Sponsored Content: Leadership in Action is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente
It’s an understatement to say that Frank Kelly III, CEO of Kelly Benefits, is “all in” on promoting wellness at his company, which is one of the nation’s largest providers of benefits administration and technology, broker and consulting services, and payroll solutions.
“We want a culture that’s healthy, vibrant and alive because we believe that an employee who’s coming from a healthy home life is going to do better work than one who’s not. We are very intentional with some of our wellness initiatives to support the entire family,” Kelly says. “I tell our people, if you’re here past 6 p.m. four nights a week, something’s not right. We want to create a culture where if your kid has a game or play, that’s where you should be.”
Beyond physical wellness
While many companies give incentives to encourage physical wellness—smoking cessation classes, discounts to gyms, and company-sponsored walking clubs, for example—more and more businesses are recognizing that employees today are drawn to workplaces where wellness initiatives extend beyond physical health.
Kelly explains that his firm offers emotional wellness through an employee assistance program; financial wellness in areas such as budgeting classes; spiritual wellness with two corporate chaplains available for counseling; and physical and nutritional wellness.
“We bring in experts in the areas of nutrition, diet, and exercise, and we have an incredible onsite fitness facility, plus an outside walking trail. Every employee has 24/7/365, access to our gym. I encourage people that you have a meeting, instead of going to a conference room, have a walk and talk meeting,” he says.
To assist with family wellness, Kelly also offers a weekend marriage conference and sponsors summer camp sponsorships for kids.
Listening to your employees
Some of the most successful businesses are those that deliberately listen to their employees and encourage feedback. It’s easy when you are a C-suite professional to lose track of what the average employee is looking for at work.
Kelly Benefits does an annual engagement survey to do just that.
“That’s where you learn because no one’s perfect, and sometimes we’re blind. For example, Covid was so hard for everyone. We went from nearly 450 employees here every day to 25 onsite essential employees. People working remotely were lonely and depressed, and that’s what led us to a virtual chaplain,” he recalls. “I think we have to be open to what’s happening in our culture and how we can respond. We don’t get it perfect, but we try to be aware, try to be responsive, try to be proactive.”
Kelly sees a direct correlation between offering wellness programs and productivity.
“These wellness programs, some of them cost money, so it is a financial investment, but we look at it as an investment in our people because if they’re healthy and well, they’re going to be better employees, too. It’s a win, win.”
Leadership in Action is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente
