [00:04:00] know, whoever they are, um, whatever sort of their life situation is. And It plays a big part in building sort of not only employee satisfaction, but resilience as well.

That’s something we want to kind of get at today. So. There’s sort of, I want to start with like the reality of benefits today, whether we’re putting together a new benefits plan or we’re looking to updating existing package, you can’t just eat a mini Mighty Mo from a list. Right. So I want to put it to the panel and we’ll start with you, Cara.

What is the first step you take in this process?

[00:04:35] Cara Barnes: Yeah. I mean, there’s like so many things that, that comes into benefits. I think, first of all, it’s like educate yourself into what you’re. able to offer. And a lot of times there are restrictions. So depending on like how big your organization is, especially if you’re a small, uh, nonprofit or organization, uh, you’re, you’re kind of like stuck on these age banded [00:05:00] rates.

And so small businesses aren’t able to offer a wide range. Like they can only offer one plan. Um, and they can’t offer like, for instance, like They could offer Kaiser, for instance, in the U. S. Um, but they can’t offer a PPO plan on top of that unless they they meet certain requirements. So I would say, like, educate yourself.

Like, what are the roles with each of the different kinds of benefits that you’re even able to offer? And then, um, Aubrey and Tara and I were talking about this before, but then going into trying to understand what your people want. And I actually pass it up to Aubrey because she can speak to that way more clearly than I can in the area.

[00:05:42] Aubrey Varraux: Thanks, Cara. Yeah, I think, um, I think what you mentioned is great. Um, there are so many legalities as probably many of, you know, with benefits, um, and Every really every facet you can think of. So I think that’s a great place to start. Um, but one of the things that Cara mentioned is voice of the [00:06:00] customer.

And that’s something that we’ve really taken as, um, one of the key ways that we continue to build. better benefits programs for our employees year over year. So we started in, I believe it was 2022. So not even that long ago, um, we were, we recognized that we didn’t want to just keep adding benefits because they were the new best thing or, you know, You know, our consultants said, Hey, this is great.

Other hospitals are doing this. We really wanted to understand what our people needed and what it was that they wanted from their benefits package. So we, um, created a survey and we sent that to all of our employees and we received feedback directly from them. And then we were able to take that information and build out programs that.

They requested and they wanted, um, and tell a story to our employees. Hey, we really care about the feedback that you provide. So now you’re not only providing them with benefits that they truly value, [00:07:00] but you are letting them know you really value them as an employee because now you’ve taken their voice to build out what you want your employee base to have as a benefit.

[00:07:12] Cara Barnes: I was sitting with like 7, 500 people. That is such a large sum of employees that you have to like really kind of consider what takes priority, right? Yeah, that’s right. I was

[00:07:26] Aubrey Varraux: in that situation. It can be challenging because you can’t do everything right. You kind of have to, um, find things that stick out in the data that, you know, really would be the most beneficial and be ready to explain to that point why you didn’t do something that maybe a few individuals were really interested in as well.

So I think that’s the challenge from a larger organization, but I don’t, Cara and Tara, I don’t know what you guys would see from smaller organizations too, in that situation as well.[00:08:00]

[00:08:01] David Rice: I’m curious, you know, we’ve got to get buy in from leadership, right? That’s always a challenge. I don’t care what size your organization is. Um, are there any sort of Real world instances, you know, you’ve seen firsthand of teams that went about developing and selecting these benefit packages really well, or, you know, really terribly and had a hard time either getting buy in or just getting any sort of engagement with it now.

I’ll just open up the. Tara, go ahead. Yeah.

[00:08:32] Tara Henning: I mean, I think, um, and kind of just to the, this conversation as a whole is thinking about the idea of like, you know, when you tap into your employee voice to the customer voices, um, actually doing, I think I’ve seen companies, they hear from their people and then they, This is actually kind of a negative story, unfortunately, but I think a lot of times, especially when you’re battling, like being a small company versus a big company, they know that there’s like all [00:09:00] of these shiny objects out there that they like want to have.

We always kind of say like, um, you know, you can’t be Google like at certain sizes, you want to offer those things. But I think the, the thing that I would say, you know, keep in mind for people on this conversation is like the idea of like tapping into your To your employees to get their feedback. Um, and the, the is doing and taking that data and doing something with it, right?

Like really listening, having those hard conversations, supporting the, you know, as, as Aubrey mentioned, finding those, like the ones that stand out. But I think what I see a lot of times Is that companies and specifically when they speak to super, can they know there’s a problem? They know that like parents are burnt out.

Caregivers are burnt out. Like there’s a need for it. You know, we have a childcare crisis We have yes, maybe you can’t offer a built, you know An on site child care facility because that’s just like not in the cards for your organization And that’s okay [00:10:00] The problem is, is then like not doing anything. So like, how do you build bait?

How do you like baby step into better support? If you’re a smaller or midsize organization, when you know you have a problem, is this idea of like, Oh, it’s too overwhelming. Or, you know, we can’t do what Google does, or we can’t build on care. childcare, do something, start small, I think is always my best advice for companies of a variety of sizes, um, is, is taking that customer voice and then like building into it.

[00:10:32] Cara Barnes: I love that Tara. I, I want to build on that too. And also to answer your first question, David, The reality of medical and benefits. And I know there’s a lot of people from different parts of the world on this call right now, um, speaking to the U S our universal healthcare system is like non existent, right?

So it’s basically putting a lot of pressure on companies to provide these benefits for their employees, because. You know, nationally, we don’t [00:11:00] have anything right. So the reality is how to be competitive is really kind of like on the shoulders of small businesses, like small businesses can’t seem to compete with large organizations that are able to provide it.

Like higher salaries and better benefits, better benefits. Right. And so like this conversation today is really talk about what else beyond just the medical dental vision that we can provide our employees that is like low hanging fruit, um, because it is expensive and it’s hard to. Like I said earlier, it’s hard to get access to great benefits sometimes, as much as like, I know for myself, it was a solo business owner and I only have a, you know, a handful of employees I want to give the world, but like, how do I balance my finances and like, how do I handle how much I can give them without breaking the bank?

Right. And so these are things that I’ve been wanting to think about and talk about and get curious. Curious [00:12:00] and like how creative and how to get a low hanging fruit to be able to offer them something like Tara said, like I could just give up and say, look, I’m small. I’m not a Google. We’re not the Google of the world.

Um, we don’t need to provide benefits, but that’s not the case. And I’m excited to kind of go into that.

[00:12:18] Tara Henning: We always say it’s like low cost, high reward, um, benefits offering whatever that word might be.

[00:12:27] Aubrey Varraux: I think I’d add to that too. Um, you know, I, I, I think what Cara was talking about a lot was kind of building that culture that sets the tone a little bit too. And I do think that whether it’s a large business or a small business, I think the leadership often while they are the ones that set that tone.

And so back to your original question, David, you know, from a. Um, from my standpoint, I have seen, um, you know, implementations of great benefits. Um, we had for at our hospital, we had a great [00:13:00] wellness benefit. We were trying to offer to our employees and, um, it really didn’t get buy in from the top. So it didn’t have that trickle down effect that you really need a benefit to have in order for people to latch on to it and say, Oh, wow, I want to do that as well.

Or even in a case of, um, you know, Cara mentioned getting away from your traditional medical dental vision, those kinds of things, but benefits that are more. Um, you know, participative or, you know, you actually go and do something. Um, sometimes I think employees need permission, if you will, to see their leaders doing that, and, and that they’re spending the time to do that, and that they’re driving the culture with, hey, I want, I want to build a, an organization that wants to be well, that takes time to exercise or have better mental health or, you know, whatever that looks like.

And so it’s so vitally important to really set that tone and culture, I think, [00:14:00] at the top. And if you don’t have buy in from them on any benefit that you provide to your employee, it’s really just going to fail at the end of the day.

[00:14:09] Tara Henning: Fully support that. I think that’s the biggest thing, even working with the big tech companies in San Francisco that do kind of lead the charge.

They’re, they’re in the U. S., you know, like they’re, they’re seen as like the most progressive, the most, um, attractive benefits. But oftentimes you also hear where there’s like a utilization problem or the culture doesn’t meet. They, you know, you, we always say like, you can’t just check the box, have all the bells and Whistles of great benefits all the like hot things and all the great things if your day to day culture and that comes from your leadership doesn’t support it.

So for example, my world when people have, oh, we’ve got four months of maternity leave or parental leave or they have, you know, all of these things, but if people don’t feel comfortable using it and then they don’t, then like it’s just. You know, [00:15:00] lipstick on a pig, like it’s not, um, and people are starting, I think people start to see through that too.

Like, don’t just check the box and move on. It’s like, how do you really integrate those benefits, um, into the day to day culture? And I think that’s a huge part of why, like we personally started a, You know, it’s super kind of management training program because it’s educating leaders on like why these exist today.

Why does it, why are we talking about, you know, people having babies at work? Well, here’s why, you know, it’s 2024 and the talent pool has changed dramatically. So yeah, it’s really educating all players at the organization.

[00:15:39] Cara Barnes: That actually made, gave me an idea of like the story that you’re asking for David, both Aubrey and Tara, what they mentioned, it’s so spot on because I actually work with a lot of different organizations, right?

Um, the benefit of being a fractional HR is like, I’m not just a one, um, In house, I get to see different kinds of organizations, but what I’m seeing across the [00:16:00] board, especially in nonprofits, is people are not taking their PTO. Um, and it’s something that, you know, these are generous packages. Sometimes nonprofits are actually a lot more generous in their benefits total compensation than a startup, for instance, you know, startup will, will probably like they’ll go and rely on unlimited PTO, um, which is.

you know, BS, um, but just like my own opinion, uh, where nonprofits are, they do a different format where you accrue it and then, you know, you’re able to, you know, hold on and it goes to the next year. Um, but despite how generous these PTO plans are, these people from nonprofits are not taking them. And we’ve done a couple of surveys asking, Hey, you’re clearly burnt out.

You’re really needing the break. And even, um, mid management level are like trying to push their staff to take time off, but they won’t. And there’s like this under current thing, like, well, at the top, what are we saying to [00:17:00] our people? And I think that’s just, I don’t know, spot on for you, Tara and Aubrey.

That made me realize, I’m like, I’m seeing it in real time. I know what’s going on and how do we encourage people to actually Utilize the benefits that they have.

[00:17:16] David Rice: Yeah. I’m glad you brought that up. Cause I was actually about to say the same thing about the unlimited PTO. And then when you get into a sort of time, like we’re in now where there’s a lot of layoffs going on and people sort of look at it and they go, Oh, I know why they did that.

It’s because they don’t want to pay out on PTO when they bunch of us, you know, it ends up looking bad.

[00:17:36] Tara Henning: I’ve also started to see companies, which I think is really smart where they, they say unlimited PTO, but there’s like almost like an asterisk that says like almost like a suggested X amount of weeks or like minimum, you know, because I think it, I was part of that, like an unlimited PTO and I was, you know, I never took it.

I mean, it was great. Lesson learned, but you [00:18:00] know, it’s, um, I think the, the verbiage is really important on how you communicate that.

[00:18:06] Aubrey Varraux: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll add to that because we have, we do have a mixture of, of PTO banks. And I think that is key Tara, to your point, because our leadership has what we call discretionary time off.

So they’re, they don’t necessarily have a bank any longer. We do track it there, you know, they’re required to track it, but we have a that gives them guidelines on really how much time off they can or cannot take. I mean, we’re not like very specific, but like you can’t take more than three weeks at a time without getting approval for that.

So we’ve still outlined some very clear and concise ways that they need to manage that time off, which I think helps them not feel to the point that you all are making of Well, I don’t even feel like I have anything to do now because we’re still tracking it. It’s not like they don’t have a process [00:19:00] in place that they need to follow in order to take that time.

So I think you have to do it in a way that doesn’t feel punitive, like you’re taking something away from them. Um, so I think that’s something to consider as well, because it can be more cost effective, but in the long run, if people aren’t taking their time off, it’s actually going to be. Detrimental to the company because you’re, you’re going to have burnout as Cara already mentioned.

You’re going to have, you know, probably a mental health crisis because people just are not taking the time that they need.

[00:19:35] David Rice: Yeah, I certainly see that being a big issue in high stress jobs like what you see in health care. I mean, it’s. You’ve got to take your time off. So I kind of want to shift, uh, you know, into like the next steps, right?

So we hear from employees, let’s say we kind of know what’s most important to them. In a perfect world, we’d be able to give them everything we want, right? We’d read the, uh, best benefits of this year blogs and just check all the [00:20:00] boxes. But obviously, you know, we tend to be working with budgets. So how do we go about sort of prioritizing and picking the most impactful benefits and Aubrey, I’ll start with you.

[00:20:11] Aubrey Varraux: Yeah, I think it goes back to the voice of the customer. Um, you know, really understanding what it is that your employees want from a larger organization. Um, we, we will have going back to what Kara said. We have legal parameters. We have to follow by offering certain benefits to employees. So we’re going to have to check those boxes, of course.

Um, but alongside of that, You don’t just have to check a box. You can you can still have flexibility within the options that you provide to your employees even in that space. Um, and then when it comes to other benefits that are more voluntary in nature, let’s say, you know, what is it that your employees really want?

And then if they’re asking for a benefit that maybe you can’t afford. So an example, I will give that Centra did, Um, you know, it really came out. We didn’t have a [00:21:00] paid leave opportunity for our employees. And, um, I know everybody’s talked a little bit about that, but, um, you know, Tara’s business did a lot around, you know, why, why families need to support, uh, people on leave and coming back into the workforce.

And so that’s one way that we were like, we’ve really got to help our employees better, um, um, Have paid during the time that they’re away with their newborn baby. And so, um, we opted to start paying for short term disability, but the trade off, so we had, we looked at our financial trade offs was that we would make our long term disability plan.

Um, a voluntary plan that employees needed to buy. So we used to offer long term disability at employees, and then we switched to offering short term disability at no cost to employees, because it really fulfilled a more immediate need that many, many more of our, we call them caregivers are, are having month to month, year to year.

And that was one way that we could afford that benefit. [00:22:00] And so I think you have to look at ways that you can, you know, Trade in another benefit for a superior benefit, really, at the end of the day.

[00:22:09] Cara Barnes: I, I want to jump in before Tara does, because Tara is going to be perfect in this space, but I just want to say that alone, that strategic thought process is so brilliant, Aubrey, that you all did that, because LTD and STD, for people who don’t know, short term disability and long term disability, Is actually not that expensive insurance for the employer, but is so helpful for the employee.

And that’s again like another low hanging fruit that people, unless you understand the world of benefits which is just like, it’s like a own language and its own. You wouldn’t know to be able to look at that, right? Like that’s something that is like deep in the woods of benefits that only somebody who’s been in this space can really kind of take a look and be like, this is, this is a shift that we can make for employees because [00:23:00] they need the short term disability now and long term something they can buy into later.

Right. So I’m, I, I’m going to actually steal that idea. I’ll be here

[00:23:11] Aubrey Varraux: for

[00:23:12] Cara Barnes: these kinds of conversations. It’s so nice because. We don’t know everything, right? We’re just one person. So depending on our experiences, we have more experience on different kinds of benefits, but yeah, that’s all I’ll just say. I just want to jump in.

Yeah,

[00:23:26] Tara Henning: no. And I think that’s all it’s, it’s exactly it, right? Like, what are the, like, if money were no object, sure, let’s do all the things, but that’s not, we know that’s not the reality. Um, and I think, um, You know, and we were kind of talking about this before we kicked this official conversation off today, just around like, and we’ve mentioned it already as the voice of the customer, but it’s really understanding that like these shifts and that’s the world we look at a lot is like these shifts in the workforce, like what does your what does the workforce look like today?

And like, kind of the old school, like, [00:24:00] we know now, like, you know, you can’t just It depends. But like, I don’t want to say you can’t just get away with like medical and dental and vision. And in the U. S. it’s complicated because we don’t have these national programs. But, you know, people do depend on their jobs for benefits, for medical.

Insurance. And so how do we not but then like we know that the world is that the workforce has shifted. We know that there’s more parents and caregivers in the workforce than ever before. We’re at this crucial moment where I think because of the pandemic really kind of shook everything up. And then now we’re kind of in this place where we’re trying to figure out what does the future of work look like?

What does it take to retain those And attract top talent and make them productive. Um, and I think that’s those, that’s like a great example that you gave Aubrey of like, shifting the mindset of like, wait, people actually don’t need long term right now. They need like immediate, like, there’s a lot of, you know, there’s high costs of living, you know, you [00:25:00] know, There’s a lot of the market, people’s jobs.

There’s a lot of jobs that are in flux right now and people in and out of work or, um, you know, childcare is a huge crisis in this country. Um, we know that 70 percent of moms in the U S with kids under 18 are in the workforce. So it is just a very different world that we’re living in. And I think as, um, More conversations like this exist, those types of, you know, low hanging fruit, like low cost, high reward options will actually do more and give more satisfaction to the employee than some of the obvious, like, you know, big ones, you know, so yes, you kind of just their table stakes at this point.

Parental leave is table stakes, medical and dental envisioned table stakes. So what are those other things that you can really sweeten the offer? Um, yeah. You know, I, I always said it when I was at a fast growing SaaS technology company in San Francisco, I was the first employee to have a baby. We were probably 10 people.

By the time I got back, it had doubled, which had seemed like, you know, going from zero to 60, but, [00:26:00] um, it was really just those small little things that really made a difference. It didn’t cost the company much, like even starting with flexibility. I know in the world that we are in today, flexibility and depending, Aubrey, I know you have a lot of, you know, Um, you know, healthcare workers that don’t have that option for flexibility.

But if you do have flexibility can go so far and actually supporting it and not and creating that culture that supports something like that, that has like a low, low to no cost on it. So, um, just really kind of opening your eyes and thinking about the things that are your people might be struggling with both in their professional world and their worlds at home, because the, it, we have changed so much.

Those silos are broken, as we say, between work and home.

[00:26:45] Cara Barnes: I think, um, one of the things that you, you reminded me of something, Tara, as Not to be like, I’m so great as an employer, but what I try to do is because I can’t offer the Google benefits of the world where, you know, six [00:27:00] months parental leave, you know, um, my partner, he works at Salesforce.

And so he gets six months parental leave. It’s been so helpful and beneficial for our family. Um, what I try to do is like, give my employees a little bit more flexibility in their workflow, especially working moms. Um, so I don’t book, I don’t allow meetings to be booked on like Monday mornings. I like specifically tell them to not do me to meetings on Fridays and like the earliest meeting that we would do would be at 10 AM because I know that there’s like these crazy, you know, especially during June and summertime and summer school, like having flexibility of being able to like have them drive.

To daycare drive to summer camp drive to swim school, things like that and like understanding that the work will get done. It’s you to go with their flow and like that. And that’s, that’s something that I’m really strongly believe in like providing that kind of benefit for them. And these are like creative benefits that [00:28:00] doesn’t actually cost me anything to provide but goes a long way and making sure that they it.

Are happy and not burnt out. And I’m constantly checking on them, um, because they are my biggest asset. Like I would not be able to get far my company without my employees. They are everything they’re, they’re basically my company. And so my number one priority is to make sure that they’re happy and that they’re like successful in their role.

And they’re not feeling like burnt out. And so like, that’s one way I would say is as a manager that I would Allow that flexibility for them.

[00:28:37] Aubrey Varraux: I would I would also build onto that too, because I think that is so important. And I know that there’s probably more small businesses here, but. Even in the large business space, I think it’s hard to find that unless you are at the Googles of the world, because in health care, you know, people traditionally don’t look at health care as a flexible workplace, even in administrative [00:29:00] roles that you can offer that.

And so I’ve been really fortunate to have a leadership team that does. have more flexibility. And I can’t tell you with having two small Children how helpful that has been. Because I think at the end of the day, our world is moving in the direction of, um, people can go find a job where they’re interested to do the job that’s been given to them.

In the work week, you know, and maybe it doesn’t look like I’m at my job from 8 to 5. Maybe it looks like I work from 10 to 12 and then I have to stop and take my kids somewhere. And then I come back and I work, you know, from 3 to 5 and then I sign off and I get back on from 8 to 10. Like, I think it’s, um, My, my prior boss called it work life integration.

You know, it’s really having the flexibility in your workspace. And so I think whatever the size of your organization is, that is to Cara’s point and Tara, both, I mean, it’s. It’s so easy [00:30:00] to offer that if you, if you want to micromanage at the end of the day, it’s kind of letting go and trusting your employees that they will do the right thing.

And if, if they won’t, it’s a conversation that you have with them. And so. Right. If you’re not hitting

[00:30:15] Cara Barnes: performance, that’s a different topic, right? Exactly. That’s right. It has nothing to do with the flexibility that you’re providing them. Yeah. It’s another

[00:30:23] Aubrey Varraux: HR topic.

[00:30:24] Cara Barnes: Yeah. I was like, we’ll deal with that later

[00:30:27] Aubrey Varraux: on.

[00:30:28] Cara Barnes: Um, and if they’re not performing, it’s not their fault. The leader’s fault. Like I am a big believer on that. Um, and also to speak to it, like these types of benefits, I love that my husband is able to get parental leave. Like that’s a fairly new benefit that just started, um, where men used to not be able to get parental leave and it just put that undue burden on, on the woman, um, who’s pregnant.

And what I like about it is, is that we’re changing the shift, like again, with leaders to know, like. [00:31:00] Hey, like you need to be able to help at home as well. And even when he came back, when he, he got back, they were really good about like, his managers were like really good. Let’s slowly ease you back in, which that was unheard of before.

Right. Like that mentality shift is, has been such a game changer. Um, and I would say like, has. really helped us, our family. Um,

[00:31:28] Tara Henning: and that slow build for him to come back. And it’s, it’s, we kind of say it’s like a marathon, not a sprint, right? Like that loyalty that that develops for him at this critical moment in time and for your family and for him as his own career trajectory, like that pays back in spades.

So it’s a very, um, And I, and I think to the, you know, big or small, I think on the small companies, I think there’s also like, some people say, well, I’m too early. Or, you know, I think it just, again, starting small and building those things in order to attract, if you’re [00:32:00] growing fast or building a great company, you want to, um, like you want to build and start offering as a, it’s almost like a barometer you want to offer those benefit, even if they’re small.

It just, it sets a light off for somebody that like, Hey, this is a company that thinks about the whole person. And I think we’re just in a space where that will open the pool of candidates more for your organization in order to get the best talent in. You know, starting early, um, isn’t a bad idea because people are looking for these types of things and not even just around like the parents and caregivers, we’ve talked a lot about that, but even just like, you know, we talk mental health is a huge thing for people like, what are you portraying on your career page or in your interviews?

And in that process that shows that we work hard and we. Support the whole employee.

[00:32:59] Cara Barnes: Yeah. [00:33:00] I mean, good point. I would say, um, obviously my world right now is parenting because I have a new newborn. Um, but right now, a lot of our organizations are nonprofits I do work with are in the retirement space. And that’s also another, that’s the reality of the world right now of not having enough caregivers for, um, people who are retiring and seniors and that burden being on.

a lot of like the millennials who are trying to take care of their parents and that’s like additional time that’s required, additional finances required. And so things like dependent care FSA, which, um, not a lot of people know about here in the U S too, is something that employers can offer, which is like a tax benefit that you can set aside money.

To go use for childcare or through retirement homes or taking care of a elderly parent. Like, I really encourage people who are looking at their benefits to consider something like this. [00:34:00] Again, goes beyond just the medical dental vision. And, um, you know, um, benefits options to really kind of explore those additional add ons because it’s, again, something that I know is incredibly helpful for families who are, are, whether you have a young child or elderly parent, uh, parent that you’re taking care of, um, which does impact mental health too, right?

Like it’s all tied together. Um, like I would say when we do offer it with our nonprofits. people jump at it. Like they’re, they’re, they immediately want to put in money into their dependent care, I would say.

[00:34:43] Tara Henning: Yeah. Cause it allows people to show up, you know, it’s like, it’s a productivity piece. And it’s, um, like you said, burnout and burnout, um, is a huge part of that caregiving experience.

Part of the, I just yesterday did a panel for sandwich navigating the sandwich generation, which [00:35:00] is what you were talking about of Raising young kids and raising families and taking care of aging loved ones. It’s a huge, it’s only going to get more complicated as the population shifts older. And I think there’s by 2035, there’ll be more people over 65 than young people.

So there’s like declining birth rates, growing, you know, Increase life expectancy. And so there’s going to be this almost like a perfect storm. So how do you navigate that as an, as a, as a manager, knowing that this is what’s happening, you know, kind of in the home life. So it’s important. There’s a lot of really great, um, solutions out there that help support.

Um, people that are like, if I were helping my parents in Florida, I’m in California and helping them navigate their medical journeys. And there are some incredible tech solutions out there. Um, I’m happy to drop some of those in the, in the chat, um, because I think it’s super important for, for people to understand.

And those, some of them could be like very small, low [00:36:00] cost options. Just even providing that resource is huge. And just acknowledging it, you know, normalizing the caregiver journey at work goes so far.

[00:36:09] Cara Barnes: Yeah, because it’s not, it’s not, it’s not usually talked about as like a need. We do talk about pregnancy, disability leave, but dependent care for aging parents is not something people really talk about.

Like empathize for,

[00:36:24] David Rice: or

[00:36:25] Cara Barnes: it’s like even thought about in policies.

[00:36:29] David Rice: I’m going to jump in there. Cause we do have to move along. We got a couple of questions coming in, in the chat. So we’ll get to those in just a minute. I mean, I’m loving this conversation though, because it always comes back to like, sometimes the work you do in HR isn’t just about your organization.

It really is about the culture of our broader society. And so I think that that’s a very important, this isn’t a very important piece of it. And I love these topics. Like, we could talk all day on this. Uh, before we get to the Q and a, I wanted to spend a little time on some of the more [00:37:00] unique benefits that you’ve seen that have had a significant impact on attracting and retaining talent.

So I’m curious, you know, what are some of the benefits that have stood out to you? Um, Yeah, Kara, we can start with you.

[00:37:14] Cara Barnes: Um, definitely. I was going to steal Tara. I love Taurus, which is like where people stay for the kombucha, um, a ping pong and, and pizza Fridays. I would say, um, what has really been helpful is these, like intentional, Well being off days, mental health days.

Um, even something where like the morning of we go on. Um, we did, we did like a hike. If you’re like a on site group. We did spent half the day as like a hike and like and then a lunch for everybody, and we do that once a quarter, depending on how much you can afford as like a small nonprofit. And even till this day I no longer work with some of those [00:38:00] startups.

I still have employees coming and telling me like how much they enjoyed that and how much, um, either it was a continue when I left or it stopped when I left. Um, and they missed that. And so it was that camaraderie around, um, fellow coworkers and like a day where you could shut your brain off of work and like just actually be human and connect with nature.

That was a benefit that was really, um, like I saw the fruits of that labor, um, in the last like 10 years, like that was consistently always something that would work well, uh, giving people that option to like, just kind of like step away from work. Um, that’s one, there’s so many more, but I don’t want to hog up that there’s, we could talk about this forever, but that was my particular favorite benefit that we did.

[00:38:50] Aubrey Varraux: I think I can hop in with one that, um, kind of piggybacking on. Our last question with the low cost options, um, recognition [00:39:00] is really important in the workplace. And, um, there’s, I mean, there’s so many things that you can do for recognition and as a, as a larger or larger organization, we have the opportunity to do, you know, bigger things that we do service awards.

We do things that. Um, you know, we used to have a program where people could build points and turn that in for something really cool and exciting, but I think what I really want to focus in on here is just the day to day moments of recognizing the work that your employees are doing, the work that they bring to the table, and really learning and understanding what makes them tick, and so doing something as simple as when they start with you or you know, Now, if you, if you have several employees now is just learning what they appreciate, you know, maybe they love coffee and bringing them a cup of coffee would like speak volumes and make them more productive at the end of the day, because they really felt like you cared about them and you really went out of your [00:40:00] way to do something special for them.

Um, you know, recognizing their birthdays or anniversaries with a small gesture of some sort that’s really inexpensive or even just a handwritten card or note. Um, there’s a lot of, um, statistics out there about what even just personalizing a handwritten note versus an email or something else to an employee really does for them at the end of the day.

Um, so I think that that’s just something that It, it kind of, it doesn’t always get looked at in traditional benefits, I don’t think, because it’s not, it’s not really like, you know, your typical medical dental vision or disability plan or anything like that. It’s, it’s a little bit outside of the box and it can be very inexpensive.

But very

[00:40:47] Tara Henning: well, I think that’s also what I think about that is like, it’s not scalable in the sense, but like, that’s okay. Because to me, that’s like a true manager is going to be like, I know Aubrey likes coffee. And so I’m going to buy [00:41:00] her, you know, either bring a coffee into her X amount of times, or, you know, if I, Order a really cool coffee brand.

I just learned about like that would be I think something that is really on maybe that direct manager. And so I say it’s not scalable because it’s you have to understand what each of your employees are. Obviously, it’s Interesting as you get bigger, but I think losing that human touch is really like a bad thing.

Um, I know for me, I had a, a boss that she knew that I am on the West Coast now. I used to be in on the East Coast and I was going back for a long weekend. And she’s like, well, if you’re just, you know, if you’re going back to the place you love and all your friends and family are like, why don’t you just go two days early and work from there?

Bye. I felt like I won the lottery. I was like, I will work hard. And this is, this is before, this is a couple of years ago. So it’s before the pandemic and before, like, um, but [00:42:00] I, I worked harder, uh, to prove these things. And I was like, I’ll do anything. You know, if you understand that, how much that meant to me just to say, like, instead of taking two extra PTO days, just go early, like jet lag, all the things, but like, get there, work from there.

You know, it just changed a lot of things, but it’s

[00:42:18] Cara Barnes: simple like message. Now she’s ever loyal to her now. Like that’s a very simple shift and it

[00:42:26] Tara Henning: costs her nothing.

[00:42:29] Cara Barnes: This is, I love this topic about managers because Sometimes managers are like, like in like no power in terms of what kind of benefits they can provide, right?

Like they probably want to provide the flexibility, but they have to answer to like the board or to the leadership. And especially at larger corporation, like you’re kind of like a cog in the wheel, like, like how much power do you normally have? But I’d say like control what you can control and those small like handwritten notes or like allowing, you know, giving that comment, [00:43:00] I would also say is.

investing in their, their future. Like, I feel like the best manager I had realized that, Hey, I might not have you forever. So what is your end goal? What is like your career that you want to achieve? And like, how can I help you and assist you? While you’re with me. Um, but still also realize that, you know, you may leave me one day and like, I want to be better for it.

And I want, I want this to be a stepping stone before you go else. And, and being confident in that, and a lot of like I realized the managers like, I don’t want them to leave me, you know, kind of like this, this fear of it and like, but you’re stifling that you’re going to leave you if you don’t invest in their actual.

Um, Like, um, growth. And so it’s not necessarily paying for, for training for them, right? It’s just having that conversation of like, where do you want to end up? Like, how can I help you? Who can I connect you with? Like in [00:44:00] my network, like who, who could be a potential mentor for you? And I remember, Even as like an employee for Pete’s Coffee, I was a barista, but I was going to be like the best barista in that time.

Was I going to be a barista for the rest of my life? I probably could have because it was an amazing company and amazing culture, but I didn’t. And she knew that, and she still developed me to become a better leader. And I feel like those skills that I got from being in Pete’s, um, Brought me to open up doors elsewhere and I’ll forever remember that manager.

Right. So like those kinds of things are something you could control and benefits that you could provide for your employees. Um, that doesn’t cost anything to the organization.

[00:44:44] Tara Henning: I love that story. That’s great. I think the one that I think about, and again, it’s kind of in the world that I’m in, um, on like a true benefit is one of the ones around, like, um, just like a thoughtful thing for, like, if you have a traveling, you know, business New [00:45:00] mom who might be breastfeeding.

There’s like these incredible organizations now that, um, they will, it’s very stressful for all the reasons for a new mom and going back to work in the U S we go back much earlier than the rest of the world and all the things. But, you know, there’s a lot of stress involved in that. When someone travels for work there, they might have to.

Have backup childcare, their partner might likely work all of these things, but there’s a company called milk stork that I love and that helps that alone would give that new mom the kind of, um, take the burden off of her shoulders of how am I going to get, um, my breast milk back home and, and the logistics of all of that is taken care of.

And just the thought of offering that it’s not. It’s, it’s a little bit of money, but it’s not going to bankrupt you. And it’s what that does to the loyalty because it’s that, Oh, they get it. They support me. And this is so cool. And maybe you pay for it yourself, but like the idea that someone thought about it for you goes.

Pays back in spades. [00:46:00] I think that’s just one that’s really a little bit out there actually, but I think it’s incredibly important if you are going through that yourself. Never heard of that. And that’s amazing.

[00:46:08] David Rice: I remember when I first heard of that service and my first thought was like, what a time to be alive,

[00:46:13] Tara Henning: right?

Like that’s incredible

[00:46:15] David Rice: that they have that. It’s

[00:46:18] Tara Henning: because it’s real, right? You know, it’s a, it’s an interesting, um, needed service. And so, yeah, it goes a long way and it’s, you know.

[00:46:27] Cara Barnes: And thinking outside the box, right? Like, let’s, let’s get more creative. Like,

[00:46:32] Tara Henning: like, if you can’t, for example, if you can’t offer what Google offers of call it six months of parental leave in the US, like maybe you can only offer eight weeks or 10 weeks or whatever as a small company.

But then maybe that’s what you add on to it to make it easier for that person to come up, show up for work, taking the burden of their home life off their shoulders in order for them to like, yeah. So, yeah,

[00:46:56] David Rice: I want to shift into some audience questions, because we’ve got a few things in the [00:47:00] chat. So, um, I want to start with this 1, because it’s kind of building on what we were talking about says we’ve been talking about listening to the voice of the customer.

How do you select slash prioritize benefits to invest in when your staff all cares about different things? So they give the example of, I hate outdoor activities. Can we have video game nights instead? But leadership and other groups hate video games. So that’s just a little example that they gave, but what advice would you have for this?

And feel free to just jump in on this one.

[00:47:33] Aubrey Varraux: I mean, I can speak to that a little bit. I think it’s probably easier on a larger scale because it’s very simple to find themes when you have, you know, a couple of thousand thousand people taking the survey. Um, but I think what you can do is intentionally guide a survey like that as well, so you don’t necessarily have to have it be a free for all when you survey your folks, but give some, like, take [00:48:00] ideas from today that you learned and put them into a survey and ask your employees, would you like, let’s say, easy things, would you like, um, recognition Um, would you like this benefit that Tara just mentioned?

Would it be helpful for you to have, um, uh, some kind of milk service or delivery, or maybe more assistance with coming back into the workplace? Like pick some things, you know, are doable for your organization and give them the option to weigh in on what they would prefer. Um, and you can. Think creatively, think outside of the box, do some research, you know, listen to more webinars and find out what other people are doing.

But that way you can give them a open text box to do anything and everything. But that way you have some guided things that, you know, are, are ways that you will be able to, um, or things that you’ll be able to accomplish. And you can take that feedback and, and go with the most selected [00:49:00] option from that.

That would be probably my best. Advice.

[00:49:06] David Rice: That’s good advice.

[00:49:08] Cara Barnes: Yeah, you definitely have to tailor to what you actually can do. Like you can’t, that’s why I was like, the first step when looking at benefits, like what are your restrictions and parameters before you even reach out to staff? Um, and then if people are just like, well, why can’t we offer this?

Then you could, then I think transparent communication about, because this is how much it costs. Like, so I, I was like doing a benchmark, even though I know. Sometimes I’m like, there’s no way we’re going to get better benefits in this. And, but staff is, is like wanting more. I like doing clear benchmarking and then holding like an hour and a half, like walking through each of the benefit and be like, this is what offers you and.

This is how much it costs and this how much cost employer and just kind of giving them clear understanding of why some things get chosen, what doesn’t. [00:50:00] Um, but in terms of like the question regarding like deciding, you know, somebody doesn’t like outdoor activities in the other group likes like game night.

I love that example. We’ve actually had that at a startup, um, situation. So we, we did an actual survey question on that, like how many of us would prefer this and then we would like switch it off. And so one time we did. Um, a movie night. So one person was like, I don’t want to hike, but right. It’s like, cool.

You don’t have to go to the hike. That’s totally fine. The next like activity, we switched it to like a movie night with popcorn and things like that. And so they got to choose what was more specific for them. And I, I feel like that’s like an easy way to like, kind of separate. or accommodate people’s different interests.

Um, and it’s the worst when you’re forcing people to do an event that they don’t want to do, right? Like, we don’t want to ever pressure somebody, like, you have to go this high because it looks good for your career to be part of this situation. Like, I don’t want [00:51:00] that kind of benefit to, like, backfire either, because I’ve seen that happen also in organizations where, you know, We call it like salary men who like are forced to do events outside of work.

It’s that’s that’s also the annoying part is like after hours or on the weekend. Like I’m, I’m super against that because that’s like family time and that’s your own personal time. So if you want to hold a party or you want to do an event, Do it during work hours. Um, that’s my biggest crutch. Like, do not ask me to come out on a Thursday night, you know, from 7.

30. Like, I have other things to do, and I have, like, other friends. As much as I love my coworkers, I also have my own life outside of work, and so don’t ask me to do that, right? Um, if a Christmas party or a holiday party, Do it from three 30 to five 30. Like those are simple things. I’m like, don’t do it during the, like on the weekend.

Like that makes me, I don’t know. That’s makes me angry. Sometimes, uh, little things like that. Um,

[00:51:59] David Rice: yeah, I won’t even [00:52:00] ask if it doesn’t fit their time zone.

[00:52:04] Cara Barnes: Cool. Yeah, true. I’d hold two separate events that works with different time zone, right? If you’re a team in Columbia, then have their event and a different event in the, in the States.

[00:52:17] David Rice: Absolutely. So this says, uh, there’s another question that came in. It says, some of these perks are informal in quotes. It says like the, I know that so and so likes coffee thing. Uh, the example that was given. How do you encourage people managers to do that? And should managers have a budget for things like coffees and donuts or whatever else the employees might like?

And how do you frame that as sort of a prospect to prospective employees as a benefit in the hiring process? Um,

[00:52:47] Tara Henning: I think that that that’s a great question. I mean, I think that it’s hugely connected to like the culture. Um, and culture is hard, right? Like, there’s no formula for it. Um, but I, I could see it.

[00:53:00] Um, I mean, I think that’s part of from the top, like an organization, perhaps there is, I don’t know. I mean, if chime in, um, Aubrey or Kara as well, but like, I think of it as, yeah, like, is there some type of stipend that’s like, you know, we just had like, A great project. We just finished it. The client’s super happy.

Like we’re going to go out to, you know, a lunch to celebrate and everyone’s getting, you know, that handwritten note and something right. Like, I think that there, it just really, a lot of it just comes down to like the human connection and like managing the people. Um, and I think then. You share those stories, you celebrate those things at town hall meetings, or you share it on a Slack channel, um, really build the culture.

That’s like, not just on paper from a benefit perspective or, or cause this is more of like, um, this to me is like a culture thing. And so I just think it’s like really. [00:54:00] People want to go to work. They have to go to work, but they also want to have real experiences as well. Like, as you said, Cara, like, you know, this person, this is a stop in their career.

We’re not, you know, in the 19 mad men era where someone’s at a company for 50 years anymore, like that doesn’t happen as much, but like, how do you make a great experience where people actually have meaningful connections? And I think it’s important to have, um, you know, create that culture. Within your teams and help encouraging the managers to do that and sharing it and normalizing it.

I don’t know. Others have thoughts, but

[00:54:37] Cara Barnes: I love that. And I, I think also like to Gow’s point, like it is a budget should be considered, right? Like just know this 5, 10 coffee here and there. It’s going to be paid back to you because your time is your most valuable. Like, like your time is so valuable, right?

So how much more time would be to like try to micromanage an employee or [00:55:00] try to make them have her or get them back to being engaged when they’re already disengaged, right? These small, like proactive, um, relation, like relationship building type of activities. And like paying for maybe even out of your pocket as a manager to do will actually be more beneficial for you.

Like it’s not going to be a loss in income. Um, I would say, obviously talk to leadership. Leadership should have a budget. Like there should be money that goes into people development, whether it’s through training or through like these events that they should budget out. If you’re an organization or company, like definitely read, look into your workforce planning and strategy of like, okay, if I’m going to hire.

I need to budget that this person is going to, this is their salary, this is the benefits that we’re going to have, like, and then another budget for happy hours or whatever the case may be, um, that needs to be said. If there is no budget for that and you’re, as a manager, can’t get that approval from leaders, [00:56:00] then I would say internally, and I know everybody, Sometimes they’re living page to page, even managers, um, just know that that investment in your employee is going to pay back pay you back because I, I know that these small things that you could do.

At the end of day, you’re going to spend less time managing managing them out or like trying to rehire somebody when there’s high turnover. Um, then a simple gesture like I had no in the coffee. Right.

[00:56:30] Aubrey Varraux: I would also add to that I think that’s exactly right. You don’t always need the budget. And I think, um, going back to the part of your question about, um, how do you encourage people managers to do that?

I think it’s something that should be top of mind from an HR perspective, but also a leader perspective. Uh, small business owner perspective to always approach a situation. If you’re hiring a manager, don’t assume if they’ve had another [00:57:00] management position that they know these tips and tricks. Um, you know, sometimes we promote really high performing people and it doesn’t mean that they know how to be a manager just because they’re a high performer.

So sometimes they need to be poured into as well. And given those, this information of. How to do that. Well, maybe, you know, they haven’t had a good leader. Like Kara mentioned, she had a great leader that just wanted to pour into her, even though she knew that probably wasn’t going to be her lifelong plan for her career.

But not everybody has had that. And so sometimes people just don’t know how to manage people well, and it’s okay to give them that information. Hey, this is the culture of our career. Workforce. We do X, Y, and Z. You know, we want to make sure you’re set up to do that. And here’s some ideas to do that. And if there isn’t a budget for coffees, I mean, Google low cost, no cost ways to recognize your employees.

And you probably can come up with a list of [00:58:00] 10 other things that are really free to do for your employees, just to help them feel recognized. All

[00:58:07] David Rice: right. Well, we are coming up on time. Cara, Aubrey, Tara, I want to thank you for joining us today. This was great. And I really to listen to you all talk about benefits for another hour.

[00:58:19] Cara Barnes: Thanks, David. Thank you. Thanks, everybody for coming in.

[00:58:23] David Rice: Hi, folks. They have it to everyone in the audience. Thank you again for spending this hour with us. And thank you for contributing to the vibrancy of this community. As always, please take a second to fill out the feedback survey that we are going to post in the chat.

So you can let us know how we did today and submit a topic you’d like to see us cover in a future session. And like I said, thank you to our panelists today. A couple notes. We do have a couple of membership events coming up in July. And, you know, if you’d like, you may be our guest for today. We’ll be in those as well.

But, uh, Michael’s going to be posting links to those in the chat as well. Um, first up, we have a lean coffee session led by Dr. Liz [00:59:00] Lockhart Lance on July 16th. These are agenda list sessions where you can bring your top of mind challenges and have a group provide input on how the solutions that you might find.

Um, we’re also hosting an ask me another ask me anything session. I love those, uh, with Dan George on July 17th. Dan is an award winning HR people analytics and workforce planning expert. He’s also a member of our editorial advisory board. Dan’s a great guy to chat with and just hear. Talk about people.

People data. Um, so he’ll be available to answer any of your questions on people. Analytics July 17th. Do keep an eye out for it. Um, this was a lot of fun. Thank you for your expertise panel. Thank you for joining us again. Everybody have a great rest of your day and take your PTO.

[00:59:49] Cara Barnes: Thanks.