A Sit Down with Premise Health CHRO Liz Reimer

Employees of all generations rank wellbeing as one of their top three employer search criteria, alongside diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) and ethical corporate behavior. Employers, that means it’s important your benefits strategy addresses wellbeing and provides solutions that support employees.

Liz Reimer, Chief Human Resource Officer, Premise Health

We sat down with Premise Health CHRO Liz Reimer for her take on what Premise Health is doing to address employee wellness and support a culture of wellbeing for its team members and members, as well as how other organizations can implement practices to cultivate the same.

How are you incorporating wellness programs into Premise’s talent recruitment and hiring processes?

Prospective employees are looking for companies that align with their values. In today’s competitive talent market, employee health and wellness benefits are more important than ever in signaling what a company values.

At Premise, we understand and emphasize the importance of being able to manage the daily challenges of life in order to be your best in the workplace. As such, we strive to uphold a culture that values team members’ overall health – physical, emotional, financial, and social. We ensure people know about our team member resource groups, and we prioritize professional development through offerings such as our tuition reimbursement program. We also place a large emphasis on meeting our team members where they are in their own wellbeing journeys as there is not a “one-size-fits-all” model.

We also significantly expanded our focus on DEIB initiatives over the last few years to make sure everyone sees themselves at Premise and can bring their whole self to work. A large initiative we undertook this year was to update and modernize our career and culture pages on our website. We run analytics on these pages and know that prospective candidates are spending a good amount of time on them specifically to learn about our culture, benefits, and DEIB efforts. This tells us candidates are looking for a place that they can connect – not just a place to work.

What innovative new programs and pilots are you launching to address team member wellness? What are you discovering?

Mental/emotional wellness: With many organizations embracing remote and hybrid work, it’s more important than ever to offer various access points to healthcare resources to support employees’ mental and emotional wellness where and when they need it. At Premise, we’ve placed significant emphasis on virtual behavioral health offerings. Employees who have access to affordable and comprehensive healthcare are far less likely to miss work and are more likely to be productive when at work. Behavioral health support also lowers healthcare costs. Oftentimes, people struggling with behavioral health conditions end up in emergency rooms, which can be expensive and not necessarily the most appropriate form of care needed.

Social wellness: At Premise, we’ve strengthened our focus on social wellness through DEIB initiatives, such as internal member groups and training for leadership as well as for our physicians. We have 10 team member-led groups with more than 800 official participants representing specific communities, including women, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented groups.

Physical wellness: Organizations must evaluate their health benefits to ensure their entire employee base, including on-campus, hybrid, remote, and dispersed workers, all have equal access to high-quality healthcare. We take pride in our ability to provide members with an on-demand team of dedicated providers who are available 24/7 on one platform so they can get care when or where they need it.

Financial wellness: More companies are rightfully looking at financial wellness services for employees. Premise offers no-cost access to financial counselors and advisors to assist team members in everything from retirement to college savings, home buying, and many other life goals. Additionally, we have a tuition reimbursement program to aid in the cost of higher education at any accredited college or university.

Ideas take time to implement. What is one small step every individual, team, or organization can take to get started on their ideas to enhance workplace wellness?

Begin by understanding what the top requested benefits among your organization and employees are, which can be easily determined through a survey. For example, at Premise, we survey our employee population twice a year to assess their experiences at work so we can better meet their needs. We recently conducted a comprehensive benefits study to map out the offerings that most impact team members’ perceptions of their benefits and Premise as an organization. We are using the information to make changes based on what our team members said they value the most—not what we think they value. Once you have those insights, it’s easier to map out a long-term benefits roadmap that supports whole-person health and wellness.

How are you reskilling leaders at Premise to support a culture of wellness?

First, leaders need to understand why it’s important to support a “work well” culture. To be successful, leaders must foster an environment that inspires, engages, and motivates team members, while upholding our values, mission, and vision. Valuing and prioritizing wellness is an integral part of this culture.

At Premise, we conduct regular team member experience surveys and share the results with our leaders and other team members. This gives leaders insight into their teams and helps them to understand what is going well and what needs to be adjusted. We also support our leaders with resources for continuous learning through a learning and development platform and a microlearning platform focused on soft skills training.

Many of our team members work in wellness centers, which are located on the campus of another employer and are influenced daily by the culture and leadership of that company. We rely on our leaders as the “direct” connection between Premise and those team members. The more we can pour into them, allow them to understand why a “work well” culture is needed, and develop them as humanistic, empathetic, and skilled leaders, the better the organization will be for it.

An organization is only as strong and successful as its team members, who perform at their best when their health and wellbeing are taken care of. At Premise, wellness is a priority for our team members, clients, and members. We strive to support organizations in making it a focus through our services, whether it’s wellness coaching, nutrition, biometric screenings, or more. To learn more about our wellness offerings, click here.