Human Interest’s Loralie Young, People and Culture Lead, and Kathleen Sullivan, Senior Human Resources Business Partner, compare their roles to that of a general contractor: their job is to look at the business logistics and make sure everything is running right for the people they support. They oversee the employee experience, including benefits, onboarding, culture, reporting, and much more. Lately however, a big priority has been benefits enablement – helping Human Interest’s employees understand and use the benefits the company provides to them.

Using wellbeing offerings to meet diverse employee needs

Over the past year, not only have employees been working remotely due to the pandemic, but the company has more than doubled in size to nearly 300 employees distributed across 40 states. As the company began this transition, Human Interest realized that their brick-and-mortar memberships for gyms and healthcare weren’t going to be sustainable nor would they be able to meet the needs of their growing, diverse population. Not long after this realization, they heard about the Sequoia Wellbeing Bundles.

With a broad range of vendor combinations to fit every company’s unique needs, Loralie Young felt that Sequoia’s Wellbeing Bundles would be exactly what Human Interest needed for its employees.

Loralie explained, “When I saw the Bundles, I knew that this was a way that we could offer amazing wellness perks to all of our employees regardless of where they live or what time of day they need to access the benefit. We said to ourselves, ‘If we’re going to be a national company, this is how we scale. This is the solution we need.’”

Enabling employees to access care

Human Interest selected one of the more robust Bundle packages, which provides team members access to seven vendors, including Aaptiv, Carrot Fertility, Galileo, Headspace, Physera, Spring Health, and Quit Genius. To help employees understand each offering, Human Interest hosts a bi-weekly 20-minute educational session that deep dives into one of the vendors.

“Making sure our employees know about the benefits available to them is a huge priority for us,” said Kathleen. “During onboarding, we explain the offerings and have our new hires download the Sequoia mobile app so they can easily see everything that is available to them. The bi-weekly educational sessions are a way for us to remind employees of what we offer and show them the various ways each program can help.”

Prior to each educational session, Loralie said that she takes the pre-built flyers and slides that are available in Sequoia HRX, which reduces her prep time and is more efficient. Each session has around 50 to 60 employees who ask questions such as, “Can my spouse or kids access this benefit too?”

Perhaps the most important part to Human Interest’s wellbeing promotion, however, is the follow up with managers after each session. Loralie explained, “I email managers and say, for example, ‘If you hear that one of your teammates is stressed out or needs someone to talk to, here’s the Spring Health benefit that they can access for free.’ These are resources that can really help make a difference in our employees’ lives and our managers are crucial to making sure the employees feel comfortable using them.”

When I saw the Bundles, I knew that this was a way that we could offer amazing wellness perks to all of our employees regardless of where they live or what time of day they need to access the benefit. We said to ourselves, ‘If we’re going to be a national company, this is how we scale. This is the solution we need.’

Understanding that one size doesn’t fit all

With many employees moving across the country, and others, such as parents or those living alone, sharing the new challenges that they’re facing during isolation, Human Interest knew they needed to provide more support, and the Wellbeing Bundle was the perfect way for them to get started.

“We have a diverse population, and it’s clear that benefits are not one size fits all,” said Loralie. “We know that we need to be creative in the resources we offer our team, and thanks to the support of our leadership, we are able to pursue that goal. The Wellbeing Bundle is the first of many exciting things to come at Human Interest.”