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From Day One to Year One: Building Cultures of Support Through Transitions in Organizations

BY Katie Chambers September 04, 2025

After five months of interviews, Shveta Miglani, Ph.D., was all-in for her new dream job. She moved her entire family to a new city, where she began working for “one of the best companies in the world” and immediately felt otherwise. “Within the first two weeks, [I was] thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, what did I do? What did I sign up for?” she said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s August virtual conference. She began questioning herself, thinking she was the problem. But she later came to understand she was not alone. As an organizational designer and people manager, she has seen firsthand how companies struggle to onboard new employees, provide helpful feedback, and offer opportunities for growth.   Periods of transition in organizations can test even the strongest cultures, especially for employees stepping into new roles or adapting to change. Miglani’s new book, Navigate Your Career: Strategies for Success in New Roles and Promotions, is rooted in her Ph.D. research uncovering why certain employees succeed when transitioning in an organization, while others in the same role do not. She shares how leaders can build supportive environments that help employees succeed from day one through year one and beyond.Creating a Successful Onboarding ProcessNew talent generally comes from one of two pools: recent college graduates or mid-to-senior-level professionals transitioning over from other organizations. Most leaders, Miglani says, are competent in giving new hires a general overview of company culture, but struggle when it comes to offering more personalized insight. “We miss a chance to help these folks: to say, ‘Here are some additional tips that you can work on and create your own map of success,’” she said. New employees should approach their role with a strong understanding of how to best utilize their time. Miglani realizes this is where the problem with her dream job was: “I was in an organization where I was unable to find myself, and a lot of it had to do [with the fact that] I waited for the organization to tell me, rather than taking more responsibility for my role,” she said. In contrast, when she worked at Salesforce, she was immediately given opportunities that allowed her to prioritize better. “They knew how important it is to volunteer and to create networking opportunities,” she said, so the company offered a full-day session that allowed employees to connect with each other, engage with the organization, and serve their wider community in the process. That is not to say that employees should rely on their leaders alone to provide step-by-step guidance. “In my experience at a large organization, folks would come to me as a manager and say, ‘What are the elders on the top floor thinking about planning for me?’ Well, I said, ‘They’re not. They have other issues. You really need to be an agent in your own career,’” said moderator Steve Koepp, co-founder and editor in chief at From Day One. “I think companies should remind people that it’s not being uppity to be asking about what you could do next.” This tone can be set right during the onboarding process, ultimately encouraging ambition, creating an environment of psychological safety where employees can ask questions, and reminding them that their career is ultimately what they make of it.  Many organizations prioritize the first 100 days as a measure of success, wherein HR leaders feel pressured to justify their new hire. “I would caution teams, especially HR leaders, to not do that,” Miglani said. “I learned through my research [that] companies like Amazon tell their team members, new hires, or newly promoted people, ‘You have a year to prove yourself,’ which I think is amazing, because then they’re saying, ‘It’s not short-term goals. We want you here for the long term, which means investing in that one year with you is important for us.’” Giving employees time to make an impact and encouraging their growth can foster a sense of belonging. Modern employees crave engagement with company culture. “Try to create programs or opportunities where peers get a chance to welcome their new hire or their new manager,” Miglani said. This is especially important for employees in a remote or hybrid environment, for whom these opportunities might not pop up organically.Providing Actionable FeedbackGiving feedback can feel awkward for managers and intimidating for employees, but it’s essential for smooth transitions and a growth-oriented culture. Miglani encourages employees to proactively ask for feedback when it’s not offered, to avoid misdirected development. She recalls an employee who completed a six-month communication course, only to learn afterward that their manager thought they were already strong in communication and should have focused on negotiation skills instead.Shveta Miglani shared insights from her new book, Navigate Your Career during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)Structured, accessible feedback can help curtail problems before they get out of hand. “A good example [is] a car. You wouldn’t know what’s wrong in the car if you didn’t have a dashboard, if you didn’t have an indication that your fuel is running low or you need to do this, so that helps you to take actions,” Miglani said. “Similarly, an organization can provide better tools to leaders and employees to help them gauge and align themselves to the big goal.” Creating a structure for upskilling is one way employers can help keep their teams nimble in an ever-evolving market – especially since the goal should be to retain them for internal growth. “Why? Because they have tribal knowledge. They understand the company culture. And if you go out to hire people, it’ll actually cost you the same or more in many cases. So, it’s better to hold on to the talent you have,” Miglani said.Sharing data with leaders, such as career-mapping and skills gap studies, can help encourage CEO buy-in. Employers might consider investing in AI tools that can gather and measure this data and even contribute to succession planning strategies. Part of Miglani’s research involved studying how different groups in the animal kingdom assimilate new members into their groups. The best example? Meerkats.“One of the coolest things they do is job shadowing. They have [younger meerkats] follow the older meerkats, and they see how they hunt, how they protect themselves,” Miglani said. Meerkats also take turns looking out for each other, giving each other opportunities to rest, care for babies, and grow older. This culture of care, respect, and learning can easily translate to the modern workplace. “It is a skill that we all have,” Miglani said. “We just have to dial it up a little bit and be more intentional about it.”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.(Photo by wenich-mit/iStock)

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Building Agility Through Skills-Based Learning and Development

BY Carrie Snider August 28, 2025

Agility begins with a learning culture that values skills over titles. That shift requires both structure and flexibility, says Courtney White, head of HR, agricultural solutions, North America, at BASF.“We really tried to put out more resources and do more education sessions,” he said, “skills maps versus things that are hard coded to roles, because the organization is changing also at a fairly rapid rate. And so we need to have flexibility in the system.” Flexibility means meeting employees where they are and focusing on capabilities rather than rigid checklists. When someone asks, What can I do next? White reframed the conversation. “The first shift is, let’s step back and talk beyond the title. What does it represent for you?” he asked. “How do we get into the skills you currently have and those you want to build? The reality is, that’s what unlocks new career paths. That’s what supports internal mobility, and that also helps talent align to business needs,” he said during an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s August virtual conference. This skills-first mindset is especially critical as new technologies, particularly AI, reshape work faster than job descriptions can keep up. For White, success comes from creating clarity before adding tools: map existing skills, identify gaps, and align development to strategy. The goal is to build for relevance, not readiness, ensuring employees stay adaptable no matter how roles evolve.Data-Driven UpskillingFor Sukhmani Grewal, solutions architect at SHL, building organizational agility begins with evidence. “We are an organization that believes in objective assessment data. We drink our own champagne—using data to understand not only individual skills, strengths, and gaps, but also patterns across the organization,” she said. That philosophy is embedded in practice. At SHL’s annual commercial kickoff, every team member completed a sales competency and readiness assessment. The goal was not only to highlight individual growth areas, but also to reveal collective skill trends. This continuous feedback loop allows SHL to focus learning where it matters most and create targeted programs that drive results.But for Grewal, data-driven upskilling is all about empowering people. “The sweet spot is a balance where employees own their growth, while the organization supports them through structured approaches,” she said. With clear visibility into their skills and transferable capabilities, employees can explore career paths beyond traditional promotions. Lateral or “zigzag” moves often open broader opportunities.Looking ahead, SHL’s science team, which is backed by more than 300 IO psychologists, is researching the skills most critical for an AI-enabled workplace. Capabilities like critical thinking and learning agility prepare employees to adapt, ensuring organizations stay future-ready.Career Growth MindsetPreparing employees for long-term success requires more than just technical skills, according to panelist Shannon Fuller, VP of talent solutions at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma & Texas. True success requires a strategic mindset. “Fast moves bring you slow problems,” he said. “The move that you’re making now is not for the next promotion, it's for two promotions ahead.” By encouraging employees to think beyond immediate steps, Fuller believes organizations can foster energy, engagement, and a focus on long-term growth.This perspective also shapes how Blue Cross and Blue Shield approaches development. While credentials like degrees remain important, Fuller emphasizes the underlying skills acquired.Tania Rahman, the social media director at Fast Company, moderated the discussion (photo by From Day One) Eventually, “we’re going to be looking at, what did you actually learn in college? Not that you actually got the degree, but what are the skills underneath the degree that you actually learned?” To support this, his team is creating interactive career maps that outline skills gained over time and highlight multiple potential career paths.Fuller also urges embracing technology as a growth opportunity. “AI will soon be on a job description for a skill that you have to have to work,” he said. Just as employees adapted to social media and the internet, learning AI skills now increases value today and in the future.Finally, cultivating a career growth mindset means fostering psychological safety. “Encourage people to fail,” Fuller said. “Praise them that they failed and that they got back up… It’ll create a culture where people want to learn, fail, and grow.”AI Adoption & EducationWorkforce education is complicated by scale and structure. For Alexandra Bautista, SVP of employee experience at Harvard Services Group, that is certainly the case.“We have 10,000 employees. Out of the 10,000, about 9,200 are field employees,” she said. Many work in decentralized locations, such as building basements with limited internet access, requiring a multifaceted approach. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach here, some of them have to be paper trainings, others are QR codes, classroom sessions, or even considering equipment like iPads in the field. The philosophy of ‘meet them where they’re at’ is really what’s working best for us.”The same philosophy guides Harvard’s AI rollout. Leaders piloted ChatGPT before expanding its use, learning that balance is key. “This is used as a tool to make your job easier, to kick start certain things,” Bautista says. To address employee concerns, her team emphasizes education: “Employees are saying, is my job going to go away?” she said. “This is a supplemental tool, not one that will replace you.”Safety and efficacy are ensured through partnerships with L&D and IT teams, with training required before access to the platform. Looking ahead, Bautista highlighted the importance of early skill development: “They need to arrive with some of those skills,” she said. “Partnership with colleges and high schools is so important to the future of skilling and the future of the workforce.” Her approach blends realism with trust. Hire the right people, she says, and empower them. “They will create much better programs when you entrust them with that knowledge.”Building agility is critical for organizations seeking to remain competitive. Through data-driven assessments, interactive career maps, and thoughtful AI adoption, companies can prioritize relevance, adaptability, and long-term growth. Skills-based development empowers employees, unlocks career potential, supports internal mobility, and ensures the workforce is prepared not just for today, but for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.(Photo by FatCamera/iStock)

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How GE HealthCare Built a Multigenerational Learning Strategy From the Ground Up

BY Ade Akin August 22, 2025

When a corporate giant spins off a division, the new entity doesn’t just inherit legacy systems; it inherits a multigenerational workforce with vastly different learning needs. Gisele Fox, the chief learning officer at the newly independent GE HealthCare, welcomed the challenge. It was an opportunity to build a modern, agile learning culture from scratch.“When you move out of your parents' house, you have to all of a sudden pay for your own phone and your own mortgage,” Fox said, describing the 2023 spin-off from General Electric. “That is how the organization had to see this whole change,” she said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s August virtual conference. Interviewed by Kim Quillen, business editor at the Chicago Tribune, Fox explored how to design training programs that resonate with everyone from Baby Boomers to Gen Z, across 183 countries.The move pushed her team to rebuild GE HealthCare’s learning infrastructure, shifting from outdated methods to a hybrid approach tailored to a five-generation, global workforce.Building a Learning Culture for Every GenerationThe old learning playbook GE HealthCare inherited from GE was to funnel employees into multi-day, in-person classroom sessions. The pandemic shattered that model, forcing a rapid shift to 100% virtual training. However, Fox’s team quickly realized that a purely virtual approach was also insufficient. The solution they found was not choosing one over the other, but instead embracing a flexible hybrid model, “We didn’t find that one way or another is the best way,” she said. The key was recognizing that people learn differently. Some are hands-on, some need time to process information, and others are note-takers. An effective program must cater to the individual, not just their generation.Gisele Fox of GE HealthCare spoke with Kim Quillen of the Chicago Tribune during the session about "The Multigenerational Approach to Learning in Today’s Workplace" (photo by From Day One)To meet these varied needs, Fox’s team designed a multi-stage learning journey. It starts with pre-training online modules that allow self-starters to absorb foundational knowledge on their own time. A live virtual or in-person session for deeper dives follows this. Afterward, learners can access frequently asked questions and talk to experts. GE HealthCare’s new learning model was developed with the understanding that bombarding new hires with information they won’t use for months isn’t optimal for learning. “If you provide too much training too early in the process, it can be overwhelming,” Fox said. Instead, GE HealthCare focuses on “just-in-time” learning, providing a resource library that employees can access the moment they need to apply a new skill.This concept of “just-in-time” means different things to different people. A seasoned veteran might need a quick refresher on a new product feature, while a new graduate might also need training on how to interact with clients or negotiate deals.Innovating With Micro-Learning and Listening to the BusinessStaying relevant means constantly experimenting with new formats. Fox says that the classic 100-page employee guide is obsolete for much of today’s workforce. “The generation that we see coming into the workforce will not survive by giving [them] a 100-page booklet,” she said. Instead, her team creates micro-learning videos: quick, TikTok-style presentations that grab attention and allow users to dive deeper if they’re interested.Fox’s team uses a multi-pronged approach to identify skill gaps, which includes an annual employee survey, close partnerships with business leaders, and direct feedback from frontline staff. “My team very often will call and send texts directly to the sales team, marketing teams, and just ask them, ‘What can I do for you? What can I make or share that will make your job easier?’”Ultimately, the success of any L&D program is inextricably linked to company culture. At GE HealthCare, the culture encourages non-linear career growth. Employees are supported if they want to pivot to a new role, and managers actively partner with L&D to provide the necessary training, says Fox. This creates a powerful sense of relevance and value. “People want to be relevant,” Fox said. “If you provide the opportunities for them to increase their knowledge and their skills, it will provide satisfaction to the workforce.” Fox offered some advice for learning professionals looking to implement a more generationally aware strategy: listen before you act.She recalls her experience training diverse audiences, from engineers to salespeople. Engineers require methodical, detailed presentations, while salespeople need information delivered in 30-second, visual bursts. “We are very quick as humans to apply our previous experience and utilize that going forward,” she added. “My takeaway would be, take a moment to listen to your audience. Learn what the business needs before you quickly come up with a solution.” By doing so, L&D leaders can build the agile, responsive programs that a multigenerational workforce needs by prioritizing listening over preconceived solutions.  Ade Akin covers workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by SDI Productions/iStock)

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Fostering Well-Being: The Impact of Comprehensive Benefits

BY Jennifer Yoshikoshi August 08, 2025

One in three working adults experienced a significant loss in the last year, according to Empathy’s 2025 Grief Tax Report. Nearly 80% of working adults considered quitting their jobs due to loss-related challenges while 76% feared they would be let go, the report finds. Grief is one of many impacts that can affect an employee’s well-being, along with financial struggles, chronic illness, mental health and life challenges. During an executive panel discussion about the impact of comprehensive benefits at From Day One’s July virtual conference, leaders shared how they support their employees’ well-being through proactive initiatives and programs. A Global Approach to WellnessCompanies such as Hunter Douglas Inc. and McAfee oversee and manage workers in dozens of countries. Timothy Tolino, global director of benefits, mobility and wellness at Hunter Douglas, says in order to successfully manage benefits for people across 48 countries, the company looks at each country and works with a local broker to meet specific needs. Michael Kang, head of global compensation and benefits at McAfee, leads program designs for over 1,800 employees across 28 countries. With varying numbers of employees within certain geographic regions, he faces challenges with providing certain benefit programs to all countries and balancing how to meet the needs of all workers while also balancing business strategies.“I think it’s most important to really make sure that you’re aligned with what the business is trying to do, making sure you think about the long term versus being very reactionary,” said Kang. “There are certain things that kind of span the globe, like mental health issues, and overall wellness that we can roll out on a global scale.”Knowing Your PeopleExecutives are often challenged with ensuring their employees and their families are receiving the necessary care they need. At Apache Industrial, the majority of its workforce is male. Krystle Lee, total rewards lead at Apache, says serving a mostly male field based population brings its own set of unique challenges and engagement requirements. Apache’s benefits system offers a model that prioritizes offering direct primary care with 24/7 access through phone, text, app and web. “We find that primary care is really lacking, and it’s not just lacking across males, but it is very evident across the male demographic that they’re not taking care of themselves first because they’re busy taking care of their families,” Lee said.The company is also mindful in providing inclusive programs that benefit its male employees, their families and dependents with informational materials in English and Spanish. Journalist and Harvard Business Review Columnist, Rebecca Knight moderated the discussion about "Fostering Well-Being: The Impact of Comprehensive Benefits" (photo by From Day One)Focusing on wellness can be difficult when employees already have so much on their plate. In order to encourage more self care, the company has partnered with a mental resilience app that gamifies care in an accessible way, says Lee. “It really helps [employees] take micro moments, micro lessons and just little doses here and there that build engagement,” said Lee. The app turns moments of self care into points that can be exchanged for real life rewards. This incentivizes employees to do exercises such as taking a few seconds to practice breathing techniques–a moment they can take while at their desk, in the car or during lunch. Supporting Workers Through All Life StagesMaven Clinic, a fertility and family benefits company, helps employees through family building, menopause, maternity, and more, touching on all stages of life. Senior Director of Client Success, Katie Wallace says the traditional care model isn’t made to meet the complex needs of women and families. Instead, Maven takes the approach of looking at clinical, emotional, and financial needs. It’s important to ensure benefits reach people across all demographics, so no one is left without the care they need. Maven has supported LGBTQ+ communities with emotional support and individuals building families with high in vitro fertilization costs, says Wallace. Grief is another stage in life that can deeply impact the productivity and engagement of employees. It’s imperative to recognize that this emotional response is one that can involve months or years of logistical, legal, and emotional responsibilities that can hinder an employee from concentrating on their work, says Madeleine Donner, senior director of partner success at Empathy.“So many employees are also caregivers or executors of the estate, so they’re trying to do all these things while also managing to keep up with their day to day jobs,” said Donner. The company offers “compassionate human guidance with practical tools like task tracking, account closures, peer communities and holistic approaches,” she said. Empathy helps its clients through its platform, LifeVault, which provides wellness tools that organize essential documents and future plans. “It empowers people to make those thoughtful decisions now, long before loss or illness enters the picture.”Chronic illness is another struggle that many employees have to endure while managing their work lives. At Hunter Douglas, the company offers benefits that “meet people where they’re at,” said Tolino. In addition to providing flexible options, it’s important for there to be workforce training to build employer awareness about the available benefits and the company’s mission, he says.  Innovations in tech can also help boost well-being. In June, Maven announced its partnership with Oura Ring, a health tracking ring brand. Utilizing the data that is already being collected through the rings worn by Maven members, this collaboration has been able to provide the company with continuous biometric insights that can improve its level of care. “This will mean combining their daily health signals, things like sleep, stress and activity, into our programs and combining it with the expert guidance from our care team–a balance between the tech and the human care,” said Wallace. Jennifer Yoshikoshi is a local news and education reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area.(Photo by svetikd/iStock)

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Smarter Benefits by Design: Leveraging Tech and AI for Clarity, Impact, and Innovation

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza August 07, 2025

Answering benefits questions used to be one of HR’s most time-consuming tasks. Now, companies are using AI not only to automate those routine inquiries, but to deliver faster, more personalized support, at any time of day. Benefits leaders are using AI to make small teams feel much bigger.The challenges of benefits administration haven’t changed much over the years, but AI is finally offering new solutions. “The common barriers are the same, whether you’re talking about AI and technology or the traditional way of administering benefits,” said Joanne Gloster, director of benefits at professional services firm Davies North America. Employees often don’t know what benefits are available, or when. Some worry about cost. Others are concerned about privacy–especially around health or financial benefits. With AI, benefits teams are sharpening their communication strategies and making answers easier to access.Gloster spoke during an executive panel discussion on the topic during From Day One’s July virtual conference on employee benefits. From guiding employees through leave policies to financial planning before surgery, today’s benefits tech is smarter, more tailored, and is empowering lean teams to do more with less. But for many HR leaders, the real goal isn’t just efficiency, it’s creating space for meaningful human connection.Personalized Benefits Help, Any Time of DayAt global life sciences MilliporeSigma, head of benefits strategy Elizabeth Chappelear is leaning on their benefits administrator’s AI engine to tackle those “first level” inquiries, like dependent document verification or basic coverage questions. Chappelear said it handled more than 7,800 conversations in the first quarter of the year, 84% of which were resolved without human intervention. Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the discussion (photo by From Day One)The company is in the process of creating its own AI suite tailored to internal benefits policies and programs. Nevertheless, human connection remains top of mind for Chappelear, who said that “it’s one of the things that we ask during RFPs or new vendors. We’re always asking about their technology. But the flip side of that is, what’s our access to humans?” At financial wellness platform Northstar, the company has developed custom AI engines trained by financial advisors. The solutions were built for its customers based on their employees’ unique benefits and compensation. But employees don’t need a benefits-specific question to get help. It might be, “I’m thinking about scheduling surgery next year,” said Erin Donahue, the company’s director of advice strategy. “Our AI will discuss health plan choice and make sure they evaluate the various plans offered, but it will also bring in other related benefits that could help.”While Northstar won’t be replacing their financial advisors with AI tools, when employees choose to use AI, the answers are specifically tailored to individuals, “so they can ask about benefits or personal finances in general, and it will answer in a personalized way based on everything we already know about that employee,” said Donahue. Information tech firm TransUnion is also building out a process that employees can use to help with policies. “If someone’s looking to potentially take a leave of absence, we would use our AI that would then guide them through the process,” Sherry Nelson, the company’s senior director of global benefits said. Maximizing Reach for Small TeamsAt Davies, Gloster supports an employee population of 2,800 with a team of three. AI has made it possible for her team to be more productive and precise. By using AI to tailor benefits communications, she’s able to segment who’s getting the messages and how. “For instance, if I wanted to send something out to folks who are utilizing the FSA and they seem to be floundering,” she would ask the tool who those folks are and how she should tailor a message specifically for them. “I refer to it as cheating, because that’s what it feels like to me,” she said. “But the truth is, it’s allowed our team to feel much, much bigger than it really is.”On the contrary, said LaToya Lyn, the chief people officer at Thinkhuman, an executive coaching platform, “It’s not cheating, it’s being more efficient.” Just comb through the list of requests related to benefits, and you’ll find they’re often very basic: Where can I find this? When is that going to happen? Very few of those require a human response, and AI can provide answers much faster, at any time of day.Lyn described setting up a text messaging bot for HR questions in a past role. When they did so, “we saw our tickets go from 100 to 25. And what was so amazing about that experience was people were able to get what they needed very quickly.” And if the AI got stuck, they were routed to a person.Despite the burst of enthusiasm for AI, Nelson at TransUnion wants to ensure they don’t lose connection with their employees, and in fact use tech and all its potential to fortify the relationship. “Part of our culture is being authentic and being present and social,” she said. “Some of it is just leveraging the technology to free us up to have those meaningful conversations and meeting the associate where they’re at. But if it hadn’t been for AI, we wouldn’t really be able to get there.”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 Galeanu Mihai/iStock)

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Innovating With Your Benefits Offerings at a Time of Rising Costs

BY Carrie Snider July 30, 2025

Costs are rising, but that doesn’t mean benefits have to suffer. You just have to be innovative. That’s the takeaway from a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference.Featured speaker Marina Vassilev, the VP and head of total rewards and performance for North America at Schneider Electric, shared how the company has shifted its focus to offer more targeted benefits to its global population of 150,000 employees. Karl Ahlrichs, HR columnist and consultant, moderated the discussion. Vassilev acknowledged that her job title is quite unique, but added that having employee performance and total rewards in the same space offers unique possibilities. “It is typically an area that is managed by the talent colleagues. It has given us some great opportunities and insights into how managers and employees can be supported with development and performance management discussions, and how we can plug in our benefits and increase utilization as part of the talent development cycle,” she said. But the cost of benefits continues to be a barrier. Especially in the past five years, there have been significant fluctuations. Like many companies, since the pandemic they’ve experienced ups and downs. “And we continue to see rising medical and pharmacy costs today, primarily driven by high-cost claimants, GLP-1 medications and emerging gene therapies.” Despite these cost pressures, Schneider Electric is looking for ways to provide a competitive offer to attract and retain top talent. “We’re trying to balance the cost between some of our design changes that we’re implementing with employees, with how we work with vendors, and how we negotiate to ensure that we’re delivering ROI and cost savings.”Marina Vassilev of Schneider Electric was interviewed by journalist Karl Ahlrichs (photo by From Day One)One of the most popular innovations to emerge from the pandemic era at Schneider Electric is the Recharge Break, a self-funded sabbatical program introduced in 2021. “It started as a way to encourage people to take time off when they really needed it,” Vassilev said. “Now, it’s a well-loved benefit that helps us manage both employee well-being and business demand.”Here’s how it works: Over a minimum of three years, employees can contribute to a Recharge Break fund. Once their balance hits a certain threshold, they can take six to 12 weeks off with pay drawn from their own contributions, she says. The benefit has not only been embraced internally—it’s gained attention externally too, with viral Instagram posts celebrating the program. And now, Schneider is exploring ways to make it even more flexible. Ideas include allowing employees to use the time in smaller chunks or pairing it with PTO for shorter, more frequent breaks.Another area of innovation at Schneider Electric has been employee well-being, though, as Vassilev pointed out, progress doesn’t always come easily. “In the last few years, we’ve hosted a lot of digital events,” she said. “We started with a Well-Being Week in North America, which eventually evolved into Well-Being Check-In Months. There was strong vendor participation, educational sessions, and even rewards for employees who got involved.”While the initiative generated positive buzz, the impact wasn’t quite what the company hoped for. Preventive screening rates under the medical plan increased, but only by 1 to 2%, short of Schneider’s goal of 5% or more.Now, as more employees return to the office two to three days a week, Schneider is shifting back to in-person engagement. That includes partnering with on-site teams to promote healthy food options, encourage physical activity, and bring vendors in for enrollment fairs and face-to-face information sessions. “We lost that communication channel during the pandemic,” Vassilev said. “And even after, we didn’t get the ROI from virtual options. But now our offices are full again, and it’s time to re-engage in a more hands-on way.”Benefits are tailored to meet employees where they are in life and in their careers, says Vassilev. That approach, paired with targeted communication, is key to higher engagement and satisfaction. “When you have a robust benefits offer and you communicate it differently to specific employee populations,” Vassilev said, “you’re targeting the benefit in the way that they’re going to use it—you get very positive feedback.”For example, Schneider expanded its backup care through Care.com to include not only children but also adult dependents and pets. “We’re seeing different employee groups react to it differently,” she noted. “We communicate it in a targeted way, and we have significantly increased our utilization.”Financial well-being benefits are also segmented by need. Late-career employees get access to Certified Financial Planners through Schneider’s 401(k) provider, while early-career and blue-collar employees use a vendor better suited to one-time financial questions. “Sometimes we need to be willing, as benefits professionals, to acknowledge that different vendors are going to target different employee segments, and that’s the right solution.”One of the company’s most impactful tools is its Total Rewards Survey, introduced last year to measure employee sentiment on compensation and benefits. According to Vassilev, the results often provide more clarity than traditional benchmarking alone.The company uses employee input to determine where to invest. “There will be some benefits where we offer a better package. In other areas, we are not as strong, and we cannot be strong on all of our benefits. So we leverage the employee voice to decide where we’re going to invest.”This strategy has real impact. For example, when Canadian employees indicated dissatisfaction with the massage therapy benefit, even though market data didn’t flag a concern, the company made changes. “It’s worth investing because we’re going to address the employee sentiment.” The survey also allows for deeper analysis. “We were able to see results by high performance and high potential,” she said. Newer employees tend to view benefits more favorably than tenured ones, likely due to comparisons with previous employers. Generational differences also emerged, reinforcing the need for flexible, responsive benefits that evolve with the workforce.Ultimately, the company’s approach reflects a shift toward more personalized, data-informed decision-making.“Employees react positively when they see us make enhancements based on their feedback,” Vassilev said. With insights from across geographies, demographics, and performance levels, the company continues to shape benefits and compensation to support both its people and its business goals.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.(Photo by NicoElNino/iStock)

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Healthy Workers Are Good for Business, But Everyone Has Unique Needs

BY Katie Chambers July 29, 2025

For generations, workplace benefits referred to just the basics: health insurance, vacation days, and, if you were lucky, a retirement savings fund. But in today’s parlance, “benefits” refers to a broader lifestyle package that is far more holistic and personalized. “Back in the early days, benefits were just the thing that employers had. But as employers started competing more for talent, wellness became more of [an] imperative,” said Jennifer Dietrich, SVP, head of global benefits and wellness at Fiserv. Dietrich spoke during a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference, moderated by Nicole Smith, editorial audience director at Harvard Business Review. “It became part of the culture of our organization. Now, we’re using wellness to help to keep our people healthy, which then allows them to bring their best self to work and their best self to their communities. It does create this culture and environment where people feel cared for, and they want to come and work for you,” said Dietrich. The last five years have been a time of rapid social and cultural change, says Smith. From the global pandemic and “the fastest recession and recovery in U.S. history,” to a housing supply crisis, rising mental health concerns, a presidential election, trade war, and more. These “external shocks” can impact the personal and professional needs of the workforce, and employers must be prepared to respond quickly. Nicole Smith, editorial audience director at Harvard Business Review, interviewed Jennifer Dietrich, SVP, global benefits and wellness at Fiserv  (photo by From Day One)“We’ve seen this interesting shift in people’s expectations, because the pandemic created a different scope of what’s possible for employees, and even for some employers,” Dietrich said. She encourages organizations to be more “human” in the approach to work structures and benefits programs. “If you’ve got the right culture [and] you’ve got the right programs, people can be the best version of themselves. That’s not just important in work, but in all aspects of their lives and in their community,” she said. This culture of support should be ingrained in all management training, ensuring that leaders understand the benefits programs available so they can direct their team in the right direction when the time comes. In response to evolving employee expectations, Fiserv introduced a remote flexibility benefit, enabling its 38,000 associates across 35 countries to work from nearly anywhere in the world for a set number of days each year, despite being an in-office company. Building a Benefits Program That Works for AllWith such a large and diverse workforce, it can be challenging to create a benefits package that offers personalization while still appealing to a broad audience. “People value choice. And the definition of benefits can vary from one person to the next,” Dietrich said, saying some people are satisfied simply by free coffee in the office, while others might focus more on career development. “Doing the right thing for your people and for the business isn’t necessarily supposed to be easy.”Fiserv relies on annual engagement survey data and feedback from its employees to build a comprehensive package on top of the basics, like healthcare, retirement, disability, and PTO. “Information is power,” Smith said. Since employee needs may be constantly shifting, organizations should be checking in with them regularly to gauge their thoughts on vendors. Dietrich recommends treating vendors as true partners, an extension of your team, equally invested in analyzing data and enhancing the employee experience.But balance matters, as workers can become paralyzed by too many choices. Internal communications campaigns around benefits options can help them figure out how to make the most of what you offer. “I’m very fortunate to have an incredible team that thinks like marketers, and they have a constant focus on educating our people, including our managers, and making sure that everyone is aware of what’s available to them,” Dietrich said. “It’s never just a once-and-done sort campaign. We really focus on beating that drum constantly through a whole variety of communications to make sure that people are aware.”Fiserv uses a portal called “Fuel Your Life” that is a digital “one-stop shop” for benefits that allows for personalization. But because not all employees are tech-savvy, the organization also mails hard copies of benefits information to workers’ homes, provides an email newsletter, puts physical signage in offices, and has cultivated a team of employee ambassadors who can discuss the offerings one-on-one. Dietrich foresees that AI will also ultimately be able to assist in this process.Looking Ahead in the Benefits SpaceAs Dietrich’s organization looks to the future, it hopes to cultivate the next generation of workers, in part, through benefits offerings. “We focus on having what we consider a best-in-class people platform that focuses on driving a high-performance culture and continuous improvement within the organization.” That means investing in ongoing professional development, growth opportunities, increasing engagement, fostering trust among colleagues, and promoting in-office connection. The latter is especially important for Gen Z, as many of them spent crucial educational and developmental years behind a screen during Covid. “We stress [casual, organic in-person] connections for all of our associates, because that helps them feel connected and valued and seen when they are at work,” she said. Smith agreed, “You can’t replace human connection.” That human connection is not only integral to keeping employees engaged with the workplace; it’s also crucial to building a benefits package overall. Leaders, Dietrich says, are the ones who help drive the use of benefits, gauge whether the offerings are working, and best articulate to stakeholders what has been most effective—and what is most deserving of future investment. “When you can come back and tell the story that this worked out the way that we expected it to, it helps to build your credibility with leaders, so that you can get more yeses to things like that to do more for your people.”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.(Photo by VioletaStoimenova/iStock)

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Supporting Women’s Health Through Every Life Stage

BY Carrie Snider May 29, 2025

Being a woman today often feels like balancing on a tightrope—juggling career, health, family, and societal expectations, all while navigating life's complex transitions. As women face these challenges, it’s up to companies to offer tailored healthcare and support that evolves with them at every stage.During From Day One’s April virtual conference, expert panelists shared how their organizations are supporting women’s health through every life stage in a session moderated by Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, reporter at the Denver Post.Traditional healthcare often falls short in supporting women through every stage of life. Kathleen Davin, director of people operations at Maven Clinic, the largest virtual clinic for women’s and family health, sees the difference a more personalized approach can make. “We talk a lot about really taking a one-size-fits-one approach to employee benefits and not a one size fits all,” she said.After a high-risk pregnancy, Davin returned from parental leave with a renewed appreciation for holistic support. Living with type 1 diabetes, she used Maven to meet monthly with diabetes educators and accessed lactation consultants and sleep specialists during postpartum. Through Maven’s internal Wallet program, she was reimbursed for costs traditional plans often ignore—like a wearable breast pump and acupuncture. “I didn’t have the stress of figuring all these things out with a new baby at home,” she said.This tailored approach highlights a broader shift in benefit design. “It’s not just about checking the box on ‘Yep, we offer these benefits.’ It’s really thinking about delivering care that is supporting employees in as many of their moments of need that are very different and complex,” Davin said.That includes supporting midlife transitions like menopause. Despite affecting half the workforce, only 22% of employers offer menopause support. “It’s a super stigmatized stage of life,” said Davin. “But it also leads to a lot of impact on engagement and productivity in the workplace.” Maven provides 24/7 access to specialized providers, community support, and clinically vetted content—giving employees trusted care and connection.Personal and Professional BalancePhyllis Stewart Pires, associate VP of employee support programs & services at Stanford University, brings a deeply personal perspective to the conversation around integrating career and caregiving. “I had three different pregnancy experiences, three different postpartum experiences,” she said. “I leveraged my part-time, extended leave, and gradual return. I’ve used all forms of childcare over the course of almost 30 years of parenting.” Her story of caring for her children while navigating elder care for her parents, all while continuing to build her career illustrates the often-invisible complexity many employees carry.That experience has shaped not only her leadership style, but the programs she advocates for. At Stanford, Stewart Pires has led the development of a holistic well-being approach, one that addresses physical, mental, financial, and career health throughout an employee’s time at the university. “We’ve created something we call Babble Back, after the baby bonding leave ends,” she said. “It brings together a cohort of people coming back from leave and gives them a safe place to navigate those early challenges.” The program offers resources ranging from childcare guidance to having conversations with managers about breastfeeding.Supporting employees through those intersections of work and life requires cultural change. “First and foremost,” she said, “it’s thinking about whether you have a culture in which people feel they can be vulnerable.” From Fertility to MenopauseFor Neha Yadav, director of total rewards at Weight Watchers, supporting women’s mental health means embracing their entire journey, from fertility to menopause, with a workplace culture rooted in care, flexibility, and proactive communication.Panelists shared insights on the topic "Supporting Women’s Health Through Every Life Stage" (photo by From Day One)“The entire spectrum of women in the work environment has changed,” Yadav said. “We’ve taken on more responsibilities, but we haven’t let go of any. It’s important to create an atmosphere where you feel safe, welcomed, and understood.”Yadav emphasized that support needs to be both cultural and practical. When her newborn was flagged for additional medical testing shortly after birth, the response from her team left a lasting impact. “I was in pain, emotionally and physically drained, and panicking,” she said. “But my team said, ‘If you need more time or access to benefits, we’ll help you.’ That’s the kind of support that builds retention.”Education around available benefits—before a crisis hits—is another critical component. “You can’t send a new mom a link and expect her to research while she’s in crisis,” she said. “Organizations need to push information out ahead of time, so employees are empowered when they need it most.”At WW, that proactive approach includes incentives for prenatal care, support for fertility and adoption, and even pet insurance. The company also offers community-based resources, including internal groups where new parents can connect and share. “A peer support network, trained managers, and benefit options tailored to different phases of life—these all matter,” Yadav said. Life Stage Support ProgramsFor GHD’s Global Benefits Manager Katy Bellmore, their mission to meet its people where they are is personal. “After I first had my children, I wanted to do it all,” Bellmore said. “I didn’t ask for flexibility at work, and that’s my biggest regret. I wish I had behaved differently.” Her experience now informs the way GHD supports employees, especially when it comes to life transitions like parenting, caregiving, or midlife health changes. To address these needs, GHD launched its Life Stages initiative, an effort driven by employee feedback. “People wanted more personalized support that reflects where they are in their life,” Bellmore explained. “Whether that’s starting a family, managing a chronic condition, or navigating something like menopause.”One example is GHD’s expanded midlife health and wellness stage, which includes menopause support through virtual care platforms like Maven. “We’re creating a space for open conversations, reducing the stigma, and normalizing this stage of life,” she said. Maven bridges gaps by offering virtual coaching and care navigation, she added. Education plays a key role. Employees are also given tips on how to talk to managers about their needs—from eldercare responsibilities to navigating childcare options.Ultimately, the goal is to create “a culture of support and awareness, where our employees feel seen, heard, and understood—no matter what stage they’re in.”Supporting women’s health throughout every life stage is about cultivating a culture of care, flexibility, and understanding. As companies listen to women’s needs and embrace individualized support, they ensure better health outcomes, higher retention, and a thriving workforce.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.(Photo by Paperkites/iStock)

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Learning to Talk Openly About the Challenges That Women Face at Work and in Life

BY Katie Chambers May 22, 2025

When the Trump administration announced on April 23 that The Department of Health and Human Services would be terminating contracts with all four research centers working on the Women’s Health Initiative, the largest research study of its kind, the backlash was so immediate and vocal that the administration reversed course the very next day. Women’s healthcare feels constantly under attack, but is crucial to more than 50% of our population. Whether they’re dealing with motherhood, miscarriages, reproductive choice, menopause, and more, women still face overwhelming cultural pressure to stay silent about their challenges. In her new book “Normalize It: Upending the Silence, Stigma, and Shame That Shape Women’s Lives,” psychologist and author Jessica Zucker, PhD, brings an unflinching new look at what needs to be said more openly at a time of backlash—and how employers can respond. She shared highlights during a fireside chat at From Day One’s April virtual conference.Breaking the Silence Women are impacted personally and professionally by the stigma around their healthcare—but this can be minimized by being open about “taboo” issues. “Telling our stories lets us know we’re not alone, [and] it also creates a collective pool of knowledge that can help us grow personally, and as part of that growth, learn how to get our feelings heard and our needs met,” said moderator Lynne Peeples, science writer and author.Zucker does this herself by being open about her own experiences: she had a miscarriage during her second pregnancy at 16 weeks, during which she had to cut the umbilical cord herself coached by a doctor on the phone, bring the fetus in a bag to the doctor’s office for testing, and undergo an unmedicated D&C.“This informed and changed my professional and personal trajectory,” she said. “I had been sitting for years with women talking about the isolation, the alienation, the feelings of disenfranchisement in the aftermath of loss. But until I went through it myself, I just couldn’t relate.” She learned from research that many women who experience a miscarriage blame themselves, feel ashamed, and experience a sense of body failure. To combat these mental health issues, she began the “I Had a Miscarriage” campaign with the New York Times. “That was a compassionate urging for women around the world to think about, ‘If you’ve gone through an experience like this and you haven’t shared it, why not?’” Dr. Jessica Zucker, right, spoke with journalist Lynne Peeples during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)Our hustle culture glorifies the notion that we can do anything we put our minds to, Zucker says, but reproductive health is mostly beyond our control. It’s a dichotomy that often leads to frustration and feelings of failure. Zucker is pleased to see celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, who had a recent special on menopause, talk more honestly about women’s health. “I do think that the advent of celebrities and others being open about their stories does invite and hopefully urge people to think about their stories, share their stories, and to understand that this can happen to anybody,” she said. How HR Can Help In her book, Zucker shares a psychological study in which people watch two versions of a visibly uncomfortable woman giving a presentation while undergoing a hot flash. When asked if she’s alright in version one, she says she is just warm. In version two, she says she is fine, just going through menopause. Respondents noted that she seems like a more confident leader in the second version. So why aren’t women more empowered to be that straightforward in the workplace? HR can help, Zucker says, by encouraging employees to be open, asking caring questions, and checking in. “In a society where we think ‘productivity all the way,’ it’s tempting to push down our pain, but I think it does backfire,” Zucker said. “If HR was there to acknowledge what somebody's going through, it doesn't mean that they have to be a therapist, it’s just asking the question and holding space and acknowledging what somebody is going through [that makes a difference].” Workplaces should hold space for feelings of grief, despair, and vulnerability among employees, recognizing all the ways that might manifest. “Everyone is different in how they process and when they decide to share their story. How can we be sensitive to that?” Peeples asked. Know that your colleagues might not be ready to share in the same way you would be and proceed gingerly but directly to leave space for psychological safety without causing shame.“Just ask: ‘How are you doing? What are you going through? Is there anything we can do to support you? We are here for you,’” Zucker said. “Let them know there is this culture of openness and availability of support, even if the person doesn’t think they want it right now, or even if they never take it.” Focusing on Mental HealthIn her book, Zucker shares that when faced with someone else’s grief, 70% of us don’t know what to say. “We end up relying on platitudes,” she said. Instead, it’s better to be honest and caring, avoiding statements like “At least…” or other phrases of toxic positivity. It shuts people down, allowing shame to seep in. And shame, Zucker says, is what can lead to more self-destructive behavior, like addiction or dysfunctional relationships.  The more space women are given to express themselves, the better their brains will function. “Putting feelings into words, rather than keeping them bottled up, literally changes the way the brain responds to stress by diminishing activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions like anxiety, fear, and stress,” Peeples shared from Zucker’s book. When given the freedom to share their feelings, people become more focused and more present. And with better brain function comes increased workplace productivity. “The more we keep inside, the less present and the less productive we are,” Zucker said. She hopes that the movement for more honesty in conversations surrounding women’s healthcare will become a positive cycle. “I can’t tell you how often I hear somebody say, ‘I shared such and such, and then this person told me the same thing had happened to them.’ And that exchange is so enlivening. It’s so validating,” Zucker said. “The person inevitably feels less alone. And hopefully it inspires them to keep talking about it, because if we keep talking about it, the stigma can melt away.”That cycle can begin in the workplace. “If we come to our work and our colleagues with a sense of openness, authenticity, candidness, it goes a long way. If we can model that as leaders, then the people who work for us may be able to do the same for those who work under them. Those people will become leaders too, eventually,” Zucker said. “Leading with empathy and heart, even if it doesn’t seem like it fits with the role, is very important.” 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 and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by SDI Productions/iStock)

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The Importance of Family and Wellness Benefits in a Highly Disrupted Industry

BY Ade Akin May 20, 2025

Lucy Avsharyan, the vice president of benefits at United Talent Agency, knows firsthand how life’s biggest plot twists, like parenting twins, often overlap with your most pivotal career moments. At From Day One’s April virtual conference, she walked attendees through how UTA has transformed family support benefits into strategic tools for employee attraction, retention, and well-being. Avsharyan traced her journey as an employee back to the moment her twins were born. “During those first years, I was exhausted at work and home,” she said. That personal pinch point catalyzed UTA’s early experiments with gender-neutral parental leave and on-demand backup childcare. What started as a way to make life easier for working parents quickly became a competitive advantage for UTA: “When families are cared for, they can show up as their best selves,” Avsharyan said.While benefits served chiefly as a retention level a decade ago, they’re now non-negotiables for many prospective employees. Many now log into benefits portals with the same enthusiasm that was once reserved for salary benchmarks, she says.Employees Asking Harder Questions“Candidates now come armed with benefits spreadsheets,” said moderator Nicole Smith, editorial audience director at Harvard Business Review. “And they know exactly what they want,” Avsharyan added. “They’re asking, ‘What’s your global parental-leave policy? Do you offer mental-health stipends? How many hours of backup care are included each year?’”These changes in attitudes toward employee benefits inspired a portal overhaul at UTA, complete with personalized dashboards that show accrued leave, dependent care allotment, and wellness stipend balances in real-time. UTA also promoted closer partnerships between benefits, talent, and finance teams. “We needed to move beyond headcount metrics. Talent acquisition wanted enrollment rates. Finance wanted utilization and ROI,” she said. UTA now tracks which offerings drive applications, boost tenure, and reduce unplanned absences by developing a simple data analytics framework.Designing for a Global WorkforceThe conversation turned global when Nicole asked about benefits in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets. Avsharyan says a one-size-fits-all model doesn’t work in all regions. “In Europe, statutory parental leave can exceed 16 weeks, but mental-health coverage lags. In parts of Asia, it’s the reverse.” Avsharyan said.UTA solves this problem with a modular benefits platform that combines a core U.S.  package (paid leave, backup childcare, and a wellness stipend) with region-specific add-ons, from fertility treatments in the U.K. to financial-wellness workshops in Singapore. Lucy Avsharyan of UTA spoke with Nicole Smith of Harvard Business Review during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)“That approach lets us maintain equity—everyone gets a baseline of care—while respecting local norms and regulations,” Avsharyan said. Her advice to organizations struggling to find that balance is to “Listen first, then pilot fast.”The Baseline BenefitsMental health continues to be an essential part of a benefits package. “Well-being isn’t a perk, it’s a productivity imperative,” she said. Utilization of wellness benefits rose by 40% after UTA recently added no-cost therapy sessions, virtual mindfulness programs, and emergency financial planning services to its Employee Assistance Program. Job flexibility is also redefining work-life balance. “We trust our agents and creatives to deliver results,” Avsharyan said. “Where and when they work is secondary.” UTA’s hybrid model grants employees “deep-focus days” in the office and fully remote weeks. “Every team defines its norms, when to collaborate in person, when to block off a remote day, so people aren’t guessing,” Avsharyan said. But even with baseline benefits in place, Avsharyan continues to look out for trends and changes in the industry. “We’ll never be ‘done’—our people’s needs evolve too fast,” she said. She envisions next-generation benefits marketplaces, where employees can easily swap stipend dollars among categories, like shifting funds from gym memberships to backup childcare. The guiding principle remains constant: continuous listening. “We survey twice a year, but the real insights come from casual check-ins and manager hurdles,” Avsharyan said. “That feedback loop lets us iterate benefits in near real time, so when the next personal earthquake hits, our people know we’ve got them.”Ade Akin covers workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock)

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Why Focusing on Early Talent Is a Critical Need for All Seasons

BY Ade Akin May 12, 2025

Giselle Battley, the head of global emerging talent arrived at Yahoo in 2024, bringing along a background in tech recruiting for what she calls “emerging careers.” Instead of limiting early-career hiring to university pipelines, Battley and her team have reshaped hiring policies to welcome talent from diverse backgrounds and life paths. It’s worked well for Yahoo as Gen Z now represents 45% of its search users. Battley says that many of the brand’s young users are drawn in by its vintage tech appeal, which helps to forge deeper connections with recruits. She spoke about winning over the next generation of talent during a fireside chat at From Day One’s February virtual conference. “The next generation values transparency and authenticity more than any before,” Battley said. Brookings Institution projects that the U.S. will be a “majority-minority” society by 2045. 48% of Gen Zers entering the workforce today identify as nonwhite, which means inclusive hiring practices aren’t just about ethics any longer; they’re essential to attract younger talent. Talent acquisition teams should be ready to have candid conversations about corporate challenges and successes during the recruitment process. “Candidates will ask, ‘What has your company done about XYZ?’” Battley said. “If you can’t answer authentically, you’ll lose them.”Contrary to the myth that Gen Zers despise working in office spaces, research suggests they crave in-person collaboration and mentorships without heavy-handed mandates, says Battley. “They want autonomy to choose when and where they work,” she said.Yahoo’s approach gives employees the flexibility they crave while co-working days are built around team workshops and project sprints. This leads to early-career hires feeling empowered in shaping their work-life balance, which fosters loyalty. Traditional recruiting metrics, like time-to-fill, source value, and pass-through rates, still matter, but that’s not all Battley uses to gauge success. “My personal measure of success for our team is how much value we’re bringing to the business outside of just the talent that we’re bringing,” she said.Building a community is also imperative. Yahoo’s “Intern Alumni Program” aims to cultivate lifelong relationships with interns rather than only offering guaranteed roles post-internship, which isn’t always feasible amid industry-wide hiring slowdowns. “We want our alumni to be ambassadors,” she said. “So, when more roles open, they come back with us top of mind.” It’s a strategic hedge against talent shortages, ensuring a warm recruiting pipeline even in lean years.Battley embraces artificial intelligence and new tools as valuable assets for early talent recruitment. Yahoo partners with Hello Hive to provide candidates with AI-driven résumé coaching, helping potential hires articulate their achievements.Nicole Smith, editorial audience director at Harvard Business Review, interviewed Battley of Yahoo (photo by From Day One)This allows applicants from under-resourced backgrounds to polish their résumés as well as those with professional résumé services. The AI résumé coach also helps non-native English speakers refine their written communications, reinforcing that language support is itself a diversity initiative.But even with the use of AI, foundational skills continue to matter, she says. “Leadership, critical thinking, adaptability; AI can’t replicate those,” she said. She encourages candidates to showcase their campus leadership, part-time work, or volunteer impact achievements during interviews. She says these human attributes differentiate candidates in an increasingly automated selection process.Rethinking Early TalentBattley says one of the reasons why Yahoo’s Global Emerging Talent teams have been successful is the absence of an age or education bias. “Think skills-based recruiting,” she said.Early career doesn’t necessarily mean fresh out of college. It includes candidates transitioning between industries or roles. Broadening the definition of “emerging talent” allows companies to tap into hidden talent pools, enriching teams with diverse perspectives. Two key points stand out for skeptics questioning the ROI of early-career programs: strategic alignment and cost efficiency. Battley recommends first linking talent directly to business objectives, like market expansion, product feedback, and brand engagement, so leadership sees hires as growth drivers, not perks. Secondly, she advises reminding stakeholders that “building” talent early is more cost-effective than “buying” seasoned professionals on the open market. Starting with small pilots can help demonstrate long-term retention rates and cultural benefits. “Don’t limit yourself to traditional hires,” Battley said as the conversation came to its end. “Seek out skills, not just résumés. Prioritize diversity of thought to drive real innovation. And most of all, stay authentic because the talent you attract tomorrow will shape the brand you’ve built for 30 years today.”Ade Akin covers workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by Alessandro Biascioli/iStock)

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Building a Thriving Culture Through Comprehensive Health and Wellness Benefits

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza May 07, 2025

Employee wellness isn’t just any one thing, and it should be treated accordingly, says Stacey Olson, the global wellness leader at architecture firm Gensler. It’s intellectual, it’s physical, it’s environment, emotional, and professional—just as a start. So when employers plan for workforce well-being, each deserves attention on its own.Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean programmatically. HR is wont to think of well-being as a set of programs or apps, says Deborah Olson, who leads well-being strategy at biotech company Genentech. “I think few teams thoroughly examine their culture, their manager training, and the behaviors across their population, and I think even fewer take the opportunity to assess the well-being of their workforce so they know where there are opportunities,” she said during an executive panel conversation at From Day One’s April virtual conference.The leaders on the panel made it clear: HR alone can’t ensure the well-being of thousands of workers, nor should it try. At chemical company BASF, director of total rewards and operations Melissa Tuscano enlists “well-being champions”: a network of employees that care deeply about mental and physical health to be ambassadors for the wellness program, exemplars of care, and sentinels of well-being in whatever department they work in. “Because we’re such a large organization, there’s no way myself or any part of my benefits team can talk to everyone as much as we might want to,” she said.At education tech company BrainPOP, chief people officer Kavita Vora set up “wellness circles,” or therapist-led discussion groups focused on coping strategies related to stressors. Her hope is that employees leave the circles with fewer stressors than when they arrived. She’s been collecting feedback from participants and iterating as she goes.The panel discussion was moderated by journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza (photo by From Day One)“For example, our Latinx community requested a meeting based on things that were happening in the news. So we had one, but we also made sure that the therapist facilitating was from the same identity group, so they felt that they really had a safe space and an understanding facilitator,” she said.Consider Access and Care NavigationAt Keysight Technologies, an electronics design firm, benefits director Heather Ostrowski’s strategy is a comprehensive one. The company’s slate of benefits is impressive: Think debt counseling, bereavement care and funeral services, concierge help with childcare and eldercare, postpartum care, menopause care, mental healthcare, and diabetes management, on top of the Cadillac of healthcare plans.Her challenge is navigation. Currently her team is the go-between for wellness vendors and employees, but she wants to hand over the controls to the employees themselves. When workers have autonomy and access, health outcomes improve.Ostrowski has been forging direct relationships between workers and providers with webinars and forums. “We have a calendar where people can see what webinar or what communications are going to be coming out. By reminding people how to get there easier—it’s been helpful for employees to feel supported.”Beware of Burnout Feeling good about work means being recognized for a job well done. Employee recognition is part of the wellness program at BASF, says Tuscano. “When people feel recognized, they are in a good, psychologically safe place. They feel happy, right? They may feel appreciated. This is all part of being well and feeling well.”But the right things must be rewarded, panelists noted. There are many paths to burnout, says Deborah Olson of Genentech. There’s overwork and long hours and lack of autonomy when it comes to decisions or style of working. Workers may edge toward burnout because they care about the work, and employees sometimes recognize and reward bad habits, even inadvertently. “So many times we are saying, ‘thank you for working long hours,’ or ‘thank you for calling in on your vacation,’” Olson said. That, too, is employee recognition. “We have the best intentions, so we should be shifting into recognizing behaviors that we want to see continued.”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.(Photo by Parradee Kietsirikul/iStock)

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Enhancing Employee Engagement Through Whole-Person Management

BY Katie Chambers April 14, 2025

The best way to find out what employees want is to ask, but the next step is not always straightforward. “Employee surveys can reveal a lot about what people need, but translating that feedback into action is really hard,” said moderator Rebecca Knight, contributing columnist for Harvard Business Review.Whole-person management is revolutionizing the employee experience by recognizing the importance of addressing all aspects of an individual’s performance and well-being. What are some effective strategies and initiatives used to enhance the overall employee experience? Experts during a panel discussion at From Day One’s March virtual conference discussed the different areas of the whole-person approach: financial, emotional, familial, and more, and offered tools and strategies to bring value to employees while mitigating costs. Keeping the employees involved throughout the whole process, not just the initial inquiry, can be effective. Amina Lobban, head of culture, engagement & HR business excellence, GMS & GQ at Takeda, shares that her organization’s Mexico site had a relatively low well-being score, so it immediately took steps to get them more engaged with each other in ways that were most fun and meaningful to them through what they called “a people squad” with various interests that showed up in surveys.“They formed a volleyball squad. They started yoga. They started doing celebrations for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Children's Day–all these different days,” Lobban said. “Their well-being score went up significantly in one year, which is remarkable. It was an employee-led solution. When you involve the employee in ‘What is it that you want?’ versus telling the employee, ‘This is what I think you should have,’ that's when you see success.”Working Across DepartmentsRebecca Tinsley, VP, talent engagement & culture at Teradata, and her team have found success by working across departments, pairing benefits, well-being, and talent development to form one cohesive strategy. “We’re analyzing trends in learning, program participation, engagement survey and we’re also looking at benefit awareness and usage,” Tinsley said. “What that’s allowing us to do is to tailor programs to different employee segments based on what they’re directly telling us, or what they may be indirectly telling us through some of the feedback.”Panelists spoke about "Enhancing Employee Engagement Through Whole-Person Management" (photo by From Day One)This has led to new initiatives like their mid-level management program that blends leadership training with well-being support for some of the stresses that naturally come along with the role. Or financial wellness sessions that are integrated into career development programs. “I like to think of it as a mix between growth and balance,” she said. “It’s helping our people feel empowered to thrive in all different aspects of their life.” This holistic approach values both an employees’ personal and professional life and recognizes the impact of one on the other. Providing Rewards With an Eye Toward Cost “Compensation is a huge part of feeling valued and supported at work,” Knight said. Rewards programs can help your compensation model go the extra mile, especially when corporate budgets are tightening and “employees are struggling to afford life,” said Aaron Shapiro, founder and CEO of Carver Edison. His organization struck the balance when it launched its cashless participation program, which helps employees increase their overall compensation through stock purchases.“Employee stock purchase plans were actually America’s first modern financial benefit written into law in 1964 as part of Johnson’s War on Poverty, almost 15 years before the 401(k) came into existence,” he said. “The number one wealth creator is equity ownership.” And the statistics are indicative of this type of program’s success. “87% of employees using cashless participation at public companies, ranging from small NASDAQ biotechs all the way up to the Fortune 500, said that cashless participation is a more important financial benefit than other benefits at their company because it gives them the flexibility to build wealth while at the same time freeing up disposable income,” Shapiro said. More Than Just Job TitlesAn inclusive culture can be valuable to employees and make all the difference for acquisition and retention. “Sometimes the benefits are not even something that we need to spend money on. Community doesn’t require investment,” said Fatma Ghedira, head of community at ThinkHuman. “Sometimes it’s just employee-led ideas that really feel valuable to them.”“A strong culture is really what determines whether employees feel valued,” Knight said, and “whole person inclusion” can make employees feel respected, safe, and ultimately more engaged. “Shared values and beliefs need investment over time,” Ghedira said, for employees to feel the true impact. Culture has become a buzzword, and Ghedira warns employers to take an intentional approach as they set out to define their workplace values.Leaders should understand why they are developing a culture, whether the goal is engagement, performance, or something else. HR can help coach leaders on how best to communicate culture to employees. “If we do not know how to communicate the vision, and how to communicate conflict or feedback, then there is no way of actually creating the way we relate, which comes down to behavior and how we interact with each other,” she said. Part of a “whole person” approach is systemically encouraging employees to take breaks and practice self-care. This includes instructing managers to respect boundaries around breaktime and role-modeling behaviors, Lobban suggests. This is especially pertinent for remote workers who, thanks to technology and the blend of workplace and home life, feel like they are “always on.” Innovation like delayed delivery on emails to respect time zones and office hours can be helpful. Increasing Engagement Through Accessibility and Creativity Managers are often on the frontlines of encouraging culture, boosting morale, and explaining benefits, but don’t necessarily have the training to take on the whole-person approach themselves. Tinsley’s organization has systematized this through management training sessions, quarterly check-ins, and creating toolkits and conversation guides. Digital solutions, like Teradata’s “People Hub,” can also provide a one-stop location for employees to easily access vital information about their benefits offerings on their own.Employers will need to remain nimble in their strategies to adapt to rapidly changing times. “I would encourage employers to think about how to be more flexible, be more creative, [and] to come up with solutions to help address some of the challenges employees are seeing on the affordability side, but also that shareholders are demanding from a cost perspective,” Shapiro said. “Now is the time to think in a slightly different way and take some new approaches to some of these historical problems.”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 and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by jacoblund/iStock)

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Developing an Employee-Experience Strategy for Your Organization

BY Katie Chambers April 08, 2025

The statistics are grim: a recent Gallup survey showed employee engagement is at a near-all time low, while the share of workers who want to switch jobs is at a 10-year high. “Why is it so darn hard to fire up the team these days?” asked moderator Callum Borchers, columnist at the Wall Street Journal during a fireside chat at From Day One’s March virtual conference. Fortunately, some companies are finding a way to break through the doldrums with innovate their engagement strategies.Global Head of Employee Experience Jason Simmonds and his team at Morgan Stanley, a global financial-services firm with 80,000 employees across 41 countries, has developed a comprehensive employee-experience program, covering resources that improve employees’ careers, the workplace, and well-being. Among the upgrades: improving the onboarding process.Responding to Changing TimesThe social contract between employer and employee has shifted dramatically since the onset of the pandemic, Simmonds says, as workers came to expect greater mental health support and increased their focus on their families. “Employers reacted in kind, providing more generous benefits [and] flexible working arrangements, investing in products and tools that ultimately provided more to employees,” he said. Gen Z has also entered the workforce within recent years, and their unique values are beginning to impact demands on benefits. They prioritize mental well-being, social impact, meaningful work, and flexible working options—having never known anything else—leading to tensions as “return to office” mandates increase, Simmonds says. HR professionals are even starting to see “a managerial gap,” as balance-focused Gen Z hesitates to take on higher level positions due to the anxiety that can come with the job. Callum Borchers of the Wall Street Journal spoke with Jason Simmonds of Morgan Stanley (photo by From Day One)While the “talent wars” of the immediate post-pandemic period might be over, with a 26% decrease in open positions and layoffs on the rise, employers still need to take engagement seriously, Borchers says. To put it bluntly: In today’s job marketplace, if an employee is unhappy, they will leave. “Ultimately, if you want to attract, retain, [and] develop talent, and differentiate yourself amongst your peers in this quite increasingly competitive landscape, employee experience is really central,” Simmonds said. “Most people agree that their employees are their greatest assets. So how do we invest in them? How do we make sure that they're providing the best outcomes for the business and for their team?”Shaping an Employee-Experience StrategyMorgan Stanly experienced major growth during the pandemic, including two major acquisitions and record revenues. They also guaranteed no layoffs during that time of global crisis. The bigger challenge came, Simmonds says, coming out of the pandemic with a newer, bigger workforce. “50% of the firm was hired in the last five years,” he said, and the organization needed a strategy to help transition those newer workers into a hybrid or fully in-person working model. During the pandemic, the organization had already amped up its benefits offerings, without the official title of “employee experience strategy” per se, including better mental health resources and expanded paid parental leave. “And then also we did a lot of investment in reimagining and redesigning our workplaces, [so] that when we bring people back into the office, we provide a flexible working arrangement that fosters collaboration, that fosters innovation,” he said. The company launched a branded employee experience program called “My Experience,” focused on three pillars: career, well-being, and workplace. “The importance of the ‘my’ part is that we wanted to create more ownership and connectivity between the experience and our employees,” Simmonds said. Within each pillar are sub-pillars like “financial” and “family,” so that employees don’t need to “doomscroll” through a roster of benefits options before they find what they need. The “My Workplace” pillar of the program also comes with its own app for better access and a chatbot to efficiently understand HR policy.Prioritizing the Communication of Resources While the launch of the program did mark the addition of several benefits options, the rebrand also served as a way to refresh and better communicate the ample offerings that Morgan Stanley had already had available for quite some time. Simmonds says this employee-centric rebrand led to an uptick in awareness of and engagement with the program. His team also relied on employees themselves to be ambassadors for it. “What better way to market our employee resources than to amplify the voices of employees who have used it?” he said. “We’ve been starting to highlight employees who’ve gotten out of debt using our financial wellness resources. We highlight employees who survived cancer, leveraging our relationships with cancer research hospitals. And even if you're not in that situation, I think it makes employees very proud to work at a firm that has these resources.” Onboarding is also a crucial part of the employee experience, and it too hinges on communication. Having all the employee resources consolidated in a single, easy-to-understand package helps keep new workers from getting overwhelmed and empowers them to better understand both their role within the organization and what the company has to offer them. Morgan Stanley has a digital onboarding process that relies on fun and informative videos. “It brings the experience to a 21st century, and it creates better connectivity with our firm leadership”Of course, adding employee benefits costs money. “How do you achieve an employee-centric culture in a bottom-line driven business?” Borchers asked. One way a good experience program can offset costs is through retention, since replacing employees is expensive. “90% of employees decide to remain with the company in their first three to six months,” Simmonds said, so the sooner they understand and enjoy the experience program, the better. Simmonds says that happier employees often turn out to be better workers: “When we communicate through this employee-centric lens, it helps to increase engagement, increase culture, and ultimately increase business outcomes.” 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 and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by Urbanscape/iStock)

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Managers Are Overwhelmed. How Leadership Development Can Help Them

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 04, 2025

Shifting economic forecasts, mass layoffs, political turmoil, inflation, and exhausting news cycles have people feeling like they lack control. That troubled feeling is seeping into the workplace in the form of costly employee burnout.“Managers now really need support to address and handle the shifts and the impact on their teams, their functions, even, quite frankly, themselves,” said Rochelle Arnold-Simmons, the senior director of talent management at sportswear company Under Armor, during the closing panel at From Day One’s March virtual conference on employee engagement.Managers are taking on more responsibilities, and while their work is being supported by new innovations in HR tech, it doesn’t entirely solve the problem of being overwhelmed. Employers can step in to help alleviate their burdens, panelists said.The Problem of Unprepared First-Time ManagerIt begins with promoting and training the right managers.The first-time manager unprepared for the role is a major issue for employers. Managers often get the job because they were top individual contributors, “and a lot of times they lean heavily on what got them to that promotion in the first place, but being a manager is a totally different job,” said Derek Greenacre, head of talent management at commercial insurance firm AXA XL. Organizations, he said, need to do a better job of helping new managers “ruthlessly prioritize” what’s most valuable for the business.The problem is, executives don’t always bother to help. Executive coach Adam Weber gave this example: An executive team makes a big strategic change that affects everyone in the business, but they fail to give managers context or instructions on how to implement the changes. “As soon as they share this new bold initiative, their team asks the one question that the manager doesn’t have the answer to,” Weber said. “So the manager is in this really confusing spot: They can either fake it–and it’s really obvious to the team that they’re faking it–or worse, and more common is that they commiserate and join the team.”Executives need managers on board,  but without support, they set them up to oppose the change, even tacitly. “As leadership teams, we need to share as much context as we possibly can when big decisions are made.” Gather managers for a town hall and ask, “What’s the toughest question your team will ask?’” Provide answers to those FAQs. “Equip them to be an advocate for the company,” Weber said.Feeling Safe Enough to FailManagers must feel comfortable and confident enough to press leaders for more information. It helps to have a culture where senior leaders are already candid about the mistakes they make themselves, said Kavita Juvvadi, director of HR tech transformation at Amtrak. This sets the tone for a team “where there is no fear of retaliation or criticism, a culture where mistakes are normalized and treated as opportunities to learn from, rather than failures.” In short: psychological safety.Of course, ask any manager and they will tell you that their team is psychologically safe, but how do you really know? “If all the decisions are escalated to the top level, that’s an indication that people don’t feel empowered,” she said, “They may be afraid to make the decisions for fear of being wrong.”Developing Managers Within the OrganizationMore than 11,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day, which means employers are facing rafts of retirements and open leadership roles. Not only are companies losing years of institutional knowledge, they have to spur succession plans and prepare new managers to climb the ladder.This is especially true for industries like accounting and insurance, which over-index for older workers. This is what Greenacre is facing at AXA XL. To prepare, the company has invested quite a bit of money into building skill profiles for key roles. They then map them across the organization and say, “I know you’ve only thought of yourself in this particular product line, but have you considered other places where you might be able to almost cross pollinate the other?”Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the panel (photo by From Day One)One way to avoid new manager regret is to begin vetting and training them years ahead of time. This is why Juvvadi prefers to fill leadership roles internally, “because we have an opportunity to observe talent over a longer period of time,” watching those who “may not have a title but are problem-solvers, who naturally identify inefficiencies, who are action-oriented, who are early adopters of technology and innovation. Future leaders are sometimes hidden stars in non-traditional roles.”Arnold-Simmons likes to identify high-potential people early and invest in their careers, in part to retain them, with things like executive coaching and career development. “We look to see where our gaps are, and then find those leaders that we believe can accelerate.”Even if you’re not regretting the promotions the company has made and you’re satisfied with your succession strategy, don’t neglect your people managers. “No matter how big your company is, it’s better to do something than nothing” to help them do their jobs, said Weber. He recommended two things: First, create a one-page guide on what it means to be a manager in your organization” expectations for one-on-ones, how to give feedback to team members, and how to delegate tasks. And second, gather managers to problem-solve together. “Have one person show up with a problem and let people ask questions, then start brainstorming ways to solve the problem together.”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.(Photo by wenich-mit/iStock)

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Fostering a Workplace Culture of Purpose, Passion, and Play

BY Jessica Swenson April 03, 2025

While data and process are important elements of running a global business, Liz Ference, head of employee experience at Mattel, says “there’s something that’s really missed when we don’t [consider] the qualitative side of things as well.” There are key aspects of the employee experience that numbers can’t convey, which she discussed during a fireside chat with moderator Nicole Smith of Harvard Business Review at From Day One’s March virtual conference.It can be easy to treat employee experience as a catch-all, so when Ference started in her current role she charted out the employee life cycle into a comprehensive experience map. This exercise helped identify important questions about how the company facilitates talent acquisition and management. It also led to deeper insights into employee programs and experiences that enabled her to see possible gaps while understanding the business levers available to influence change.The Company’s MissionMattel has shifted its mission from well-being and optimism to incorporate the themes of purpose, passion, and play, Ference says. This strategy encourages team members to balance efficiency and achievement with recognizing the value of their work and taking the opportunity to experience everyday joy. One way to do this is by bringing the magic of what they do to the center of their employee experience. This allows everyone—even team members separated from the company’s products—to boost their sense of purpose by seeing and participating in this positive collective experience.Given the business that Mattel is in, the company sees play as not only an important business lever but a basic human imperative, according to Ference. She acknowledges that it can be hard to find time to play in an overwhelming, deadline-driven environment, emphasizing the value of creating play opportunities that are authentic to your culture and business. “This is actually when we need to create the space for it more than ever,” she said. While Mattel has fun experiences built into its everyday culture—like a life-sized Barbie box for selfies or a giant Hot Wheels van that can be used as a meeting space—the company is also purposeful about creating occasions for teams to step away from deadlines and have fun or learn together.Signs and Impacts of BurnoutLeaders need to notice when their team is approaching burnout and offer support to get them back to a place of balance. Regarding burnout, Ference says, “[it’s] completely lost its original definition from the World Health Organization, and it’s kind of a synonym now for just being stressed out. But [that] speaks to how ubiquitous it is.” When in burnout, people may distance themselves from their work or distance themselves emotionally from their coworkers. You might notice that their days are full of wall-to-wall meetings, which means they don’t have time or space for deep-focus work, breakthrough thinking, or life outside of work.Nicole Smith of HBR interviewed Liz Ference of Mattel during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)“You can have the best benefits package in the world. You can have all of these community events, [and] development opportunities for your people. But if people are not prioritizing that space because they’re so rushed in both areas of life, then they won’t get to those things,” Ference said. She and her team try to counteract burnout by creating space for self-care, development work, and community.Embracing Inclusion and AuthenticityMattel has recently launched new programs to support employee well-being and personal growth. One is a global well-being platform, in partnership with Modern Health, which offers free therapy, coaching, and other resources. The second is a series of personal growth programs that employees have reported are life-changing experiences. Lastly, as people and relationships are one of the largest impacts on the employee experience, Ference says, they ensure that leaders and teams are empowered to make time for community and culture events.To ensure an exceptional employee experience across a large, diverse workforce, Mattel uses a global-to-local approach that relies on regional business partners to optimize broad benefit and community programs for local cultures before integration. The company also maintains its strong public commitment to inclusion. “We talk a lot about how our products and brands are a reflection of the communities that we serve,” she said. “If we didn’t walk that talk and have our employees bring their unique lived experiences to the creation process, our products and our brands would no longer be as culturally relevant as they are.” Mattel’s ten employee resource groups create a sense of belonging through frequent events, relevant speakers, and other community moments.Tools and MeasurementWith so much data to sift through, analyze, and interpret, Ference and her team have implemented a listening strategy. Among multiple platforms and sites that gather and organize employee experience data, one key piece is the company’s Global Pulse Survey. The quantitative employee responses to this survey help them understand whether an initiative is building engagement and going in the direction they had hoped, she says. By combining data across all touchpoints, they can identify and communicate action-oriented themes to improve the employee experience. The company reduces bias in its interpretation and application of these themes in part by embracing artificial intelligence for data analysis.In addition to her leadership role, Ference is a coach in the company’s executive coaching program. She helps leaders use deeper listening and feedback skills to shift performance management from an annual event to an ongoing coaching discussion that continuously empowers employees.When employees achieve balance and start to feel more empowered and flexible, leaders will notice them using their benefits and doing things that energize and refresh them, like taking PTO or engaging in development courses. Employees return revitalized and drive creativity and innovation by infusing their renewed passion into their work.Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by Aum racha/iStock)

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Attracting and Retaining Employees: Essential Tips for Leaders

BY Christopher O'Keeffe March 18, 2025

Gone are the days when competitive compensation alone could secure top talent. As external pressures mount, Robert Foster, AVP of TA at Amtrak, has observed that candidates are prioritizing long-term security over pure compensation. He emphasized the need for transparency in hiring while highlighting that employees can enhance their value through continuous skill development. “I encourage people to control what they can control, which is their own work ethic, skill set, ability to stretch and reach across the aisle,” he said during an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s February virtual conference. Felix Mitchell, co-CEO of talent solutions business Instant Impact, highlighted the organizational responsibility that accompanies this shift. “We need to think about what we’re doing with learning and development, with re-skilling, and with career pathing, to make sure that we’re preparing our teams for a world where maybe we’re seeing a lot of restructuring and a lot of change,” said Mitchell. Amid the anxiety that comes with uncertainty, maintaining humanity throughout the recruitment process has become essential. Kim Stevens, senior TA manager at Employ, says the importance of clarity and communication while balancing the use of AI is crucial. A compassionate approach isn’t just good ethics, it’s good business, she says. “Uncertainty is, unfortunately, the norm in our space,” Stevens said. “What comes with that is that high anxiety from candidates who are applying, who are going through rigorous interviews. For me, it starts with really making sure that clarity and communication are top of mind.”Technology can help in the communication process as well, says Mitchell. Technology should enhance rather than replace human interaction during the recruitment process. “I absolutely love that framing of bringing that humanity back into the candidate experience,” Mitchell said. “The technology and all this cool AI... they’re only impactful where they can improve that candidate experience, and where they have really human impacts at the end of the day.”Reimagining Employer-Employee RelationshipsAttracting and retaining talent has also evolved, says David Bach, senior director of TA at LabCorp. “Attraction and retention comes down to redefining the model that worked in previous generations,” Bach said. “I saw a LinkedIn post the other day. It made me giggle. It said, 'My salary is just my employer’s subscription fee to me every month,’” he said. “It’s really kind of almost become that.”Journalist Alexis Hauk moderated the panel discussionBach suggested a more structured approach to these modern employment relationships, including “defined employment contracts with notice periods, long-term incentives for all employees, fair and transparent severance policies, and comprehensive benefits that meet modern needs.” This shift recognizes that while the pension-based employment model isn’t returning, organizations can create frameworks that provide both flexibility and security.Evolving Expectations Across GenerationsThe panel explored how different generations approach employment, with Shantra Laye, VP of campus recruiting at South State Bank, offering insights on Gen Z candidates.“Gen Z’s are looking for culture. They’re looking for purpose-driven organizations,” Laye said. “They’re asking questions about sustainability, community impact, and less about traditional benefits. They’re looking for flexibility and work-life balance.”While acknowledging these patterns, Mitchell cautioned against overemphasizing generational differences. “I think the difference between Gen Z and the rest of the workforce is overplayed,” he said, suggesting that broader workforce trends affect all generations, though they may be felt more acutely by younger workers.The thorny question of remote work continues to divide corporate America, with some executives pushing for full returns to office while others embrace hybrid or fully remote arrangements. “Having been remote for seven years, it’s harder to get noticed. You have to make a really concerted effort,” said Bach. However, he added, “I think it improved upon my mental health and my relationship with my family.”Bach suggested that companies uncomfortable with remote work often have more fundamental issues to address: “If an organization is uncomfortable with people working in a remote environment, it’s because they don’t have the right systems and processes set up to monitor productivity and employee performance. And if that’s the reason that you’re not allowing remote or hybrid work, fix your process.”Sometimes the solution isn’t to revert to old ways, and instead looking to fix a process. In an uncertain job market, the most valuable offering employers can provide isn’t permanence–it’s authenticity. Successful recruitment and retention today is about creating environments people “want to stay and where they feel valued,” said Stevens. In a world where uncertainty has become the norm, perhaps the most valuable offering isn't a promise of forever, but a commitment to honesty, growth, and mutual respect.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.(Photo by BrianAJackson/iStock)

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How to Improve the Candidate Experience From the Very Beginning

BY Tabitha Cabrera March 11, 2025

“Taking a moment to slow down and understand the candidate experience and finding time to focus on that is incredibly important,” said Kristen Baller, head of talent acquisition at DISH Network. “The candidate experience actually has a fundamental impact on our organization’s bottom line, meaning every candidate is a customer. And so, talent acquisition, while we may be looked at as a cost center, ultimately, has the ability to help drive revenue,” she said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s February virtual conference. Focus on the Candidate“What we’ve missed is where we actually carve out time to focus on creating a better candidate experience, focusing on the candidate—whether they’re going to be an employee, or whether we move forward with somebody else,” she said.One of the company’s core values is that opportunity is their number one benefit. Baller says that when looking at skills for both current and future positions within the organization, it’s important to assess whether someone has the energy to overcome adversity and the intelligence to think critically and outside the box.Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, reporter for the Denver Post, interviewed Baller of DISH (photo by From Day One)Internal mobility is also top of mind at DISH. Finding opportunities within the organization as Baller highlighted provides candidates confidence that “we go to the market and tell people to come build your future with us. There is someone and somewhere for everybody.” Leading With Empathy“When we think about our employer brand, one of the things that our team’s focused on is how we are taking the time to give back?” she said, highlighting their EchoStar Cares and Dish Cares volunteer work initiatives. “But how are we actually giving back to those that don’t join our organization? How do we create the space to just be more human and empathetic?” she asks. With this in mind, the company is focused on giving back and building their brand around that. Baller outlines that what she wishes industry leaders would do differently is to start carving out space for more empathy and human connection. Many of the metrics used by leaders and talent acquisition focus on efficiency and optimization, such as the number of positions filled in a quarter, time to fill, and time in process. Instead, leaders should shift some of that thinking to focus on metrics that measure candidate experience.Transparency can provide great value to the recruitment process, and overall candidate experience, says Baller. “How do we give them more transparency around what they can expect with the next steps of the interview process?” While Baller focuses on the candidate experience, the employee experience remains equally important to her. Baller highlights the importance of celebrating each other, “from a diversity, equity, and inclusion standpoint, it’s really important as an organization that we’re still investing and making our employees feel safe,” she said. Employers need to find ways to invest in and celebrate one another, recognizing that our differences and diversity of thought are what make businesses thrive and help move us forward as an organization.Tabitha Cabrera, Esq. is a writer and attorney, who has a series of inclusive children's books, called Spectacular Spectrum Books.(Photo by everydayplus/iStock)

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Modernizing Talent Acquisition: Enhancing Efficiency and the Applicant Experience

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza March 06, 2025

For any given job opening, an employer will receive hundreds of applications. Multiply that by the number of open recs at any given time, which could be dozens or even hundreds, and you have an impossible task. Use this number for reference: In 2024, the global power management company Eaton Corporation hired 9,000 new employees across the US and Canada alone.Recruiting teams are doing more with less, says Steve Bartel, founder and CEO of recruiting platform GEM. “Thousands of GEM customers and teams are a lot smaller than they were a few years ago. Recruiters are managing 56% more recs. Recruiting teams are getting about 3x the applicants compared to a few years ago. In fact, 20% of our customers see thousands of applicants for a single role,” he said.With too much to do and not enough people to do it, HR teams are looking to automation and artificial intelligence to help. “For a lot of administrative tasks, AI is going to be great,” said Rob Kumengi, who leads North American talent acquisition at Eaton. By automating routine parts of the job, both recruiters and candidates will have more time for human interaction. While Eaton has replaced the back-and-forth of scheduling a phone screening with a tool that lets candidates pick a time that works for them, it doesn’t replace the interview itself—that meeting is still with a human being.Recruiters are aware that job seekers are frustrated, and that many believe their applications are sent into a void, never to be considered. With that in mind, these companies are modernizing recruitment not only in terms of the technology they use, but also in the way they facilitate human interaction with candidates.This was the topic of discussion for a panel of senior TA leaders. During From Day One’s February virtual conference, panelists spoke about how they’re modernizing recruiting with efficiency and experience.The last handful of years have demonstrated the importance of empathy in the workplace, and some employers are resisting the pull to sever friendly contact with applicants in the name of efficiency. For these panelists, feedback for candidates is where they were finding ways to improve connection while preserving efficiency.Employers Asked and Applicants Answered: We Want FeedbackAt telecom company Comcast, where 84% of their applicants are also customers, the candidate experience is also a matter of customer experience, says Shelly Gross, VP of talent acquisition and experience.Comcast centralized its global talent acquisition function in the last two years, and Gross says it’s been a boon to efficiency: more agreement, less redundancy. “We’ve allowed the candidates to tell us where we could get the most experience lift for our buck,” she said, and candidates told them they want feedback.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, journalist and From Day One contributing editor, moderated the session (photo by From Day One)“When we provided feedback after an interview, we were seeing overall [Net Promoter Score] swings of up to 50 points,” Gross said. “That’s just an amazing and unheard of opportunity to take advantage of.” The inverse was also true: “Where we weren’t delivering feedback, we were seeing swings into the negative 50 range.” Turns out they were providing candidate feedback just 40% of the time, so that’s where they put automation to work first, “implementing some feedback capture and delivery mechanisms for our leaders and recruiters in our ATS.”At professional services firm Avanade, Paul Phillips, who leads global HR and talent acquisition, was having a similar experience. Given the flood of applicants, Avanade wasn’t able to respond to each one. “At a minimum, you have to be able to reply to a candidate, and it was clear that many candidates were falling by the wayside,” he said. So, he ran an engagement survey of both successful and unsuccessful candidates. “My scores were horrible,” he said, and it was because they weren’t getting any feedback.OK, but easier said than done, right? When you have hundreds or thousands of applicants, recruiters can’t spend all their time giving notes.Scaling Candidate Feedback“Especially in our world,” said Kumengi. “Feedback is gold.”And employers are finding ways to offer it. Andy Nelesen, global solutions director at talent assessment firm SHL, is one of them. “If we were going to design a hiring program for the candidate that wasn’t hired, what would that look like?”By conducting so many psychometric evaluations, SHL learns a lot about job seekers, “and historically, we’ve only used that insight to help hiring managers and recruiters to make smarter, faster decisions on who to move forward,” Nelesen said. But SHL was forfeiting an opportunity to provide feedback to the ones who didn’t advance, “so we rolled out personalized video-based feedback for all candidates based on the results of the assessments.”Some start the feedback early. At Avanade, Phillips is working on “social talent training,” where candidates can improve their interview technique, whether they get the job or not. “How to answer and ask great questions, how to prepare for an interview, how do you get ready for day one?”Of course, all panelists emphasized the importance of modernizing for augmentation, not substitution. Even when AI is used to review and stack-rank applications, humans need to be heavily involved, Bartel said. “I think companies should be a little bit wary of anything that claims to replace recruiters. The technology is just not there, and I’m not sure if it’s ever going to be there, because that human touch is so, so important.”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.(Photo by dusanpetkovic/iStock)

Virtual Conference Recap

Modernizing Benefits at a Mature Organization to Appeal to Today’s Changing Workforce

BY Matthew Koehler February 19, 2025

Employee retention and engagement are one side of the human capital coin. The other, perhaps, is the total rewards package. Most people think of total rewards in terms of pay and health benefits, but it's far more than that. “Total rewards encompasses all forms of compensation and benefits needed to attract, motivate, and retain our employees,” said Fannie Mae’s VP of total rewards, Brian Copeland. Copeland discussed the evolution of total rewards during a fireside chat with Denver Post reporter Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton at a From Day One’s January virtual conference.A Total Approach to Job SatisfactionJob satisfaction isn’t one-size-fits-all, says Copeland. So total rewards must be tailored to each employee’s unique needs. “It’s for us in our overall leadership team to try to figure out ways to better understand what those inputs are to an employee's job satisfaction,” he said.He puts total rewards into four “buckets”: Career advancement – A clear talent architecture that outlines career paths, including vertical promotions and lateral opportunities.Compensation and benefits – innovative total rewards designed to support employees’ diverse needs at every career stage.Learning and development and cross training programs – tools like training, certifications, and tuition reimbursement to help employees own their career growth. Culture and psychological safety – continuous feedback and engagement efforts to ensure employees feel supported and heard.Tapping into that second bucket, and to a greater extent what Fannie Mae’s mission is, the company also tries to make housing affordable for their employees. “One of our long standing benefits that we've offered is our employee assisted housing. So it's directly tied to our mission, which is making sure that we provide sustainable access to home ownership.” To this extent, they offer a one-time stipend to employees buying a new primary residence. Aside from that, given that home ownership is a complex process, especially for new homeowners, they provide education on how to buy a home and what it’s like to own one. Copeland says these types of benefits have been around a long time.Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton of the Denver Post interviewed Brian Copeland of Fannie Mae, discussing the companies innovative total rewards On the more innovative end, they’re working on a pilot energy efficiency program where, working with vendors or local energy companies, they do a scan of an employee’s current home. “The energy efficiency audit will go through, and they'll look at somebody’s home and see –maybe they need new insulation. Maybe it’s Windows. Maybe the inverse of the availability for solar panels or energy efficient appliances, whatever it may be, and they go through and get kind of a scorecard on how efficient their home is.” He says employees can apply that one-time stipend to update or upgrade their homes.Fannie Mae also expanded its benefits to support employees’ mental health and well-being by introducing enhanced leave programs, including parental and grandparent leave. Furthermore, they’ve launched a lifestyle spending account, an after-tax benefit that employees can use for personal needs like pet insurance, home office supplies, or hobbies. “We really created it to try to meet the ancillary benefits that are more one-off,” Copeland said. “[We were] trying to be creative and different to make sure our employees [are] able to say, 'Hey, I'm working with Fannie Mae. I love Fannie Mae, and it supports me and who I am inside and outside of work.’”Managing Cost Constraints With Total RewardsRising healthcare costs, especially increased use of GLP-1 medications, have led Fannie Mae to refine its benefits strategy in that area. “We still wanted to provide access, but we wanted to be very thoughtful." Copeland says they balance availability with preventative care like lifestyle programs to help control costs. Given the constant flux of costs in healthcare, they review their offerings every six months and work with providers to find cost-effective solutions. Attracting digital talent has also raised costs as inflation drives up salaries. “We've had to pay tech talent right to get them in the door to make sure we're competitive.”Lastly, Copeland points to two seemingly “small” areas of cost constraints that “add up quickly”: regulatory compliance and evolving employee expectations. New laws create administrative costs, while demand for personalized benefits like loan repayment and mental health support requires multiple vendors. “If we're going to offer that, usually we have to go out to a new vendor. There's very few vendors that may offer a one stop shop,” which increases overall costs. “We found ways to mitigate some, but some are just going to be something we’ve got to focus on over the next couple years.” As their current generation of employees nears retirement, Fannie Mae expects to introduce even more tailored benefits.On that retirement piece, Copeland says there isn’t a perfect solution but they take a holistic approach. They auto-enroll their employees in a 401(k) that has a generous employer match, even for employees who don’t contribute. “We spend a lot of time on financial literacy...providing them education on savings investing through webinars and workshops.” Fannie Mae also offers one-on-one coaching.Beyond retirement, Fannie Mae focuses on overall financial well-being, providing tuition reimbursement, student loan repayment, and guidance for parents planning for college costs. “I don’t know if that’s fully innovative, but I think it’s something that we can control. And, that’s bringing awareness and options for our employees.”Looking towards the future, Copeland says the industry will start seeing “more personalized benefit options.” “We're probably going to start moving towards more individual total rewards programs, almost like a menu style where you can select what you need for yourself.”He sees AI and new technology options accelerating personalized benefit programs. For healthcare options, for example, in network doctors might be going the concierge route, “focused on more of [a] holistic medicine.”Ultimately, Copeland believes the total rewards space is on the verge of an evolution. “I think we're on the verge of a lot of advancement in the total reward space, given some of the technology changes that are probably coming over the next decade.”Matthew Koehler is a freelance journalist and licensed real-estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Greater Greater Washington, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.(Photo by AaronAmat/iStock)