Imagine growing up in a tight-knit family. When you’re 12 years old, your mother passes away, and you are raised by a near and dear family friend throughout the rest of your teen years. This person means the world to you. 20 years later, this friend passes as well. You go to your employer for bereavement time to process your heartache. And you are denied, because despite your deep relationship with this friend, they are not a blood relation, so HR will not recognize this grief as a reasonable accommodation.

At Northwell Health, such a scenario would not happen. The company’s bereavement policy is more inclusive than other more traditional approaches, thanks to the organization’s broader commitment to the health and well-being of its diverse network of employees. Northwell Health is a nonprofit integrated healthcare network that is New York State's largest healthcare provider and private employer, with more than 81,000 employees working across 23 hospitals and more than 800 ambulatory sites. Gregg Nevola, VP and chief rewards officer at Northwell Health, participated in a fireside chat during From Day One’s July virtual conference, where he detailed the organization’s forward-thinking policies.

“We have the privilege of working in one of the most diverse areas in the country,” Nevola said. With that diversity, comes different ways of approaching a family unit, and Northwell recognizes that it’s not for the employer to make judgments on what might be a “non-traditional” family structure. That willingness to listen and adapt to the needs of a diverse workforce is what drives the company’s successful benefits offerings and human resources policy.

Recognizing Employee Well-Being as Key to Organizational Success

The flexible bereavement policy is not only a kind choice, but a smart one. Nevola is responsible for the benefits and well-being functions for employees at Northwell Health, and recognizes that his role is key to the organization’s overall success in serving its millions of patients. “A team member that has a higher well-being is going to be able to provide better care to all of our patients across our footprint,” Nevola said.

He notes that Covid-19 posed a challenge as the company had to rethink and reinforce how it prioritized employee well-being, especially as their team worked on the frontlines, facing long hours, dire conditions, and the psychological and emotional stress of being an essential worker during a ruthless pandemic. Nevola’s central concern that drives his strategy is a combination of relationship-building and adaptability. “Am I connecting with the team members? Am I creating that relationship, that trust, that they know where to go, why we did something, what is changing, how to react to that, and how they can move forward in that new world?” he said.

Nevola and his team noticed employees were actively looking for additional support in the behavioral care space. Northwell created new pathways to increase access to care, leveraging its own provider network to serve employees. In recognition of the diverse needs of the community, Northwell has a variety of options available – immediate, urgent mental healthcare available same-day; assessment tests and a more long-term measured approach; and an option for text and video care as opposed to in-person, to allow for maximum accessibility and comfort, even during busy work schedules.

Northwell also offers a program called Team Lavender, a cross-functional team made up of the chaplaincy program, employee assistance program (EAP), and patient experience program that provides in-the-moment crisis support to workers. “Very often, as clinicians, [Northwell employees] are faced with a very difficult circumstance,” Nevola said. “They might have lost a patient, they might have had to give a difficult diagnosis, might have been in a stressful situation. And this allows us to almost call a virtual timeout, and allow the care team to take a breath, to come to a safe space, and share the experience with the other team members.” This program has been effective in helping employees get through their rounds and accomplish their tasks, while still accessing the healing and mental health care that they need at the moment.

The EAP at Northwell is positioned as an advocate for the worker rather than a disciplinarian, further building employee trust and loyalty. Caregiving is always the priority at Northwell, regardless of the recipient. The company’s leadership team takes the same approach to its employees as it does to its patients. “A team member who is in crisis is really a patient to us. And we look to provide that same level of care in that circumstance,” Nevola said.

Incorporating Employee Families into Company Policy

Part of Northwell’s well-being strategy is including employee families in activities so there is a more emotional connection and satisfaction in the work. “We’ve always felt there is a relationship between a team member, their family, and the community,” Nevola said. “All the other stuff is ancillary. The relationship between HR and the employees and their families is the thing I focus on.”

Northwell has a program called Northwell Kids, targeted toward employees and their children, which provides fun group activities like a museum day, holiday light exhibits, and Olympic competitions. Each activity has an educational aspect (to train them, in Nevola’s words, to be “mini-CEOs”) and serves to bring employees closer to their children, hopefully lessening some of the strain the day-to-day of their jobs in healthcare might have on familial relationships.

By operating from a position of warmth, empathy, compassion, understanding, and respect, employers can build employee trust, enthusiasm, and retention by prioritizing the health and well-being of workers and their families.

Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Honeysuckle Magazine, and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.