The Employees You Don’t Hear From: Why Backup Care Breaks Down at Work
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski April 16, 2026Family care needs aren’t just occasional. Many employees are ongoing caregivers for children, parents, or other relatives. When support falls short, stress rises and PTO gets stretched. So why does backup care break down, and how can employers fix it?This was the topic of discussion at a From Day One webinar titled, “The Employees You Don’t Hear From: Why Backup Care Breaks Down at Work,” led by Jess Brown, vice president of marketing for Cariloop.Employers are turning to solutions such as Cariloop, an employer-sponsored caregiving benefit that helps to provide solutions for working parents and caregivers, and other avenues that help caregiving employees with their multifaceted needs. Caregiving Support IssuesDee Brown, TV personality, freelance reporter, and session moderator, stated that the system isn’t working the way that we had hoped it would. “73% of the workforce is caring for someone and nearly half say finding last minute care is very difficult. Additionally, 48% of employers offer caregiving support but only 36% offer backup child care,” said Dee Brown. As a caregiver, she can relate to the need for caregiving options all too well. The state of caregiving is a multifaceted problem and system under intense pressure due to an increased demand and lessened supply, says Jess Brown. She stated there are two types of caregiving supply including family caregivers and professional caregivers. Family caregivers are individuals caring for their family members and this has a direct impact on employment as these individuals are often pursuing a full-time job while handling caregiving duties. Professional caregivers for adult care have been facing shortages and 48 states have reported shortages, according to AARP. “More professionals are leaving the field than are entering the field,” said Jess Brown. Jess Brown is the VP of marketing at Cariloop, a comprehensive caregiving solution for employees (company photo)“The good news is that data is showing us that new licensed child care centers are slowly coming back and rebuilding a little bit year over year,” said Jess Brown. However, waitlists are an issue for parents seeking child care centers and there is an average of 6 months to 2 years on a waitlist. In addition, the cost issue is problematic as well since higher demand than supply equals higher cost, she says.Beyond caring for children, many people aren’t prepared to care for aging parents, making it a daunting responsibility that employers should take seriously.There have been changes in workforce participation in the past few years, says Jess Brown. Women’s workforce participation rates have reduced whereas men’s have started to slightly increase. This may be due to women opting out of the workforce or not being able to work due to caregiving duties.Employers should pay close attention to employees’ caregiving responsibilities, as added stress can impact productivity and drive costs tied to absenteeism and turnover. Care demands can lead to leaves of absence, burnout, mental health challenges, and exhaustion.There are also early signs of backup care breaking down. Employees dealing with issues at home may be distracted at work and more prone to burnout. More visible signals include missed work, increased claims related to family needs, and employees leaving the workforce altogether, says Jess Brown.Why Caregiving Support Benefits Matter There are three core areas of caregiving benefits. The first is backup care, an employer-subsidized benefit that provides temporary solutions when regular care falls through, helping reduce unplanned time away from work. The second is caregiver support, which addresses broader challenges across all life stages, from navigating a parent’s new health diagnosis to finding child care. Lastly, caregiving benefits can include access to discounts and resources, such as marketplaces and child care centers.Traditional backup care models often fall short because, while they help employees search for care, supply is limited, says Jess Brown. The provider networks employers select may also not meet the specific needs of employees and their families. In addition, she said, “we need to invest in programs where 100% of the dollars allocated to sponsoring caregiving costs go directly to the care provider.”Return on investment is an important consideration with caregiving benefits. It includes soft ROI, such as reducing stress that can lead to health issues for employees, and hard ROI, such as measurable improvements in clinical outcomes. Dollar-for-dollar savings should also be part of the equation, says Jess Brown.As for how employers should get started considering the impact of caregiving benefits, they can compare leave claims between those who used caregiving benefits and those who didn’t. Survey data can also be consulted to come up with information regarding caregiving benefits and unplanned leave. The best way for employers to evaluate new or updated caregiving programs is to take advantage of their benefit consultants and ask the right questions regarding planned investments and desired returns.Providing the Benefits That Matter MostWhen asked how these benefits can be used when they matter most, Jess Brown emphasized the need for strong promotion. Employees can’t use programs they don’t know about, and access must be quick and seamless.For organizations new to caregiving benefits, impact can be measured through cost savings if a program is already in place, or by tracking reductions in missed work if one is not. Surveys and year-over-year analysis can also provide insight, she says. Companies that get these programs right tend to see stronger retention. Success often comes from refining offerings to fit both employee needs and budget, sometimes even resulting in cost savings.Jess Brown also noted a disconnect that can exist between the care networks offered and what’s actually available or comfortable for employees to use. In some cases, people don’t even identify themselves as caregivers, which limits uptake.Finally, she stressed that caregiving challenges aren’t solved overnight. Employers need to invest in support and be patient in seeing results. Employee sentiment can be tracked through engagement surveys and qualitative feedback, alongside honest, transparent communication.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cariloop, for sponsoring this webinar. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by jacoblund/iStock)
Building Benefits That Balance Cost Efficiency With Employee Outcomes
BY Jessica Swenson April 15, 2026As healthcare and benefits costs continue to rise, organizations are under increasing pressure to cut spending while maintaining the employee experience. Jordan Dhillon, VP of sales for SmithRx, suggests that one way to drive cost efficiency is to explore alternative partners and start benefit evaluations early. “Don’t be afraid to have the conversation. Look for the long-term partner that’s aligned with your model and your values, and start the process early,” she said during an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s Boston benefits conference. Dhillon spoke on a panel with four other leaders, moderated by Harvard Business Review contributing columnist Rebecca Knight.Evaluating Benefits ProgramsTo balance utilization, cost, and vendors within your benefits programming, Elizabeth McClure, head of benefits for Lantheus, endorses a full audit approach focused on refining and streamlining your offerings. She recommends looking at utilization rates to determine high-value benefits, and maximizing impact by consolidating duplicative services provided by multiple vendors. “I think it was important to go through and get the full picture of what employees value, and how we can really focus on those [things].”Panelists spoke about "Building Benefits That Balance Cost Efficiency With Employee Outcomes," in BostonWhile ROI is of course a critical part of the decision-making process, Kathleen Harris, head of consultant relations & strategic programs at Forma, emphasized that overreliance on ROI can detract from benefits that are valuable for overall culture even with limited direct use. She told the story of the company’s on-site daycare; it can only serve 250 families out of Forma’s nearly 1,000 employees, but employees across the spectrum are proud to say that they have on-site daycare. She calls this a halo benefit.Harris also cautioned against fragmented evaluation of benefits. “Sometimes we talk about the ecosystem, but then we also look at things in a silo. So we’re not looking at it across, we’re looking at it vertically, in terms of what we’re offering our employees.” Between this siloed view and failing to incorporate employee feedback, companies can wind up with lower-value, fragmented benefit plans.The lack of fiduciary alignment in traditional pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) can be a hidden cause of overspending, says Dhillon. She advocates for partnering with independent PBMs that focus on lower drug costs, transparent pricing, and patient-first outcomes, aligning themselves with employer and employee needs. “I would say you need to find a partner that’s independent and that is operating in your best interest as a fiduciary,” said Dhillon.Inclusion in Benefits DesignMarjory Lake, head of total rewards & people operations at JCDecaux, suggests that companies consolidate vendors, continuously listen to employees to meet them where they are, and design benefits programming for real-life employee needs.JCDecaux recently combined healthcare savings accounts and 401(k) accounts into the same vendor, saving the company money while improving the employee experience, she says.Lake looks at employee benefits holistically to ensure the company is meeting the needs of most employees. “I want to look at something that’s more impactful and more meaningful. That way [you can get] that buy-in for the higher ups, but also you’re meeting people in the middle of where they are in their lives.”Aside from the simple shifting of costs, companies are finding innovative ways to provide value. Harris advocated for lifestyle spending accounts (LSAs) as a core requirement to address the diverse, evolving needs of today’s workforce. She discussed their ability to complement traditional benefit plans by bridging gaps for things like caregiving education, and counseling that are otherwise not covered.The advent of GLP-1 medications for weight loss has created a new benefit-cost challenge for companies, panelists agreed. “What we really focus on is that supportive ecosystem around all of these things. We want to partner with lifestyle vendors and offer these things like gym memberships and other pathways to meet people in the middle,” said Lake. “A healthier and happier workforce will, over time, pay it for itself.”Cindy de Bruin, senior director of benefits and global mobility for Boston Scientific Corp., highlighted the company’s Surgery Center of Excellence, which routes certain procedures through a curated provider network with the goal of lower costs, improved outcomes, and shortened recovery times.However, the workforce had a strong, unexpected reaction to the change, leading the company to realize that they needed better communication. “We had to explain that part of this is not just about cost—this is also about your benefit. This is also about all our employees across the U.S..”Communication as a StrategyNot surprisingly, the need for communication and employee listening around benefits programming emerged as a common theme. Employees need to understand why changes are happening, says Dhillon, or you can run into resistance and engagement issues. “The more you can communicate, the more you can educate your employees as to why we’re doing this—I think it’s powerful, and that’s where I see the most success, honestly.” Communication gaps can impact employees’ awareness of what is available to them. Vendors can help them navigate benefits, says de Bruin, but first there needs to be communication from the employer. “If we do listening sessions, for example, we sometimes hear of benefits that they would like to have offered that are already there. That means we are doing something wrong in the communication.” she said. To help neutralize lack of awareness or slow benefit uptake, Harris recommends multifaceted communications and repeated exposure to visual cues alongside traditional communication campaigns. Using an established color-coded system that categorizes company benefits, Forma draws attention to specific offerings or benefits by adapting its intranet site during seasonal awareness campaigns, but still sends a notification postcard to employees’ homes to notify them of actions like benefits enrollment.McClure achieved a 90% response rate on a recent employee survey by clearly communicating the purpose, “to make informed decisions moving forward,” ensuring anonymity, and allowing open-text responses. Employees are given the message that “this is your big chance to get out everything you want to get out,” she said, “because it’s so valuable [for the company] to hear this feedback.” In that survey, they “had 95% of people say that they rated benefits as the most important thing when determining whether they’re going to get a new job or stay at the one they’re at.” Armed with this employee data, she is able to keep leaders focused on the big picture and avoid quick fixes that could have negative long-term financial implications. Additionally, it’s crucial to balance vocal employee preferences with what is best for most employees, says Lake. “Our job is to always look at the equity—what the greater good is, what the need is,” she said. “The goal is to build a foundation that supports everyone. That’s not always easy, because everyone has different needs at different times, and they’re in different places in their lives.”Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Building Meaningful Support From Maternity Leave Through Return to Work
BY Grace Turney April 14, 2026As soon as Lauren Smith returned from maternity leave after her first child, she encountered a question that still makes her shake her head: “Is your baby sleeping through the night?” She had just come back after four months away. Her baby was barely old enough to begin sleep training. “That’s impossible,” she remembered thinking, “unless you have one of that very small percentage of babies that do.”It sounds like a small moment, a well-meaning but clueless question from a colleague. But for Smith, senior director at Maven Clinic, it represented something fundamental about how companies misread the return-to-work experience for new parents. They think the hard part is the leave itself.They’re wrong.That insight anchored a From Day One webinar titled, “From Maternity to Return to Work.” Shern-Min Chow, journalist and founder of Smart Media Content, moderated the conversation with Smith, who drew on more than seven years at Maven, during which she also had two children, to share what meaningful postpartum and return-to-work support actually requires.Fragmented Care Is a Core ProblemFor HR leaders, the challenge of building family benefits often resembles what Smith called “a game of Whack-a-Mole,” pulling one lever to address breastfeeding support, another for mental health, another for parenting resources, none of them connected. The experience for employees on the receiving end is just as disjointed, she says.Lauren Smith is a senior director at Maven Clinic, the world’s largest virtual clinic for women and families (company photo)“When your baby is born, frankly, that’s when the healthcare system forgets about you,” Smith said. New parents are left to navigate on their own between OB-GYNs, pediatricians, mental health providers, HR teams, and managers. And that’s before even accounting for complications like preeclampsia or a NICU stay.The consequences are predictable: avoidable emergency room visits, extended leaves, and what Smith called “quiet attrition,” employees who reduce hours or leave entirely because they never felt like they had a plan.Her prescription is a single integrated platform where employees can access postpartum care, mental health support, lactation consulting, pediatric guidance, and return-to-work resources in one place. “You have to ensure that those benefits span clinical, emotional, and practical needs and are not a one-size-fits-all solution,” she said. “Having a benefit like Maven checks a lot of boxes, but it doesn’t just check a box.”Mental Health Doesn’t Announce ItselfOne in seven women report severe depressive moods postpartum—a figure most HR professionals know. What’s less understood is that symptoms can last up to a year and frequently appear in people who have never experienced anxiety or depression before. Among Maven’s own members, nearly a quarter report experiencing anxiety when they join the platform, and the numbers include fathers and non-birthing partners.Smith recounted filling out a pediatrician’s intake form after her son was born, and encountering a mental health questionnaire. “I kept thinking, there is no way I am going to tell this pediatrician that I’ve known for an hour about any of my mental health needs,” she said. She checked boxes to move the process along.That same instinct, to hide vulnerability rather than ask for help, plays out in workplaces every day. The antidote, she says, isn’t just offering mental health resources. It’s proactive outreach: a manager, an HR contact, or an onboarding buddy who reaches out and says, simply, ‘How are you doing?’ “Without that, it feels like, as the individual, you are the one knocking on the door,” Smith said.Return to Work Is a Phase, Not a DateManagers often believe that once they’ve secured paid leave and childcare assistance, they’ve done their job. Smith pushes back hard on that framing. “Women are juggling physical symptoms during pregnancy and then postpartum physical recovery, emotional health challenges, breastfeeding logistics, and just overall identity and career questions,” she said. “Can I be on a promotion track, and how do I do all of this?”When those challenges go unaddressed, women come back without a plan—and they are far more likely to reduce hours or leave entirely.What does a real return-to-work plan look like? Smith said it starts before the employee leaves. A strong pre-leave transition should align on dates, clarify flexible-return policies, build a genuine coverage plan, and (crucially) discuss career path and performance expectations before the leave begins. “It really sets the stage on, we value you as an employee,” she said.That support shouldn’t end when the employee walks back in the door. Maven originally offered three months of postpartum support, which Smith called groundbreaking at the time. “Very quickly after we realized there was a huge gap in needing to extend that even further.” The platform now supports families through the first year postpartum and beyond.The Business Case Is ClinicalFor HR professionals who need to make the case to a CFO or board, Smith offered a direct framing: addressing maternity spend is not a perk—it’s a risk management and equity strategy.Maternity-related costs rank in the top five expenditures for most employers she has worked with. A vaginal birth versus a C-section represents a cost difference of $10,000 to $12,000. A NICU admission can run $30,000 to $70,000 per case. Across more than 25,000 births studied over a decade, Maven has found a 15-20% lower C-section rate and a 28% lower NICU admission rate among its members.In one case study, a Fortune 10 company enrolled nearly 2,000 families in Maven’s maternity and return-to-work program, says Smith. The result: 95% of members returned to work, more than half specifically crediting Maven, and the company saved over $1.2 million annually from increased productivity and reduced attrition.Identity-Matched Care Builds TrustMaternal mortality rates in the U.S. have doubled over the last decade, and Black women face disproportionately higher risk of complications and death during childbirth. Many arrive in the healthcare system already carrying distrust, Smith noted, and with good reason.Maven addresses this through what it calls care matching: using clinical data and personal preferences to pair members with specialists who share their background, identity, and language. A Black female member, for example, would be matched with a Black female care advocate, OB-GYN, doula, mental health provider, and career coach. “What that really does is build trust in a system that has a lot of distrust in it,” Smith said.Across Maven’s provider network, 40% of providers identify as BIPOC and 11% as LGBTQ+, and care is delivered in 35 languages. About 6% of mental health providers in the U.S. identify as Black; at Maven, they account for more than a quarter of mental health specialists.The platform also uses virtual doulas, a concept that sometimes raises eyebrows. But with 36% of U.S. counties lacking an OB-GYN, and maternity wards closing in underserved areas, in-person care is often simply unavailable. Two appointments with a virtual doula have been associated with a 40% decrease in C-section rates at Maven.Leave Equity Matters TooDuring Q&A, Smith was asked about disparities between leave offered to birthing and non-birthing parents. She didn’t hedge. “I am a big fan of equity when it comes to leave,” she said. Shorter leaves for non-birthing parents signal that their caregiving role is secondary, creating long-term effects on family involvement and gender equity at work.Research from Maven finds that 90% of non-birthing parents report parenthood-related anxiety. Same-sex couples, adoptive parents, and parents through surrogacy face the same caregiving challenges as birthing parents and deserve policies that reflect that reality.The thread running through Smith’s advice is consistent: stop treating maternity and postpartum support as a checklist and start treating it as the high-variance, deeply personal medical and emotional experience it actually is. The employers who do that, she says, end up with not just healthier employees, but also stronger teams, better retention, and a measurable return on investment.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Maven Clinic, for sponsoring this webinar. Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photo by JLco - Julia Amaral/iStock)
Delivering Personalized Benefits for a Multigenerational Workforce
BY Ade Akin April 13, 2026Verlinda DiMarino didn’t spend hours researching her options when her 86-year-old mother asked for a getaway to New York to watch Broadway shows for her birthday. Instead, she called her company’s travel concierge, the same service she had previously used to plan a Harry Potter World excursion in London. “They take that work off the shoulders of our employees,” DiMarino, the Head of Benefits at Liberty Mutual Insurance, said. “So they can basically function and be more productive in their work as well as in their life.”DiMarino sat down with Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borchers at From Day One’s Boston benefits half-day conference to lay out a vision for employee benefits that treats workers as whole people across a multigenerational workforce.Wraparound Benefits for a Multidimensional WorkforceThe old model for benefits packages, health, a 401(k), and dental, no longer cuts it. “Employees today, no matter where they are in their life journey, are looking for programs and benefits that support them holistically,” she said. “It’s really a part of the value proposition today.”Borchers, who also teaches at Bentley University near Boston, drew a parallel to the shift in higher education toward “wraparound services.” Just as students need more than classroom instruction to succeed at higher learning institutions, employees need other things besides a paycheck to thrive. Verlinda DiMarino, head of benefits at Liberty Mutual, spoke with Callum Borchers, columnist at the Wall Street JournalThe challenge becomes deciding what to offer a workforce that includes everyone from recent college graduates to employees in their 80s. DiMarino says the answer starts with data. Liberty Mutual uses employee surveys, focus groups, and employee resource groups (ERGs) to determine what workers really want. “We partner with them regularly in terms of understanding the needs of their community and the allies in their communities,” she said.Listening to employees led Liberty Mutual to expand its fertility program to include perimenopause and menopause support. “When women get to the top of their license, and they’re going full throttle and hitting all cylinders, their hormones start to kick in, and they’re starting to have some brain fog,” DiMarino said. “We don’t want to lose those women from the workforce.” The fertility program now covers more needs, such as family-forming fertility benefits, menopause support, and testosterone replacement therapy for men. One Program, Multiple Life StagesDiMarino highlighted Liberty Mutual’s retirement program as a prime example of benefits designed for everyone. It’s a standard 401(k) on its surface, but it also provides financial counseling, which includes unlimited, one-on-one sessions on budgeting, retirement strategy, and draw-down planning. The company also launched a student loan match package. “Some of our employees coming right out of school are challenged with some student loan debt,” DiMarino said. The program matches student loan payments with matching contributions, helping early-career employees to pay down their debt and build retirement savings. The same program offers mid-career employees an emergency savings benefit and support for home buying. “Within that one program, we are meeting the needs of early career employees dealing with student loan debt,” she added. “We’re helping our mid-career employees as they plan to buy homes, as well as providing support for retirement planning.”Where Artificial Intelligence Helps and Where Humans StayBorcher asked DiMarino about how Liberty Mutual navigates around AI in HR as an increasing number of workplace interactions become automated. “We don’t think of AI as a replacement. We understand that it’s generative, it’s not creative,” she replied. “That’s what our talent is. We’re creative.”Liberty Mutual uses AI for tasks like consolidating dense vendor decks or pulling salient points from documents. “That’s a great use case for AI,” she said. As for employee appetite for AI? That depends on the generation. “My daughter would rather never talk to a person if she could,” DiMarino said. “And then there are employees that want paper, they want to read something and see that it resonates and it makes sense, and then they want to call and clarify.”Covering GLP-1s as a Strategic InvestmentBorchers asked about one of the hottest topics regarding benefits today: GLP-1 coverage. He recalled that DiMarino had recently told a room of her peers that, “AI and GLP-1s were like the two big things on the bingo card.”Liberty Mutual covers GLP-1s for both diabetes and weight loss. “It really aligns with our philosophy that we want a healthy workforce,” DiMarino said. “If you’re at a healthy weight, you’re likely going to have fewer comorbidities. You’re going to be able to sleep better, you’re going to be more productive.”DiMarino acknowledges the high cost of GLP-1s, but frames it as a long-term investment in lower cardiac risk, reduced diabetes spending, and improved cholesterol management. Liberty Mutual built in wraparound lifestyle support when it moved to a new pharmacy benefits manager in 2026. “We wanted to give them the tools and the support around lifestyle management, being able to eat appropriately,” she said, especially for employees who want to titrate down or come off the medications.That coverage has now become a recruiting tool. “We do occasionally have employees. When they’re considering employment with Liberty, they’ll say, ‘Do you offer these medications?’” DiMarino added. “We’re happy to say that we do.”Benchmarking for Top TalentBorchers asked how much employers should keep an eye on competitors when designing benefits. “That’s important, because you want to be the employer of choice,” DiMarino said. Liberty Mutual benchmarks against a peer set that includes other insurance companies as well as “the most admired companies and the top 100.”Regarding hybrid work, which is another popular benefit, Liberty Mutual requires employees within 50 miles of an office to come in two days a week, allowing them to work from home on the remaining days. “That is extremely popular with our employees,” DiMarino said. The company also offers “virtual weeks” around holidays like winter break and back-to-school time, when everyone works from home.DiMarino’s message, delivered through stories of fertility benefits, travel concierges, and Broadway trips, suggests that the companies that invest in true wraparound support will be the ones employees remember.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Future-Proofing Benefits For A New Generation
BY Ade Akin April 10, 2026Claire Marrow had just stepped out of a driverless car in San Francisco when her smartphone buzzed with an urgent referral from her doctor. Two weeks earlier, Marrow, who was training for a marathon, had taken three six-hour flights in four days when her knee began to ache and swell. Her doctor ordered an immediate ultrasound to determine if her flare-up was the result of running or a blood clot caused by sitting in a pressurized cabin for 18 hours. When Marrow called the hospital to schedule the scan, the response was “fax us the details.” “I guess this really was shocking to me,” Marrow, the head of clinical consulting at Hinge Health, shared during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s half-day NYC benefits conference. “I’m riding in a driverless car, but I still need to own a fax machine. This doesn’t make sense.”The contrast captures the central challenge facing HR and benefits leaders today. Millennials and Gen Z now make up over 50% of the workforce as workforce demographics shift dramatically. That figure is projected to reach 74% by 2030 as employee expectations collide with healthcare systems still reliant on fax machines and CD-ROMs. The New Generation’s Healthcare ExpectationsMillennials and Gen Z generally expect a fundamentally different healthcare experience. They grew up Googling their symptoms before consulting with doctors, and want seamless digital access, remote communication with providers, online scheduling, and the flexibility to choose between in-person and virtual care. “Before I was at Hinge Health, I spent four years as a physical therapist at the on-site clinic at Google,” Marrow said. “For every exercise I gave them, they would say, ‘What is this exercise doing for me? Don’t you think I have this diagnosis?’ They had obviously already Googled their condition.” She notes that this trend has intensified with the rise of AI tools: “It’s not just Google anymore. It’s ChatGPT and other AI tools that they’re also using for that.”The Fragmentation ProblemDr. Claire Morrow, Doctor of Physical Therapy and Head of Clinical Consulting at Hinge Health, led the sessionThe healthcare industry remains stubbornly fragmented despite the tremendous technological leaps that have occurred in other industries. Marrow illustrates the problem with a personal story about a knee injury her husband suffered. “He was running when a German Shepherd ran into the side of his knee, dislocating his kneecap,” she said. The injury led to an odyssey through the system: urgent care, a two-week wait for an orthopedist, imaging at one facility, and physically picking up a CD of the MRI to bring it to a surgeon at another hospital.“The rest of the world is moving forward, and we need to think about moving forward with the rest of the world,” Marrow said. “Surgery and medications are often still chosen as quick fixes, but MSK [musculoskeletal] care can be incomplete. We tend not to always think about the whole person.”The Shift to Unified CareMarrow has watched the digital health revolution unfold as a physical therapist for over 13 years, including six years spent at Hinge Health. Digital tools now make it possible for patients in rural areas to rehab after knee replacement surgery without having to drive 45 minutes to a clinic in some city twice a week.However, the technological revolution has also created new problems, such as silos between digital and in-person care.“We need to move from fragmented care to unified care,” Marrow said. “I can’t believe I’m saying that’s the future, that we’ll all talk to each other, because it almost seems obvious. But we really need to choose digital solutions and healthcare solutions that speak to each other.”She says a unified care model would provide a digital front door where members can connect with care coordinators who can triage their condition, provide recommendations, and make warm handoffs to pre-vetted providers, digital or in-person.AI as the Enabler, Not the ReplacementAI is being deployed at Hinge Health to automate tasks to free up clinicians so they can focus more on connecting with patients.“We have an AI-powered care team assistant that we're naming Robin,” Marrow said. “There’s an art to naming your AI agents, and I think we nailed it.” Robin can triage pain flare-ups, gather information, and summarize it for physical therapists, reducing response times from days to same-day care plan adjustments. The automation has improved care team response times by 47%.“Our goal is to ensure that our highly skilled care teams have the time to provide the skill and compassion needed to support each member’s needs," she said. “We’re not replacing that in-person experience. We’re enabling it.”The company’s TrueMotion technology uses computer vision to guide members through exercises, while a recently launched movement analysis tool uses augmented reality to measure the range of motion in the lower back. “We’re starting to replicate some of those interactions from in-person care,” Marrow said. “That doesn’t mean we’re replacing that connection. We’re just making it so that the time a member is not with a physical therapist is much more meaningful.”Future-Proofing BenefitsMarrow’s recommendation for HR leaders looking to future-proof benefits packages is to embrace unified care models that meet the expectations of a digital native workforce.“You’re empowering members. They’re able to get information and make their own decisions,” she added. “You’re building trust in AI. This is really where the future is going. AI has tremendous potential for healthcare, but we need to build that trust.”The transition won’t happen overnight, but as Marrow says, the alternative—continuing to rely on fax machines while employees expect driverless cars—isn’t really an option.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Hinge Health, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
How Employers Are Using LSAs to Support Business Goals
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 09, 2026“We make a point to design our benefits programs to be dynamic and inclusive,” said Zach Mann, the senior benefits program manager at Zillow. “This allows us to meet the needs of our employees, regardless of where they live or what chapter of life they’re in.”Of course, this is often easier said than done. Flexible and adaptive programs are made difficult by the pressures of inflation, shrinking budgets, and by old systems that don’t keep up with employee needs.So, Zillow sought out a new program that can flex with the times. Mann shared this story during a From Day One webinar on how employers are using lifestyle savings accounts, or LSAs, to affect business goals. The discussion, which included insights about LSA platform Forma, was moderated by the company’s own senior customer success manager, Kate Deeny.Mann found a flexible solution in an LSA—a flexible, employer-funded benefit that allocates a specific amount of money employees can use within a defined list of expenses. The employer identifies the amount and the boundaries.At the time, Mann was hearing about other companies cutting their well-being benefits in half, and Mann knew he would likely face similar pressure at Zillow. Leaders spoke about "2026 Global Lifestyle Benefits Benchmark: Insights to Design High-impact Benefits" during the webinar (photo by From Day One)To get buy-in from leaders for the switch from an old reimbursement system to an LSA for well-being benefits, he would have to make a data-driven case. It was easy to see how the old way was taxing the workforce: “Managers were spending almost 3,000 hours trying to approve or understand our policy to approve those expenses,” he said. “On top of that, our HR operations and benefits teams were trying to answer all those questions.”So, the company moved from a gym membership and equipment reimbursement to a $1,000 lifestyle spending account. Employees could then use a single Forma card to cover their gym memberships—no more filing monthly reimbursements, no more filling inboxes with process and coverage questions. Mann likes the flexibility and the option to change the program as-needed, expanding it to cover things like gym clothes or meal subscriptions. The LSA is now one of Zillow’s most utilized benefits, says Mann. “Employers are really getting sophisticated and strategic by thinking of LSAs not just as a perk, but as a strategic benefits infrastructure,” said Danielle Ross, Forma’s head of marketing and the author of the company’s 2026 global lifestyle benefits benchmark report.Many are dealing with the same obstacles that Mann did at Zillow—stipends that get lost in the payroll shuffle, programs that demand a lot of time and input from managers and benefits leaders, and lack of visibility into how those reimbursements are being used. Benefits teams also struggle to juggle the number of point solutions that comprise their benefits ecosystem.As an alternative to traditional reimbursement programs, LSAs are “an efficient structure to help direct benefit budgets toward programs that matter for you, with the built-in flexibility that employees are looking for,” Ross said.LSAs have global capabilities too. Around 50% of employers offering LSAs do so in more than one country, according to Forma’s report. Some employers use them to provide healthcare in countries where they don’t yet have a relationship with carriers, others use it to extend financial support for childcare needs, and in markets with high commuting costs, employers can offer commuter assistance.It’s a common misconception that LSAs are just a nice-to-have tack-on perk, Ross said. “The magic happens when you’re able to ladder-up toward a C-suite priority.” Funds can even be directed toward upskilling, return-to-office incentives, cost-savings, employee well-being, and more. So when leaders knock on the door asking the benefits team how they’re supporting a specific business priority, Ross says, benefits teams can point to their LSA.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Forma, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Milan Markovic/iStock)
Smart Tools, Smarter Hiring: How TA Leaders Can Leverage Their Human Judgement
BY Grace Turney April 09, 2026Soha Kadam-Masudi recently sat down for a series of senior-level reference checks; and she barely picked up a pen. Microsoft Copilot recorded the calls, summarized the conversations, and handed her back something she hadn’t had in years of recruiting: her full attention. “It was such a meaningful conversation because I was focusing on the questions and what was actually coming back as a reference,” said Kadam-Masudi, director of talent acquisition for Aramark Canada.That shift from administrative executor to thoughtful evaluator is exactly the evolution talent acquisition leaders are chasing right now. AI tools have moved well beyond the novelty stage and into the daily rhythms of recruiting, automating the repetitive and liberating the human. But the technology still can’t do the most important things: read a room, sense reluctance in a team, or vouch for a candidate with conviction.This was the topic at hand during a panel discussion at From Day One’s March virtual conference. Corinne Lestch, journalist and founder of the Off-Site Writing Workshop, moderated the conversation with five talent acquisition leaders from companies spanning multiple continents and industries.Streamlining the MachineryFor many TA teams, AI’s first and most visible contribution has been streamlining daily functions. Angie Lombardo, VP, global director of operations for talent acquisition at Arcadis, described layering an AI system on top of her company’s applicant tracking system to compensate for its clunkiness. The tool automates workflow steps, surfaces qualified candidates from a database of a million people, and handles interview scheduling; a task that used to eat hours. “It saves the recruiters a lot of admin time and helps them focus on finding the right person,” she said.Leaders spoke on an executive panel during From Day One's March talent acquisition virtual conference (photo by From Day One)Kadam-Masudi echoed that—at Aramark (where the team recruits roughly 2,000 to 3,000 employees annually in Canada alone), AI screening tools and chatbots help manage the volume by answering candidate questions around the clock, routing applications, and reducing the administrative burden on frontline managers who would otherwise be doing a great deal of recruiting themselves. “Qualified candidates just go into the system, get interviewed, and then really the attention span for managers is: do a good job at the interview and get them hired,” she said.Pradeep Nair, AVP, global head of TA and talent center at Collabera, summed it up neatly: “AI should remove repetition, not the responsibility.”What’s Genuinely Useful, and What Isn’tNot every AI tool earns its place. The panel largely agreed that the clearest value comes from tools that handle high-volume, low-complexity tasks: screening questions, scheduling, workflow analytics, candidate matching. Skill-based assessment tools—which evaluate a candidate's capacity to keep learning rather than just their resume—generated real enthusiasm, with Nair flagging them as a strong emerging category for frontline and retail roles.Natalia Botero Penagos, senior director of talent acquisition at Publicis Sapient, pointed to an agent her team built that helps recruiters with interview preparation and candidate communications. The agent drafts messages calibrated to the company’s employer brand, at the right moment in the hiring process, and then hands them to a recruiter for a final human touch before sending. “The recruiter is the one that needs to review and add the personal touch,” she said. “It creates a more structured way of communication, a better candidate experience.”She also highlighted Claude as a tool gaining ground, particularly for teams outside highly structured corporate environments, pointing to its ability to help build replicable skills and scale the expertise of a strong individual recruiter across an entire global team.What the panel agreed hasn’t worked: giving AI the final say. Several leaders described experiments with fully automated decision-making for junior roles and pulling back quickly. “We were trying to get away with having AI do everything for very basic, very junior roles, and I don’t think we were comfortable to give that decision-making just yet,” Kadam-Masudi said.Lombardo was direct about the legal and ethical stakes: “We don’t have AI making decisions. We have AI automating and making recommendations, but it definitely doesn’t make decisions, because then you get into touchy territory.”Botero Penagos raised a point the group returned to several times: even well-designed AI agents can carry bias. The concern isn’t just about whether to hire a person, but how candidates are evaluated throughout the process. “The human in the loop is 100% needed,” she said.That oversight isn’t just an ethical stance; it’s a structural requirement. As AI begins to shape which candidates get seen, which get screened out, and how they’re communicated with, TA leaders are increasingly responsible for auditing the system’s outputs, not just its inputs.Early Careers in the Age of AIOne of the sharpest conversations of the session came when the topic turned to early career professionals. Chantha Nhem, global lead, new professionals, early careers global TA & development at Nokia, described a growing concern she hears from young workers: will AI take their entry-level jobs before they’ve had a chance to build the judgment those jobs are meant to develop?Her answer was neither dismissive nor falsely reassuring. Nhem referenced Gartner research suggesting AI won’t eliminate jobs so much as reshape them; but she was candid about what that reshaping means. “There’s a loss of natural progression that’s going to happen for early professionals, where you’re going to have to have a higher starting point of complexity in your role, and the learning curve is definitely going to be steeper,” she said.Nokia’s response has been to redesign early career programming from the ground up: shifting the emphasis from purely technical skills to adaptability, critical thinking, and decision-making, and aligning those programs directly to organizational strategy. “We have to make sure that they’re ready for this adoption and give them the confidence they need to contribute faster and integrate faster into our teams,” Nhem said. The talent acquisition and development functions at Nokia were united into a single team last April, a signal of how tightly linked the two have become.The Judgment Calls AI Can't MakeIn the session’s final stretch, Lestch asked each panelist for a recent example of a moment that required human judgment—something AI simply could not have handled.Nhem described looking at a project status dashboard for her early careers initiative and seeing everything marked green. AI would have called it fine. She knew better: team members were quietly anxious about their shifting workloads and new skill requirements. “AI did not flag that, nor could it accommodate the needs of our team,” she said. She organized a collaborative document to surface those concerns and keep the project on track.Nair described introducing AI tools into a recruiting workflow that had operated on Boolean searches and LinkedIn for years. The technology worked, but the people didn’t adopt it without help. “AI could analyze resumes or recommend candidates, but it couldn’t assess the readiness of people to change how they work,” he said. His team redesigned the rollout, leading with training, transparency, and success stories before asking anyone to change their habits.Botero Penagos recalled a talent search across five Latin American countries for creative roles supporting a European team. AI helped compile data and build dashboards. What it couldn’t do was interpret the ambiguity in a creative portfolio, navigate the language and cultural nuances across six countries, or explain the complexity of the landscape to skeptical stakeholders. “All of that comes from experience and from our team,” she said.Kadam-Masudi put it simply: even when AI hands you excellent talking points, you can’t just read them aloud. “It needs the element of you. It needs to be your kind of personality in those words. I’m still me.”Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photo by Ridofranz/iStock)
AI-Ready Workforce: Bridging the Gap Between AI Adoption and Performance
BY Jessica Swenson April 08, 2026“There are really powerful ways that AI can augment, support, and accelerate human decisioning around who to hire and who to move forward, as opposed to AI tools that make decisions for us,” said Andy Nelesen, market director, talent acquisition solutions at SHL. “I would encourage you to explore some of those solutions, systems, and opportunities that really design in the human judgment piece from the start.”With rapidly increasing applicant volumes and AI-driven transformation across the hiring process, talent acquisition teams are now faced with identifying how to effectively balance technology adoption and high-quality decision-making at scale while maintaining applicant trust. This was the topic of a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s March virtual conference.Both candidates and TA teams are using AI to streamline the job search and hiring process, says Nelesen, but he thinks the current benefits may be one-sided. “It feels like AI has been a real dream for candidates and a bit of a nightmare for talent acquisition teams, in terms of getting these new technologies fully enabled and delivering value.”As candidates use AI to contextualize, polish, and submit their resumes, shrinking TA teams can be left with candidates who aren’t aware they’ve applied for a specific job. Similar career documents generated by AI make it more difficult for hiring teams to screen and differentiate applicants. “When AI is polishing up all of these resumes, they sure look the same.” Nelesen said. Andy Nelesen, the global leader of SHL’s suite of talent acquisition products, led the thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Additionally, there are increasing concerns that what recruiters are learning from AI-generated documents may not be real. He suggests that employers require candidates to demonstrate their skills during the interview process, not just claim them. “All of this is making things much more difficult, obviously, for the talent acquisition function, especially at the selection portion of the hiring funnel.”That said, TA teams are also using AI in the hiring process, and candidates “want reassurance that those tools are capturing their skills and capabilities accurately and fairly.” SHL research shows that 59% of workers believe AI is increasing bias and 66% believe employers should reveal when AI is used in the hiring process. So how can organizations leverage these emerging tools while simultaneously ensuring a positive candidate experience?Nelesen cautions against relying too heavily on AI without also incorporating governance, transparency, change management practices, and human oversight. “It’s really easy to get overly focused on the automation capability,” he said, acknowledging that poor implementation of AI can inadvertently scale risks by amplifying existing bias and causing inconsistency.Successfully integrating technology into the hiring process requires companies to understand how candidates will engage with the tools, along with their expectations and fears, which he expects to result in intentional strategies for technology selection.“I think we should over-index on the human side of the equation,” Nelesen said, “rather than just being wowed by the promise that AI can deliver in terms of driving scale and efficiency.”As organizations continue to embrace AI, they will need to prioritize AI readiness among their candidates. SHL research shows that only 48% of employees believe their workplace is AI ready, but this is a metric best measured through behavior—not just employee perception.Based on data collected from millions of employees around the world, SHL developed a behavioral framework that predicts high performance in an AI-enabled environment. Factors like AI literacy, analytical ability, continuous learning, and AI promotion break down into competencies such as AI output evaluation, value creation, critical thinking, and decision-making amid uncertainty. Rather than getting too caught up in tool-specific, rapidly changing skillsets, he says that hiring for these foundational, lasting skills like critical thinking, adaptability, and embracing new technology can be more meaningful. Even better? Combine the two. “I’m not saying that we should walk away from hiring profiles that are steeped in job-specific skills. There are ways to layer in these AI-readiness skills on top of those skills.”The research also shows that new graduates and tenured professional pools bring different, complementary sets of AI-readiness skills to the table. Nelesen encourages leaders not to dismiss either population outright based on perceived limitations—instead look for ways to integrate these teams for maximum impact.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SHL, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by Thai Liang Lim/iStock)
From Jobs to Skills: Inside the Shift Transforming Talent Strategy
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 07, 2026At eBay, which employs 12,000 people globally, senior director of global talent Zeenath Khan is using a pilot based approach to defining skills, which will support hiring and talent mobility—a newer alternative to traditional notions of hiring people for rigidly structured jobs with narrow and singular paths for growth. Influencing an enterprise of that size to rethink its talent strategy, and then actually execute that change, is a massive undertaking. “So what we wanted to do was start quite small,” she said, focusing on teams already motivated to embrace a skills-based strategy in support of career development or AI transformation.Khan was part of an executive panel on how HR leaders are adopting and experimenting with skills-based thinking, during From Day One’s March virtual conference on talent acquisition. Her team works as consultants to business units, running workshops and helping leaders identify the skills their segments will need now and in the years ahead. “With all of the fabulous AI tools, we’ve also created research projects on those topics to support those leaders in their thinking.”As the capabilities of artificial intelligence grow rapidly, some business leaders may be tempted to skip the foundational work and jump straight to replacing roles with AI agents. But Kathryn Withycomb, a senior learning strategist at Thinkhuman, recommends a different approach, starting with business goals, not headcount reduction. Framing the change this way helps keep expectations realistic and ensures that early pilots are focused on measurable, testable outcomes rather than sweeping assumptions about automation.Panelists spoke during a session titled, "Next-Gen Talent: Spotting Skills and Potential Before They’re Visible" (photo by From Day One)Skills-based thinking has been discussed in HR for several years now, but outside the field, the concept is still unfamiliar to most. To help employees understand the shift, Alorica’s senior director of talent acquisition, Danielle McCaffrey, encourages people to reverse-engineer their roles, asking questions like: What job do you have, and what skills do you bring to the table?“The key is making it clear that this approach creates more opportunity for them and not less,” she said. Where traditional, job-based organizations prescribe singular paths from the bottom to the top of an organization with little room for detours, skills-based organizations open up lateral and nonlinear routes—an approach that resonates with a workforce interested in flexibility and adaptability.“A lot of our positions are entry-level customer service roles, but if they demonstrate, say, analytical skills or training ability or a potential around leadership, we know that we can move them into workforce management, operations, training or even recruiting,” McCaffrey said. “When people realize that their skills are portable and visible across the organization, they start to see a much broader career path than the one that they were hired into.”The skills-based transformation doesn’t just appeal to the newest arrivals to the workforce. While the pace of change is accelerating, more experienced employees have already navigated major technological transitions. “There wasn’t Google when I started working,” eBay’s Khan noted. “That combination of folks who have lived experience of dramatic technological change plus emerging talent who bring in a fresh mindset and a completely different set of skills remains really important for us.”Some companies are taking their very first steps toward skills-based planning. Jay Park, the senior director of talent acquisition at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, is focused on building strong relationships with business leaders.“We’re setting up that foundation as a broader people team,” he said, positioning his function as a strategic partner and building credibility so his team can better understand the skills leaders are missing today and what they’ll need in the future. He’s keen on thinking differently about hiring, moving from traditional ideas of what a resume should include and instead welcoming unconventional candidates who appear equipped for a nonlinear career path.Finding the skills that don’t always show up on a resume is “where recruiting becomes both an art and a science, said McCaffrey at Alorica. “Resumes tend to show experience, but they really rarely capture the candidate's actual capability or potential.”To uncover qualities like empathy, resilience, and critical thinking, her team uses behavioral interview questions and situational assessments that require candidates to demonstrate how they would handle real-world scenarios. Yet human judgment remains essential. “A candidate might score a little bit lower on an assessment, but then demonstrates exceptional problem solving and conversation,” she said. “That would be a signal to a recruiter to see if their career path could take a different turn.”As AI gets smarter, Park added, “it’s going to be that much more important for us to assess candidates for mindset, growth, orientation, adaptability—those things that aren’t obvious on paper are going to require a recruiter.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Vadym Pastukh/iStock)
The Business Case for Comprehensive Family Health Benefits in 2026
BY Paul Kersey April 06, 2026Starting a family, caring for children, and navigating the changes that come with midlife are all challenges that affect employees. These experiences can feel overwhelming and may even push valuable workers out of the workforce. But comprehensive family health benefits can make a meaningful difference, improving physical and mental well-being while helping to reduce health costs and strengthen employee retention. This was the subject of a From Day One webinar about “The Business Case for Comprehensive Family Health Benefits in 2026,” Isha Vij, SVP of growth at Maven Clinic. Vij spoke with Sarah Begley, VP of member content at Atria, about what comprehensive health benefits are and how they benefit both employees and employers.Supporting Employees Through All StagesMaven Clinic offers a more comprehensive approach to family health benefits, taking a broader view of care that can be especially useful for employees planning to start families. Its emphasis on counseling and coaching helps employees feel more supported and may reduce reliance on more costly medical interventions, says Vij. Isha Vij, SVP of growth at Maven Clinic, led the webinar (company photo)The value of coaching is apparent at the very beginning of building a family. “We joke here at Maven, everybody knows how not to get pregnant, right? It’s drilled into your brain, and you know exactly how not to do it,” Vij said. “But the reality is when you want to start a family and you want to conceive, most people don’t even know where to start.”That lack of knowledge can lead to frustration and pressure to pursue medical interventions, which can be physically and mentally taxing as well as expensive. Early guidance can make a meaningful difference. From there, a comprehensive family health benefit can provide guidance throughout pregnancy, helping identify potential issues during gestation and improving the likelihood of a complication-free delivery. Maven reports that the mothers it serves are 15% less likely to require cesarean sections, and their babies are 27% less likely to need neonatal intensive care, says Vij. Family Care Goes Beyond PregnancyThe challenges of parenting don’t end with delivery, and support shouldn’t either. Vij, originally from southern Asia, described working with a pediatric nutrition specialist to help introduce her infant to Indian food.“She was in my pantry. She was in my fridge. She was looking through everything with me and telling me this is appropriate for an eight month old, these spices that you use in your cooking are totally appropriate, these other ones, you need to wait until she’s a year old,” Vij said. Maven’s program also includes sleep coaches for those restless nights, along with mental health support. This can be especially valuable for men, who may also struggle with the changes that come with parenthood and want to better support their partners, says Vij. The Advantages of Comprehensive HealthThe value of this holistic approach to family health for workers should be clear, but the advantages flow to employers as well. From fertility coaching to pregnancy support, making it easier for would-be parents to conceive and deliver healthy children means less time spent at doctors’ offices and hospitals, and fewer medical complications. The savings in health care costs are substantial; Maven reports saving an average of $9,600 per pregnancy.This wrap-around coverage is extremely useful for retaining talent too. Recruiting and training new employees is costly and disruptive. Many workers will become parents during their careers, and they value employers who support them. Anything that boosts morale and stabilizes the workforce benefits managers. Vij says that 94% of Maven’s beneficiaries return to the workplace after giving birth, a rate higher than the national average. “Women are powerhouses,” Vij said. “You want them in the workforce, and you want them to be productive and contributing.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Maven Clinic, for sponsoring this webinar. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer who has covered events for Bloomberg News and other outlets. Paul is based in Chicago, IL.(Photo by Goodboy Picture Company/iStock)
Rethinking Early Career Talent in a Changing Hiring Landscape
BY Ade Akin April 06, 2026The challenge of preparing the next generation of employees has been a personal mission for Monica Green, the global head of early careers and talent pipelines at State Street. She doesn't just worry about the thousands of applicants her team vets annually; she also thinks about her son, a college freshman who is navigating the same competitive landscape.“I tell him all the time: You need to start working on an internship for this summer,” Green said during a fireside chat at From Day One's March virtual conference “It’s a tough market right now,” she said.The conversation, moderated by Paige McGlauflin, a reporter at Morning Brew, explored how one of the world’s oldest financial institutions is approaching early-career recruiting with an open and inclusive lens while adapting to a rapidly changing market that's now being reshaped by artificial intelligence.The Human Element in a High-Tech Job HuntOne of the main themes of the discussion was the dual role AI plays in the modern recruiting landscape. Green acknowledges that the “application waves” have become application tsunamis as candidates use AI to instantly apply to hundreds of positions. This forces recruiters to become more efficient with leveraging their own technological tools to filter the increasing influx of applications.Green emphasizes that efficiency cannot come at the cost of losing the human connection. While AI helps to manage high volumes, human touch is still required to evaluate each candidate. “Recruiters are still looking at resumes. They’re providing that insight and having interviews with candidates directly,” Green said. “We want to make sure that we’re leveraging the tools to support us, to be as efficient as we can be, but really enabling the recruiters to play the role that they do in assessing the talent.”This human dynamic has shifted in the era of virtual recruitment. Green notes a growing trend of returning to in-person interviews among her peers as candidates become increasingly “savvy with the use of technology to be able to answer questions in the midst of an interview.” This has created a troubling gap between a candidate’s virtual prowess and their in-person reality.“You can go through an interview process virtually, and that talent may seem great, and then you get them in the door, and it’s like, ‘Wait, we’re not talking to the same person,’” Green said. This challenge has led to a resurgence of on-site interviews and campus events to ensure authenticity.Beyond the Campus QuadBuilding sustainable talent pipelines means looking beyond traditional four-year universities for global firms like State Street. Green detailed a strategy that combines strong relationships with target schools and innovative partnerships with community organizations to reach underrepresented and non-traditional candidates.Monica Green of State Street was interviewed by Paige McGlauflin of Morning Brew (photo by From Day One)“Partnerships with schools are our bread and butter,” she said. State Street also places significant emphasis on local engagement. Green highlighted a partnership with the Boston PIC, an organization that connects Boston Public School students with real-world workplace experiences. A group of high school students in the program even pitched a nonprofit idea to State Street leaders a year ago and secured funding for it.Another one of State Street’s key partnerships is with My HBCU Matters, which connects students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities with corporate leaders for mentorship and mock interviews. These initiatives help enrich communities while creating a more diverse and robust pool of future applicants. “It’s an opportunity for us to just have more interaction with some HBCU students, but also to help support them as they navigate what areas they seek to pursue,” Green said. A Global Philosophy With Local NuanceOverseeing early careers globally means balancing an organization’s philosophy with on-the-ground realities. While the core goal of building a future workforce remains the same, the execution varies wildly from market to market.“In some markets, the focus is on scale and operational readiness,” Green said. “There are others where it’s more niche skills and regulatory requirements.” Cultural expectations around hiring also differ.Green described one market where students have come to expect full-time job offers after internships. While State Street doesn’t guarantee job offers solely based on that expectation, recognizing the dynamic allows the company to manage the recruitment process transparently, helping the firm to maintain its status as a top employer in the region.“We definitely allow for that flexibility to take place, while still keeping that consistency and that philosophy across, no matter the location,” she added.Advice for All SidesGreen advises human resources and talent acquisition professionals to invest in manager readiness. She says the success of early-career hires often depends less on programs and more on the daily environment they enter. “A lot of that is really dependent on the environment that the early career talent is a part of,” she said. Green’s message for students and job seekers confronting a competitive landscape was to be relentless but purposeful with their efforts. Network, persist, and do your homework. “Every role is imperfect,” she cautioned, as she urged job seekers to focus on roles that are aligned with their skills. “Just applying to a job isn’t good enough anymore. You have to take your time to network.”Green practices what she encourages, crediting her own career progression to networks she created, including one that started with a message on LinkedIn. Whether it’s a high school student in Boston, a college sophomore, or a seasoned professional, the common thread, Green argues, is the power of meaningful human connection—a force that no algorithm can replace.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by nd3000/iStock)
Modernizing Talent Acquisition for a Better Applicant Experience
BY Jessica Swenson April 03, 2026“How do we spend less time in front of our computers doing those manual tasks, and instead get in front of candidates and clients, which is where people really like to spend their time?” asked Catie Brand, SVP of HR global RPO & recruitment solutions at LHH. It’s a question Brand is working to answer at her organization, amid rising application volumes in recent years that have forced recruiting teams to do more with the same or fewer resources.Between increased volume, fake applicants, and the manual demands of the end-to-end recruiting process, teams are looking for ways to improve their efficiency without sacrificing the human aspects of recruiting. This was the topic of an executive panel at From Day One’s NYC half-day talent acquisition conference, moderated by HR Brew senior reporter Courtney Vinopal.The introduction of AI is helping to reshape recruiting workflows, improving efficiency and productivity while reducing the manual task load. There are an overwhelming number of AI solutions on the market—how can leaders choose the best option for their company?Smaller organizations with smaller budgets need to carefully assess their needs, says Jean-Luc Charles, VP of people & culture for EILEEN FISHER. They can also start with free tools and incremental upgrades rather than large enterprise projects. Eileen Fisher’s approach is “really thinking about the use, and how we’re going to connect that to a return on investment.”Brand encourages a focus on the business problem to avoid piloting incompatible platforms. She also suggests prioritizing tools that elevate the candidate experience. “We really try to focus on how we can leverage AI to provide an excellent candidate experience—surface the real human beings, and then really care for them throughout the process whether they’re hired or not.”Panelists spoke about "Modernizing Talent Acquisition for a Better Applicant Experience"Noting that ROI in this space can be hard to quantify, Brand says that with the use of AI tools, her team’s client interaction and market trend tracking KPIs “have all gone up because they’re spending less time on things that are really manual.” IBM reduced the scope of repetitive HR tasks by implementing an internal AI assistant. Carl Bernadotte, global head of executive search and talent acquisition leader for IBM, shared that while there was initially dissatisfaction from employees and recruiters, “over time as adoption [increased] and the models got smarter, those employee engagement scores started to go back up. It drastically allowed us to reduce our footprint, but increased our efficiency.” AI tools can bring unintended bias into the hiring process. Charles suggests working with vendor partners to understand details like source training data, known algorithmic bias, and model behavior. “I think that in our capacity with talent, we have a real responsibility, you know, to kick the tires, to lift up the hood, to ask the hard questions,” he said.This potential bias can also impact early talent candidates, making it crucial for them to find ways to differentiate themselves. Fathima Jaffer, VP & head of early talent at TD, advises these individuals to show intentionality as they pursue new roles. Rather than using the “spray and pray” resume approach, attending information sessions, networking with recruiters, and following up after career fairs can help offset some of the common obstacles in today’s market.Charles also suggests that candidates differentiate themselves through self-awareness, authenticity, and genuine connection. “We want to encourage people to think about what's particular to you. How can you offer your story? And that’s a lot about getting to know yourself.”While AI can accelerate processes and create efficiency for hiring teams, especially when faced with massive application volumes, some industries have strict regulations, and it’s important not to sacrifice the candidate experience. TD treats AI as augmentation rather than automation, says Jaffer, by starting with low-risk efficiency implementations at a safe pace. The company still relies on resume reviews conducted by humans, especially for early talent. “We are finding, what is that right balance between human and technology and the efficiency that that technology will bring?” she said. “We need that efficiency, but [need to do] it in a way that does not erode that candidate experience.”Bernadotte also advocates for a balance between AI experimentation and human interaction. “At the very core of every experience, we have to focus on the things that are uniquely human that we can do, and where do we add value?”Companies should focus on places where person-to-person contact is required, such as talent pipeline development, candidate conversations, and consultation with hiring managers, he says, saving AI tools for tasks that support productivity and scale.It’s clear that there is a place for AI in the TA process, but trends among panelist companies show that human involvement continues to be an integral part of the recruiting and hiring process.Charles tells his team that, with their capabilities for self-awareness, insight, and authentic human connection, they themselves are the tool. “As talent professionals, we need to continually upskill, not just in the technical aspects, but in the strategic—in our own connection with ourselves.”Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.
Beyond Generational Labels: Designing Benefits That Support the Whole Person
BY Ade Akin April 02, 2026“Don’t make assumptions about what a particular generation looks like,” said Susan Bridges Gilder, director of total rewards at Beiersdorf. “We need to get beyond labels and really need to get into what individual people need.”Gilder spoke on an executive panel discussion about this topic at From Day One’s NYC half-day benefits conference. Panelists discussed how they are supporting a workforce that spans five generations. The session, titled “Inclusive Well-Being Strategies for a Multigenerational Workforce,” quickly landed on a consensus to stop trying to put employees in a box.From Demographics to 'Moments That Matter'Tania Rahman, moderator and social director at Fast Company, opened the discussion by noting the breadth of needs in today's workforce. A Gen Z employee might be focused on student debt, while a Baby Boomer is more concerned about their pensions.“For me, it’s not even generations, it’s really about the moments that matter,” Maria Julieta Casanova, the global head of strategic HR business partners and talent acquisition COE at Corteva Agriscience, said. She notes that potential hires now ask more questions regarding their benefits, like fertility support or parental leave for dads, than about their salaries.“Those are the moments that we need to focus on,” she added. “It’s our job to make sure that people stay while they navigate through the complexities of life.”Sometimes the moments that matter exist within the workplace. Lesley Alderman, a Brooklyn-based psychotherapist, has a client who was miserable working in their company's open-plan office. Alderman offered a simple solution that was immediately rejected: wear headphones.“No one does that. I’m going to be stigmatized,” the client thought. This fear of standing out is one of the silent killers of employee well-being. It’s a problem no single benefit package can fit, but a culture of inclusive leadership just might, she says. Panelists spoke about "Inclusive Well-Being Strategies for a Multigenerational Workforce"Sarah Royal, the senior director of marketing at the family care platform Cleo, challenged the audience to consider the commonality all employees share beneath the surface.“We often get caught up in that generational conversation of saying they’re so different,” she said. “But I would venture to say that, for the most part, if we asked what are the top three most important things in your life, probably most of you would say somebody that you're caring for.”The Preventive Approach to Mental HealthAlderman says feelings of uncertainty are the primary reason many people seek therapy. Any benefits that make it easier for employees to navigate their world provide a sense of control, whether it’s financial planning, onsite services, or caregiving support.Casanova echoed this, sharing a story of a senior executive candidate who negotiated for more vacation time, a move she calls a “breath of fresh air” that signaled a cultural shift. “The more we can bring leaders and really encourage them to make good use of the benefits available, the more this will cascade and become part of the culture,” she said. Gilder highlighted the importance of preventive mental health. Companies shouldn't wait until employees are broken to offer support, she says. Beiersdorf has been working on a resilience series with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and joined an employers' collaborative in New York City to foster ongoing conversations.Gilder also championed the idea of a dedicated caregiving benefit, pointing to Cleo as an example of a service that acts as a guide for employees navigating life events, from raising children to caring for aging parents. “It’s not like the EAP where you just get a random person,” Gilder pointed out. “You have someone assigned to you, and you build that connection.”Building Trust Through Utilization and CommunicationYou can design the most generous benefits package in the world, but if your employees don’t use it, you’ve wasted your time and money. Michelle Randazzo, the total rewards retirement benefits lead at AlixPartners, says that the work doesn’t end with rolling out a great program. “Employees need to be educated on their benefits so that they can make educated decisions, and that still remains an issue," she said.To combat this, AlixPartners focuses on building trust through personal connection. To bridge the gap between benefits and utilization, Randazzo leads a neurodiverse employee resources group (ERG), and she’s candid about her experience with ADHD. She maintains a 25-page 401(k) FAQ that ends with a simple but powerful prompt to send her an email if they still have unanswered questions.“The magic actually happens when you meet your people in person,” she added. “They feel valued, and that builds trust, and when you build trust, they will then be part of the process.”Royal added that the most effective marketing for a benefit often comes from peers. “Have the people leaders, the managers, be human, use the benefits themselves,” she said.Ultimately, it was unanimously agreed that the most successful strategies treat employees as whole human beings who are navigating their complex lives. As Randazzo put it, “If all you care about is cost containment, then we are not dealing with humans. We are dealing with data, and people are not robots.”Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
How Leading Employers Turn Financial Stress into Measurable Engagement
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 01, 2026HR leaders have long relied on engagement surveys to monitor workforce health, but when it comes to financial matters, many are still figuring out the best ways to measure the need, and the impact.“Financial wellness is still a topic many of us are trying to get comfortable talking about,” said Julia Fearn, director of channel partnerships at SoFi at Work, during a From Day One webinar on how employers are tuning financial stress into measurable engagement.Contrast this with growing demand from the workforce. “Employees are more and more asking for their employer to help them,” she said. “But employers aren’t yet comfortable with that.” While 66% employees want some sort of financial well-being support from their companies, only 23% of employers offer it.Even without direct conversations, financial strain leaves a trail. It shows up in increased 401(k) hardship loans, low retirement plan participation, and sometimes in direct deposits, whether into checking or savings.At the same time, benefits leaders are doing everything they can to stretch a dollar. Rising healthcare costs are consuming a larger share of the benefits budget, limiting the ability to expand and experiment with new offerings.Julia Fearn, director of channel partnerships at SoFi at Work, led the session (company photo)“What we’re hearing this year is that the vast majority of benefits leaders are looking to reallocate or maximize efficiency of what they’re spending,” Fearn said. “What can I squeeze out of the ecosystems that I already have to make sure we’re maximizing what’s already there?”Some employers are offering emergency savings programs, which can help employees cover unexpected expenses, like a $2,500 car repair, without borrowing against their retirement savings. And employers are also experimenting with how to drive participation too. Incentives, Fearn said, can be effective if they’re designed for long-term behavior change.“Providing incentives and checkpoints does drive behavior,” Fearn said. Short-term rewards, like winning a FitBit or a gift card do work, but only for a short period of time. Longer-lasting incentives, like employee matching, are more effective because they reinforce ongoing behavior, not just one-time actions. “It doesn’t have to be a huge dollar amount to have a very meaningful impact,” she said, noting that even a $100 match on a $500 contribution can meaningfully shift behavior.For employers, the payoff of financial well-being programs can extend beyond the individual to broader workforce shifts. The key question, Fearn said, is: What are you trying to achieve, and how many people can you impact? In some cases, financial wellness benefits have led to measurable reductions in turnover. According to Fearn, one healthcare organization saw a 21% drop in turnover within the first year of launching a student loan contribution program. A consumer goods company reduced turnover from 13% to 6% after introducing a similar benefit. Notably, even though only 9% of employees enrolled, the impact was felt across the broader workforce.“From a benefits perspective, there’s been a lot happening in the last few years, when it comes to supporting physical and emotional well-being,” Fearn said. “Though there’s a lot of alignment in terms of what employers are doing and what employees expect, we’re seeing one of the biggest disconnects around financial well-being.”Closing the financial wellness gap requires employers getting comfortable with a topic many still feel is taboo, but the payoff is there, what begins as stability in one person’s retirement account can affect the stability of the whole workforce.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SoFi at Work, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Nanci Santos/iStock)
How AI Can Help Identify the Right Skills and Build Stronger Teams
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski March 30, 2026Building a strong business starts with assembling the right team and delivering a thoughtful, effective hiring process. As AI and related technologies rapidly evolve, they are becoming an increasingly common part of how companies approach talent acquisition.Tim Wesson, SVP of global talent acquisition at IQVIA, spoke with moderator Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, business reporter at the Seattle Times, about AI and how it can be used to create strong, long-lasting teams in the workforce during a fireside chat at From Day One’s March virtual conference. With a background in sales and sales management, Wesson eventually found his way to the talent acquisition field. Now, with eight years at IQVIA, Wesson has firmly settled into his role at the corporation that provides many vital services.“Our mission really is to accelerate innovation for a healthier world, and we do so by leveraging our domain expertise, our tech, our data and analytics, bringing it all together to innovate,” said Wesson.How the Pandemic Changed HiringWhen discussing how Covid reshaped hiring, Wesson noted that the virtual hiring practices that emerged during the pandemic are still widely used today. He also pointed to greater flexibility in career paths and the expanded use of technology, including AI, as lasting shifts that continue to shape hiring.Tim Wesson of IQVIA shared insights on TA during the session (photo by From Day One)When asked what challenges exist today, Wesson stated that having to do more or even the same with less is often a challenging feat. Budgets are usually tight and that has been amplified throughout the past years, which puts pressure on talent acquisition. There’s also a large increase in applicants for the various roles. “I think, primarily because there’s not as many roles, but also AI is certainly helping facilitate people to apply to roles,” said Wesson. “And so you just have this massive amount of applicants that are coming in on a day-to-day basis.”Some of the applications coming in aren’t from actual candidates and this leads to an increase in the number of applications the talent acquisition team has to go through to find the right person to hire for the job role, he says. How a Company Can Attract TalentAs for how a company can remain attractive to talent, “I wouldn’t say there’s this new playbook that you have to write in order to remain attractive. I think it’s still about knowing what’s important to the people in the various talent pools that we recruit in and then taking a tailored approach to that individual.”There are more than 2,000 different job profiles at IQVIA, ranging from clinical roles to tech roles, and everything in between, he says. Therefore, the approach must be tailored to reach those individuals in all the different job roles. The recruiters need to be well-versed in the roles that they’re hiring for, know how to provide meaningful information to the candidate, and run a well-constructed interview process. Most importantly, they must have good communication with the candidate throughout the hiring process. In addition to offering a competitive salary and attractive benefits, Wesson said that it’s also important to provide flexibility, learning and development, and career growth opportunities. Overall, it’s vital to know what’s important to the candidate and focus on those areas, which will help increase the attractiveness of the job opportunity. The needs of potential hires also vary from a generational standpoint. “Certainly, stability is very important, and flexibility is important for Gen Z and millennials. I would also say meaningful work is very important. Probably more important, I think, to the Gen Z group than the others.” For IQVIA, which has a global presence, Wesson says the fundamentals of talent acquisition don’t really change. However, you have to be aware of certain factors, such as cultural nuances, laws and regulations, and social platforms. When recruiting in different countries, you should be knowledgeable of the various cultures. Some companies have recruiters all over the globe, which makes it easier to hire with this type of consideration in mind.With that said, hiring managers do sometimes have to interact with candidates outside of their country. “What we’re running into is hiring managers, say, in the US, having to interview and interact with candidates in other countries, and they’re not used to how you go about interacting, interviewing, etc. So, in the last year or so, we had to put together playbooks for hiring managers, educating them on those cultural nuances and kind of setting their expectations as it relates to interviewing people in other parts of the world.”AI and Hiring DecisionsAI plays a role at multiple stages of the hiring process, Wesson says, particularly in the early phases of recruitment, where it helps shape messaging that attracts candidates.“In regard to finding talent, creating those talent pools, we’re also using it to assist us in assessing a candidate’s experience or level of skills. So that’s where it’s primarily being used,” said Wesson.Wesson continued that AI is also used to review the skills that currently exist with their employee base for internal mobility purposes.Looking ahead, Wesson said he’s watching how organizations will evolve in allowing talent acquisition teams to use AI, and to what extent. With recent lawsuits involving AI tools making headlines, the path forward may depend in part on how those cases are resolved and how companies use the outcomes to guide their approach.There may also be some employees who are resistant to using AI and other similar technology tools. “I think the change management piece is really important, as far as really helping people understand the reasoning behind the tool, whether it’s AI or not AI, or why you decided to use it, how it fits the expectations around using it, the training and support after it gets rolled out, and understanding that people are going to be somewhat resistant to change,” he said. “You have to account for that.”Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photo by NongAsimo/iStock)
The Autoimmune Blind Spot: How Employers Can Tackle a Growing High-Cost Population
BY Ade Akin March 27, 2026Ellen Rudolph was climbing the corporate tech ladder until she found herself battling a chronic health mystery that left her almost completely bedridden seven years ago. Instead of enjoying the prime of her health and career, she experienced a host of debilitating symptoms that doctor after doctor couldn’t give her any straight answers about. “After a long, winding journey, I eventually learned I had an autoimmune disease,” Rudolph, now the co-founder and CEO of WellTheory, said. “For me, it wasn’t until I really got to the root cause of my symptoms and embraced an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle that I was able to reclaim my health.”Rudolph went viral after sharing her story on social media, reaching over 25 million views. She cultivated a community of over 85,000 followers who were navigating similar journeys, which made it clear she wasn’t alone in her struggles with autoimmune disease. The Autoimmune Association states that approximately 50 million people in the U.S. have an autoimmune disease, a number that is quickly rising. People with autoimmune disorders represent roughly 15% of the workforce.During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s NYC half-day benefits event, Rudolph made her case for why employers must pay attention to this costly and underserved patient population during, sharing insights from her personal struggles with an autoimmune disorder. The Autoimmune Disease Blind SpotAn autoimmune disease is a condition that leads to the body mistakenly attacking healthy cells, organs, and tissues, causing damage and chronic inflammation. There are more than 100 autoimmune conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Thyroiditis alone is estimated to cost U.S. employers over $70 billion annually. Autoimmune disease is the third most common cause of chronic illness in the U.S., even more common than type 2 diabetes today. Research suggests environmental factors play a significant role in the dramatic rise in cases. “The research points to the role that environmental factors, such as the Western diet, environmental toxins, stress, and viruses, play in triggering autoimmune disease,” Rudolph said. The prevalence of autoimmune conditions has seen “steady increases with no signs of abating.” To make things worse, 76% of people who have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder were misdiagnosed at least once, as was the case with Rudolph. “The reality of these conditions is that they are invisible. You don’t need to look sick to be sick, and so often, they can fly under the radar, both in terms of the claims data, but also in terms of just your workforce more broadly,” Rudolph said.One of the biggest challenges regarding diagnosing autoimmune disease is that, unlike other chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes, which fall under well-defined ICD-10 codes, autoimmune diseases are fragmented across different buckets based on the organ affected. This fragmentation creates what Rudolph calls “the autoimmune horizontal,” which increases the risk of misdiagnosis. The High Cost of Specialty Drugs Driving Autoimmune SpendAutoimmune disease is one of the fastest-growing areas of drug spend. Costs have increased 459% over the last decade, with specialty drugs for these diseases driving 50% of high-cost specialty drug spend.“The reality is that these are drugs costing about $45,000 per patient annually,” Rudolph said. “If you recognize a lot of these drugs, then autoimmune disease is already a top cost driver for your organization.”The autoimmune epidemic is also a women’s health crisis, with approximately 80% of patients diagnosed being women. Some conditions are as much as 16 times more common in women. Autoimmune diseases like lupus disproportionately impact minority populations, with Black and Hispanic women diagnosed at three times the rate of non-Hispanic White women.The current standard of care is failing these patients. They typically undergo lengthy diagnostic journeys that take five doctors over four and a half years on average just for an accurate diagnosis. The process includes batteries of tests, ping-ponging from specialist to specialist, and trips to the ER, creating tremendous waste in the system.Once diagnosed, the standard of care relies heavily on biologics, but about 40% of patients end up switching prescriptions due to side effects or lack of efficacy, leading to a trial-and-error process, which leads to more medication, more doctor visits, and more lost time at work.“One of the fundamental challenges with the standard of care today is that it’s focused on masking symptoms rather than treating the underlying root causes of these conditions,” Rudolph said. “So, to treat autoimmune disease requires this fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about these conditions and really looking at the underlying issues, rather than just trying to fix what's above the surface.”A Root Cause Assessment Approach to Autoimmune CareRudolph’s battle with autoimmune disease inspired the creation of WellTheory, a virtual care platform that's purpose-built for patients with autoimmune disorders. The platform provides evidence-based dietary and lifestyle interventions that address root causes. These offerings are packaged into specialized care management programs delivered in a digital, scalable format.The WellTheory experience starts with a root cause assessment that includes a deep dive into a member's health history, nutritional, and behavioral patterns to uncover underlying triggers. Each member is matched with a dedicated care team of autoimmune experts, including a licensed registered dietician, board-certified health coach, and care coordinator.Members receive continuous one-on-one care through video calls, unlimited messages, access to customized nutritional resources, whole-body care plans, interactive educational content, and curated community support. The program has been featured in four peer-reviewed, third-party published papers that demonstrate its effectiveness.“Our intent is not to disrupt or duplicate the care that they’re already receiving away from their providers, but really fill the gap of care that’s missing outside of the four walls of the doctor’s office,” Rudolph said.The results are compelling: 91% of members report meaningful symptom relief within 12 weeks, and 61% report a noticeable shift in symptoms of depression and anxiety. Members stay engaged for an average of 270 days, engaging with the platform 13 times per month on average.Employer Benefits: The ROI of a Root-Cause ApproachBeyond health outcomes, WellTheory delivers significant cost reduction. An independent third-party actuarial analysis found the program delivers $5,200 in savings per engaged autoimmune patient annually and $9,400 in savings per patient on biologics.“We offer a less expensive, lower risk, and more effective way to manage autoimmune disorders than the status quo,” Rudolph added. The analysis also showed a 71% reduction in imaging services, a 64% reduction in ER visits, and a 38% reduction in hospital stays. A case study with a Fortune 100 tech company revealed that autoimmune disease was driving 25% of their total medical and pharmacy spend. After implementing WellTheory, an independent actuary found a 2.2x net ROI in year one due to reductions in ER visits and hospital stays. Another partnership with a large school system delivered a 5-to-1 ROI.“So we know that employers are under mounting pressure to see that cost reduction in year one, and we really stand behind our outcomes by putting our fees at risk in that first year,” Rudolph said.Behind the data are members like Joanne, a retired school counselor diagnosed with Hashimoto's and Crohn's disease over 10 years ago. Joanne was hospitalized for over 100 days after a routine procedure went awry. She was still struggling with severe fatigue and muscle wasting that left her essentially bedridden when she came to WellTheory. Her goal was to reclaim her energy so she could chase after her grandchildren.Joanne went from barely being able to walk around the block to being able to stay on her feet for two to three hours straight in four months, allowing her to walk her daughter down the aisle.Joanne expressed her gratitude in a video shared during Rudolph's presentation. “Working with WellTheory has definitely impacted my quality of life for the better,” she said. “I definitely now have more energy. I feel like I’m able to do more things. It’s given me the confidence to get back my life.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, WellTheory, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Listening to the Employee Voice to Shape Smarter Benefits
BY Grace Turney March 25, 2026When employees at Pernod Ricard needed to find mental health care for their children after the pandemic, the company heard about it quickly. Parents stressed over long waits for therapy appointments and limited options for younger dependents—and this stress followed them into the workplace.Within months, the company rolled out a digital solution that allowed families to access therapy from home, says Diana Estrada, director of compensation and benefits for Pernod Ricard, North America. The move illustrates a growing challenge for employers: gathering employee feedback is easy, but turning that information into meaningful workplace benefits requires a much more deliberate process.Discussing how organizations can translate employee input into real benefits decisions was the theme of a panel discussion at From Day One’s NYC half-day benefits conference. Moderated by Tania Rahman of Fast Company, panelists explored how HR leaders and benefits experts gather feedback, analyze data, and communicate decisions back to employees.Listening Beyond SurveysEmployee feedback often begins with surveys, but many workplace needs go unspoken. “Some people have trouble being direct about their needs because they feel ashamed or like they’re being needy,” said Jenny MacKay, partner, SVP, employee benefits consulting at Alera Group. Leaders therefore need to look beyond formal responses and pay attention to subtle signals from employees.“You have your extroverts who will tell you exactly how they’re feeling,” MacKay said. “But you’ve also got a quieter population. Unless you’re visible and present with employees, you may not know what they need.”Building trust across the workforce makes those conversations easier. When employees know HR leaders personally, they are more likely to share concerns, whether about healthcare, finances, or work-life balance.Panelists spoke about "Listening to the Employee Voice to Shape Smarter Benefits"For organizations with highly vocal workforces, the challenge can be less about encouraging feedback and more about managing the volume of it. “At my company, employees are very vocal,” said Estrada of Pernod Ricard. “They use all the channels available, surveys, business partners, leadership conversations, to share their feedback.”Estrada’s team analyzes multiple data streams, including HR case-management systems and employee surveys, before evaluating potential benefits changes with outside advisors. “We take all that data and determine what’s going to have the biggest impact and what’s feasible financially,” she said.Understanding What Employees Actually WantThe phrase “better benefits” can mean very different things depending on the workforce. For global organizations, the diversity of employee roles and life stages makes benefit design especially complex.“It depends on the population you’re talking about,” said Eduardo Mennocchi, director of compensation, benefits & HR operations, at LVMH Fashion Group. Retail staff working in stores, he says, often have different priorities than corporate employees. Life stage matters just as much as job type. “For some people it’s all about medical coverage,” Mennocchi noted. “For others, it’s flexibility.” In many cases, employees aren’t asking for higher pay or more expensive benefits. Instead, they want policies that allow greater control over their time, such as more flexible scheduling for paid time off. “That flexibility sometimes doesn’t cost the company anything,” he said.Searching Beyond Surveys for InsightEmployee feedback is just one piece of the puzzle when designing benefits. Organizations must also analyze behavioral data to understand how workers are actually using the benefits available to them.“We don’t just look at employee surveys,” said Noora Garnett, VP of global benefits at Hasbro. “We also look at claims information and employee behavior.”For example, an increase in hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts can signal financial stress among employees. A spike in maternity-related claims could highlight the need for stronger family support. “If we see those patterns,” Garnett said, “we know we need to adjust our programs.”Financial data can also reveal insights employees might not openly discuss. “Money is incredibly private,” said Jeff Miller, VP at the financial well-being platform nudge, whose work focuses on employee financial health. Because of that privacy, organizations often need to analyze trends rather than rely on direct disclosures.“If you look at the data deeply, like 401(k) loans or financial-health scores, you can start to understand what employees are dealing with,” Miller said. Those insights can help employers tailor communications and benefits to the groups that need them most.Balancing Employee Needs and Budget RealityEven when companies understand what employees want, cost constraints can complicate the decision.MacKay encourages employers to look at the existing data before sending out new surveys. Workforce demographics and healthcare claims information can reveal issues that even employees themselves may not recognize yet.“You can see the demographics of your workforce and what’s happening in your claims data,” she said. “That helps you build a budget before you go to employees and ask what they want.”This approach helps organizations avoid a common mistake: asking for feedback on benefits that the company ultimately cannot afford to provide.Follow-through, MacKay emphasizes, is crucial for building and maintaining trust. “If you run a survey, you need to be prepared to implement what you said you would,” she said.Economic downturns or changing priorities can sometimes force companies to reduce or delay benefits. In those moments, transparency is critical. Mennocchi says organizations must identify which benefits are essential before making cuts. “There are some benefits that are non-negotiable,” he said. “And if you’re in a tough situation, your priority should be keeping your staff.” If trade-offs are unavoidable, honest communication helps employees understand the reasoning behind the decision.Garnett echoed that view, noting that openness can sustain trust even during difficult changes. “You have to be transparent and vulnerable with your people,” she said. “Explain the due diligence that was done and why this is the only way forward.”Well-Being as a Performance DriverBeyond cost and logistics, panelists emphasized that benefits play a crucial role in employee performance.Garnett described well-being programs as the engine that supports pay-for-performance strategies. “If you don’t support employee well-being, how can you expect them to perform well?” she said.Well-being programs have come to extend beyond physical health to include financial, mental, and social support. At Hasbro, employees participate in community volunteering and charitable initiatives that strengthen social connections within the company. Garnett noted that those programs help employees stay motivated, even during challenging periods.Closing the Feedback LoopThe panelists agreed that the most important step in the feedback process happens after data is collected. Employees want to know what became of their input.Estrada says HR leaders work closely with employee resource groups to communicate decisions—whether a suggestion results in a new benefit or not. “It’s not about making sure everyone agrees,” she said. “It’s about making sure they understand the why.”When organizations clearly connect benefits decisions to employee feedback, workers are more likely to participate in future conversations. “Make a big deal about it,” MacKay advised. “Tell employees: we heard you, and we acted.”Without that closing step, even the most detailed surveys risk becoming just another form employees fill out, without expecting anything to change.Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Rewiring Hiring for a Company That Never Stops Casting
BY Katie Chambers March 24, 2026It has been an exciting time for NBCUniversal: February saw the Winter Olympics in Italy, the Super Bowl, basketball, and several blockbuster film promos released, all in a matter of weeks. “It was a moment of a lot of pride for employees at NBC,” said Suzan Vulaj, SVP of global talent acquisition at NBCUniversal. Employees at the 30 Rock headquarters in NYC enjoyed big-screen watch parties in lounge chairs, Italian delicacies, gifting suites, and more, she said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s NYC TA conference. Vulaj spoke about how the company is modernizing their hiring processes. “Our business was changing. It was getting more complex. We were consolidating and just hiring and recruiting wasn’t keeping pace with what was going on in the business,” she said. “There was just no way we could grow and excel as an agile TA workforce, if we were still using a 10-year-old ATS system.” The organization didn’t want to throw AI on top of its old system; instead, it chose to build a new one from the ground up.“You are unveiling a whole new blueprint for intelligent, connected hiring in the company,” said moderator Stephen Koepp, editor in chief at From Day One. The advent of AI as a major driving force behind that blueprint has meant that Vulaj and her team must help recruiters become comfortable with implementing emerging technology. Some employees are already building out their own AI agents, while some of the 30-year TA veterans are still getting used to it. It comes down to education, she says. “How do we approach that from every angle to make everyone feel comfortable in using the tool that suits them? It’s got to bring value to their job.”Speeding Up TA With AIVulaj envisions AI impacting every level of the recruiting process. At the very least, it can help in crafting the many emails written every day to candidates and hiring managers. Also, “our recruiters are using it to create Boolean searches to find people. We have some recruiters and leaders on my team who are using it for market insight and then putting that together in a PowerPoint and presenting it to our hiring managers. We have people who are using it to consolidate feedback and pitch candidates in a very concise manner.” All of these are time-savers. “The productivity is sped up a lot, which, we tell our recruiters, gives you a lot of time to focus on the value add.”Suzan Vulaj, the SVP of global talent acquisition at NBCUniversal, spoke about "Rewiring Hiring for a Company That Never Stops Casting"Leaders are surveying the TA team about how they spend their time, what they enjoy most, and what tasks are the most time-consuming to better understand where AI can add the most value. “[Although] our recruiters don’t want to do those tedious things like scrolling through 1000 resumes or drafting up emails or sourcing, they feel very comfortable with it. And so, we’ve got to change people’s way of working and thinking and get them comfortable with letting go of the things that have made them successful as a recruiter. There’s a lot of psychology behind adopting AI,” she said. One major challenge of AI has been an increase in spam. Her team partnered with the cybersecurity department to install a bot blocker on the recruiting website; once it was installed, the number of resumes the organization received was slashed in half, demonstrating the pervasiveness of spam. “It’s OK,” Vulaj said. “We don’t need more people applying. We need real, quality people applying.”Even though initial interviews may be by video, all final interviews are done onsite in part to ensure the candidate is real. “We will never hire someone unless we meet them in person.” The organization is also implementing more thorough background checks, and recruiters are checking all links on LinkedIn profiles and verifying email addresses to ensure candidates are real. Creating a Great Candidate Experience Organizations also need to be mindful of the impact of AI on the candidate’s experience. “Right now, it’s famous for so many headlines: People are frustrated. They’re getting ghosted, sending in a zillion resumes, etc. How can you improve that interaction?” Koepp asked. Vulaj says her surveys indicate candidates want radical transparency. “They want to know, are you using AI when I apply for a job? What are you looking for? Where am I in the process? What’s taking so long?” she said. She thinks more frequent communication with candidates will help them feel more comfortable, noting that, in an ideal scenario, even a rejected candidate will still be excited about and interested in working for the company in the future. “You want to leave every interaction with the candidate in a positive way. Being able to use AI just helps you get there faster.” NBCUniversal, well-known for its page program for recent graduates, has a TA team dedicated exclusively to early career hiring. “We receive over 50,000 applications just for our summer [internship] program,” Vulaj said. AI can help narrow down selections and make the process less overwhelming. Having a single central ATS system has helped get leaders across the organization invested in the hiring process, Vulaj says, not just HR. “They’re putting [in] feedback. They’re looking at candidates.” If she could do anything differently in implementing the new system, she says she would have hired a few more ops team members to help manage recruiting and hiring while the system was being built and tested, since talent acquisition never stopped during the transition. “And I think we underestimated change management a little bit,” she said.Her advice to others hoping to implement a new system? “Don’t rush. I see so many people rushing to buy some new and expensive AI tool. I would rather you be very thorough and ensure that it’s got a lot of value long-term and [is] not a Band-aid for one piece of your vertical.” 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, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Stop Adopting AI, Start Building a Hybrid Intelligence Team
BY Christopher O'Keeffe March 24, 2026“Our attention span is actually down to two seconds now. Not three seconds, sorry to say so,” said Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy, founder and CEO of Neurons. That constraint is reshaping the fundamentals of marketing. Brands now have only a fleeting moment to capture attention and communicate value, even as the systems around them become more complex and more demanding, he shared during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One Atlanta Marketing conference. The pressure is not just about attention. It’s also about time, resources, and decision-making. “We don’t have the luxury of the time or the budgets to actually wait for that data to come in,” he said. As timelines compress, the traditional cycle of testing and refinement becomes harder to sustain, forcing teams to make faster decisions with less certainty.Against that backdrop, generative AI has been widely adopted as a way to increase speed and output. But Ramsøy pointed to research suggesting that the impact is inconsistent. “The net effect, the net improvement, or the net change of using generative AI as approaches to advertising, is zero, actually doesn’t have an effect,” he said. In other words, while some outputs improve, others decline, and the overall result is often neutral.That matters because the baseline performance of marketing is already under strain. Ramsøy said that “80% of ads are failing, or at least falling short of their purpose.” Whether the goal is brand building or conversion, most campaigns struggle to deliver meaningful impact, and AI alone is not correcting that problem.The Gap Between Engagement and MemoryPart of the challenge is a disconnect between attention and memory. Campaigns can generate strong engagement while failing to build brand recognition. Audiences may remember the story or the visual, but not the company behind it. In a landscape defined by overload and shrinking attention, that gap becomes even more costly.To address this, Ramsøy proposed a more integrated approach to AI—one that moves beyond individual tools and toward a system. His framework organizes AI into three roles: predictive, suggestive, and generative. Predictive systems estimate how audiences will respond to content, suggestive systems interpret those results and recommend improvements, and generative systems create new variations based on those insights.“We have achieved over 90% accuracy compared to eye tracking,” he said, describing how predictive models can forecast visual attention and other responses. When combined with recommendation and generation, these systems allow teams to iterate more quickly and with greater direction.Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy of Neurons led the session in Atlanta Ramsøy emphasized that this approach is not about replacing human creativity. “We focus on not replacing the creative person, but to inform them and inspire them,” he said. In practice, that means enabling more experimentation and exploration, not less.“What we see is that people are expanding the space that they are experimenting with even within a short time frame,” he added. “What if we do this? What if we do that?” The ability to test ideas quickly can open up new creative possibilities while grounding decisions in data.As AI continues to reduce the cost and friction of execution, Ramsøy says that the real shift is happening elsewhere. “Execution is becoming really easy these years,” he said. “But at the same time, judgment and confidence in going to market is becoming the new currency.” In a world where content can be generated instantly, the ability to decide what is worth making becomes the true differentiator.The future, in his view, is not about adopting more tools, but about building systems that combine human judgment with machine insight. In a landscape where execution is increasingly commoditized, the advantage will belong to organizations that use AI to think more clearly—not just produce more.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Neurons, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
What Makes a Company Totally Rewarding to Work For
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski March 23, 2026The role of chief heart officer may not be a job title you come across in business every day. While rare in name, it’s powerful in impact, keeping employees connected and turning a company into a place worth showing up for.Claude Silver, chief heart officer at VaynerX and author of Be Yourself at Work, spoke about her book and how she’s helping employees show up as themselves at work during a fireside chat at From Day One’s NYC benefits conference.When the CEO of VaynerMedia asked Silver to be the chief heart officer at VaynerX, she had three questions about the job position, including what her role would be in an HR department setting, what they are building there, and how to know if she’s successful. As for what they’re building at VaynerX, “He said, we’re building the single greatest human organization in the history of time,” said Silver. And when it comes to knowing when she’s successful, CEO Gary Vaynerchuk told her that she would impact every single human being while deploying empathy throughout the offices.“Deploying empathy is pretty ambiguous, and it’s pretty massive,” said Silver. “It depends on what empathy means in every given moment, because it’s going to mean something different to you and to you, and so being able to discern that without a lot of subjectivity or bias, is really the job,” she told session moderator Steve Koepp, From Day One’s editor in chief. “It’s also creating and holding space for people, no matter where they are on their journey, with the hopes that we’ll get everyone from here to high performing to here to thriving, whether or not that’s in our four walls,” said Silver.When it was time to draft a job description, Silver included the usual important components such as empathy, elaboration, imagination, and creativity, but also added in other key components including trust, psychological safety, and belonging but concentrating on factors such as talent, talent retention, and performance.“Everything in this job description is still housed in empathy, psychological safety, all of those things that are just natural to me and natural to many of us, but it’s really geared on finding the needle in the haystack and making sure that we are retaining those needles in haystacks,” she said. Silver shared insights from her book, Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart, during the fireside chat in NYC When asked about the philosophy of her book, Silver shared that it’s a call to individuals to know who they are and what they offer. “What I’m saying is find yourself. You are in charge of yourself. You’re the CEO of yourself, and so through your own self-awareness journey, whether or not that starts today, yesterday, or on your last day on earth, begin that journey so that you can get to know yourself and know what your triggers are and where your limits are,” said Silver.“The premise of the book is you deserve to be comfortable with yourself and to share yourself in any environment that you’re in,” said Silver. “I think we’ve been conditioned to think that others can change our behavior, but no one can change your behavior other than you, and so that’s really what it's all about.”“I don’t subscribe to bringing your whole self to work, I really don't,” said Silver. “You figure out what part you want to bring, and hopefully it’s a part that you enjoy and that others might get a kick out of.”How Leaders Can HelpWhen asked about how team leaders can meet the employees’ needs, Silver discussed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in connection with what HR professionals should keep in mind with their teams. It’s important to individuals that they have their needs met, including the physiological needs, psychological needs, and eventually self-actualization. When putting this into effect in the workplace, it’s important to look at how team leaders can help their employees and how employees can respond to this assistance. Also, how can people in a work environment be their whole selves yet have boundaries and how can the team leaders best work with these individuals?“I think the key there is the culture and the leaders and managers—how can they become more human? How can they be more empathetic, caring, and compassionate?” When managers and leaders show their human qualities, they can reach their team and show them they’re supported, she says. Supporting GrowthMost employees want to grow and evolve in their job roles and with the overall company they work for. So, how can team leaders make this possible?Silver highlighted that at her company they often use a simple phrase, “Yes and…” This could mean ‘yes, that’s a possibility’ or ‘yes, we’ve looked at something and know we can provide certain things for our employees.’ A growth mindset really means being open to possibility. One solution won’t work for all employees, but you also can’t do something specific for each individual employee. It has to be something in the middle that works. “We’re not going to be able to retain our folks, our great people, and especially this younger generation, [if we’re leading with a] ‘no.’ So, let’s see what's possible. We can’t promise, but let’s see what’s possible.”Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)