Video Transcript - Benefits support women

I've been talking to a lot of folks through COVID-19 about benefits. And when people hear benefits, they think dollar signs. They think everything needs to be hugely expensive. And some of our favorite offerings that we shared with people were just panels of internal parents talking about coping strategies, and normalizing talking about taking breaks, and how they were as managers showing up and giving people flexibility. And I think it just allowed people to feel like they weren't alone.

We also organized some very simple, low-cost concerts for kids that were really low-key, that were family-friendly. And I think that's a good example of something that doesn't always have to cost a lot of money.

The other thing I would just say that we've been really emphatic on is, I think in the old world of work, flexibility was a nice to have. I think in the future work, it's really a have to have. And it's especially imperative for caregivers. And so one of the things we did was double down on the flexibility we're infusing in our future work model for how we think about remote work moving forward, and just for example, how many times we ask people to come back in the office, or attend evening events. It is possible for us to use this horrible public health crisis and a horrible exodus of women from the workforce as an opportunity to re-evaluate what things we were doing before that will no longer work moving forward.

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We quickly recognized that women were covering a lot of the roles in the households, from teacher to caregiver for children and for eldercare. And we quickly activated to put resources in their hands around tutoring support, teaching resources, kits, and packages for parents to have to work with their children, and again, that caregiver support. We connected with a partner so that we could help people manage some of the chronic conditions, some of the challenges that they faced with children with special needs. So we really tried quickly to listen and learn around what individuals needed, and move and mobilize in those directions.

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We have about four to five generations in the workplace. And we all receive work so differently, and we all communicate so differently. So I would encourage employers to look at different ways of communicating.

We have the baby boomers, the Gen Xer, the millennials, and the Gen Zs, and some of us have the traditional. So we have to look at different vehicles to communicate. I have found so many times that there are some great resources out there, but the vehicle that we use, some of our employees miss it. So we want to make sure that we are using all the vehicles, such as the technology, such as the written piece of it in the emails. Video is also good.

I just did something that was totally different because we were trying to figure out why employees were not utilizing a particular benefit. And I just did an infographic, so that just took care of all of-- the way that we hear and see and touch things. So I think we have to make sure we can make it simple. And we have to understand what the employees want as well too.

And I don't know if I'm ahead of this here, but we got four to five generations in the workplace. We got commonality but there are some things that we want different. For example, you may have a generation that want the traditional benefits. Give me the medical, dental, and vision.

wants the 401(k) match. Some want balanced time off. Some people just want flexibility. So we have to just know who we are speaking to and what our makeup is in our organization, and then use those vehicles to communicate that.

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We know that the barrier to ask for help is a burden placed on employees. So instead of making them ask awkwardly, can I please have this flexibility, we are trying to make virtual posters, make as many, many, many communications as possible to make it clear that you do not have to ask for this. It is part of our infrastructure and part of what we offer.

And so we just encourage people, if you are willing to offer, whether it's tutoring, support, mental health coaching, flexibility on care, don't make people ask for it. I hate when I hear people say, well, if they come to us, of course, we would be flexible. Don't assume that people feel psychologically safe enough in your workplace to ask for that. And instead, don't make them ask. Really market what's available to them so it normalizes the fact that everyone needs and wants a little bit more help and support right now.

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