Mike:

To moderate our program, we welcome Elizabeth Myers, Ph.D. She is senior director of thought leadership for the Bright Horizons workforce consulting team. Dr. Myers, the floor is yours.

Elizabeth Myers:

Thank you so much, Mike. And welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As Mike mentioned, I sit on the workforce consulting team at Bright Horizons. That means my role is a combination of things, including the generation of original research for the team, consulting and needs assessments for our existing and prospective clients, and staying on top of current research and hot topics in the benefits and human resources space. Before we dive into our very exciting topic today, I'm going to ask our panelists, Melissa and Bret, to introduce themselves. You start us off, Melissa.

Melissa Carlton:

Sure. Hi, I'm Melissa Carlton. I am the director of benefits, wellness, and employee health here at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and we are located in Memphis, Tennessee. Glad to be here, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth:

Thank you, Bret.

Bret Belfer:

Hi, my name is Bret Belfer. I'm the director of benefits and recognition at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center here in Houston, Texas. And thank you very much for allowing me to come and present.

Elizabeth:

Thank you. Thank you both. I'm so excited to get started. For the audience, as Mike mentioned, we'll have a Q&A at the end, so please put any thoughts, ideas, questions you have in the chat. And some of you might be thinking, "Seven generations, is that even possible?" I had a similar question, actually, and we can probably all think about the five main generations, Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, baby boomers, and even some of the silent generation traditionalists who are still working. But as researchers have been diving deeper into the generations, there are differences that come with a wide span of ages within each generation. One example would be that younger millennials in their mid-20s are not necessarily the same as some of the "geriatric millennials" who have now exceeded the age of 40.

So you can really start to see why exploring some of these subjugate groups within the generations might be necessary to understand everyone's unique needs. But we're not going to just talk about differences. Similarities matter a lot as well. So let's get started chatting with our panelists and seeing what is happening in their workplaces. Bret, can we start with you?

Bret:

Just want to make sure my mute button is off there. That rascally mute. Well, so at MD Anderson, we are, of course, very lucky to have employees expand the entire gamut of generations from those in Gen Z who are now entering the workforce all the way to our traditionalists. And we have some who work well into their 70s and beyond here at MD Anderson. So that said, of our 23,000 employees, millennials do make up the largest percentage of our workforce. They actually represent approximately half of our entire workforce.

And so to us, what does that mean? Half our staff just so happens to be in the midst of this life stage that is often widely recognized as the busiest. They are potentially raising families. Some of the older millennials may also be caring for some of our aging parents, and this is all taking place while they're working and possibly trying to even advance their careers. And so there's a lot going on for this particular generation and again, comprising half of our workforce. It's something we, of course, need to pay close attention to and provide as much support as possible.

In addition, I will say our workforce does work exclusively with cancer patients. And so much like what Melissa can share and relate to at St. Jude, these are folks who have often...our patients are people who have often received the worst possible news from multiple providers and they turn to MD Anderson as their last hope. And so as we try to create hope for these patients, it can often lead to a wide array of various emotions and personal challenges for our care teams. And so the way we approach it is no matter what generation our people represent, we know that we have to find ways to support in the most meaningful ways to them. We need to support our people because we need them to be at their best when they're here caring for our patients.

Melissa:

Bret, you know, I would imagine our employee philosophies are probably pretty similar. At St. Jude, we are also...as we know, we do pediatric oncology here. Ours are primarily children, but we do serve our patients to really their life. Once a patient, a patient for life. But at St. Jude what you find is that our employees, they really support our mission. Our tagline for our mission is, "Finding cures and saving lives." And I think one of the things that impresses me a lot about working at St. Jude is that our employees really buy into the mission from the top of the organization all the way down to the bottom. People really try to support our mission and they work tirelessly to do that. And I think that's when it comes in when we talk a little bit about what we do in HR, what we do in benefits is we really want that mission to be the center of everything we do.

We have about 6,000 employees who work here at St. Jude, not only in Memphis, but they also work across the globe. And so, it takes a special person to work in healthcare, and it particularly takes a special person, I think, to work in pediatric oncology, and that can really take a toll on our employees. And so really, I think when you're really thinking about it, what this all means is that we're continually trying to look for new and creative ways to support our employees across all of the generations that work here. It's really just about this commitment that we have to our employees. And it's actually a theme of our open enrollment this year is we say we want to offer top benefits designed to support top-notch talent.

Elizabeth:

Thank you both for sharing. And I just want to take a moment to thank your employees for the amazing work that they do and just recognize how impactful work is with cancer patients and children. It's just such important work. So thank you for sharing. And since you mentioned millennials, let's chat about them for a few minutes. As was mentioned, they represent a large part of the workforce. They're raising families, they're caring for parents, some of them, they're working, many of them are in leadership positions. And we also know that the past few years have added so many more responsibilities and stressors onto everyone, especially to parents. Melissa, can you share a bit about how St. Jude is supporting working families?

Melissa:

Sure, I'd love to. Well, as St. Jude, I'm sure we're probably similar to many organizations that we have a multi-year strategic plan that guides us. And of course, how we support our employees is a really important part of our strategic plan. What we really try to do in HR, in the benefits and wellness areas, is we really want to...we strive to be on the cutting edge. And one of the philosophies, I think, that we truly believe is that there's many different paths to parenthood. And as we support our employees through some of these different life journeys, we do want to try to offer family-friendly benefit offerings. And just a few of them that we've introduced, some of them in recent years, some of them had for a while, but just, I think a year ago January, we began offering a comprehensive fertility program. We also offer adoption assistance, and then we have six weeks of paid parental leave. And this is for both new fathers and new mothers.

Another exciting initiative, probably one of the more exciting that we're working on right now is the opening of a new childcare facility. The renovations have already begun on this space, and it's going to be near our campus. It's going to be within a mile, less than a mile from our campus. The center is scheduled to open in either late 2023 or early 2024. And I think one of the things we're excited about is just being able to offer high-quality childcare. And when you think about why would employers do this? I think some of the reasons that we have is, one, this is just something employees really value. They like having their children close by. I think the other thing that's a real advantage is that you can create hours at the corporate childcare center that mirror the hours and the shifts that our employees work. Because as you know, in healthcare, we're a 24/7 operation, so we don't have the luxury of just having the daytime hours. And it seems giving choice within this realm of childcare is important, and having flexibility.

One of the other things that we do is we support our working parents is we actually put $2,000 in January of every year. We put this into their flexible spending account. It's a dependent care account. So that way they can have it on a tax-favored basis. And this would be for all eligible employees who have childcare needs for children under age six. You know, personally, I just think it's really important for employers to consider how they can help working parents, in particular, with childcare support. One of the statistics that I read the other day I thought was pretty interesting, as I said, we're in Memphis, Tennessee is where St. Jude is located, and within the state of Tennessee, almost half of all residents live in what they call a childcare desert. And that just means it's difficult for parents to find care. And particularly in the Memphis area, we seem to have a shortage for very young children and infants. It's really difficult to find childcare in a timely manner. You can find it, but oftentimes you find yourself on a waiting list, which could be six months to a year.

The other side part of I think that we're really excited about rolling this out is just as we're trying to recruit this top talent, trying to recruit top scientists, top doctors here to Memphis, because we do recruit both nationally and internationally for many of our jobs, it's really important to those applicants who are contemplating and considering coming to work at St. Jude and having a career here, knowing that we have a childcare center. Because as I said before, when you're moving from out of state or out of town, you don't have that opportunity to get on these waiting lists. So it's really good that we have that.

There's one other statistic that I thought I would share because I find it interesting also is three-quarters of the mothers in Tennessee who have very young children actually work. When you think about that, that women make up a pretty large proportion of our healthcare workers, and so I think that's even more important that St. Jude recognize that we need to try to solve that problem. One of the sayings that we have at St. Jude, and actually Dr. Downing, our CEO, says this a lot, is like, "If not St. Jude, then who?" And you know, this applies not only for our patients and families, but it's for our employees, too.

Elizabeth:

Thank you so much for sharing. I'm sure those parents are going to be so happy when the childcare center opens on campus. That's really exciting. And according to our most recent Modern Family Index study, nearly 60% of working parents said they would remain loyal to their employer for everyday childcare support. And another stat that we have is that we recently did a return on investment study with a healthcare client of ours and found that their average employee turnover is 24%. But for employees who use their center, turnover is only 6%. So exciting things to come, I hope. And Bret, MD Anderson has recently introduced some new support systems that are likely going to be used and appreciated, especially by millennial employees. Can you share a few of those?

Bret:

Oh, sure. Well, yes, as we've shared, we have a lot of young families. Those who are just starting their families, for them, we're pleased to provide various services to support them in this journey. For instance, we recently introduced a fertility benefit that actually covers two cycles of treatments, as well as a very comprehensive menu of additional services, such as counseling. For those who have recently either had a child or adopted a child, we've added paid leave for parents. Something that's been a very long time coming for us, and we're very pleased to be able to provide that. But when people come back to work, understanding that that can be often a very challenging transition. We've added a return-to-work program that provides 40 additional backup-dependent care hours leveraging our current backup care program.

And so we provide working mothers rooms across all locations, as well as support groups for our incredible mothers. We provide also what's referred to as additional family support programs, which include things such as priority placement and discounted tuition at childcare centers across the Houston area. For those of you who might have visited, Houston is a very, very spread out town, and so we wanted to make sure that we provided the most inclusive way to provide support for our folks who might not be coming into our medical center to work. And so we want to make sure that we're reaching them in all of our Houston area locations.

For many years, we've also been proud to provide a backup care program. We currently provide 100 hours of care per employee per year, and this can be used for backup care, or it can now even be converted for virtual tutoring in the event that a child may need additional help with schools or with their schoolwork. And particularly for parents of the school-age children, our backup care offering really does become helpful when schools are closed for holidays, vacations, summer, and of course, in the Houston area due to a weather event, hurricanes or as some of you may have heard in 2020, a freeze which was incredibly...or I'm sorry, 2021, an actual freeze in the State of Texas.

And I believe it's the book of eternal optimism even found that the average school is closed for, I think it's 29 days during the technically 10 months of the year when it's officially in session. And so we want to make sure that we provide a lot of support for these 29 days and help our people come into work, and not only come into work but provide them with the peace of mind knowing that their family members are being cared for by licensed and very trustworthy folks. And so at MD Anderson, over the last year, our backup has actually saved us about 2,200 days, which means that when our employees need to care for their families, they're able to actually do just that and be able to take care of our patients.

Elizabeth:

That's a lot of days. What an impact. And some estimates find that childcare breakdowns cost businesses $4.4 billion a year in absences and lost productivity, which includes when employees are at work but distracted by their child or parent care obligations at home. So the backup care really does support these needs of employees, and that's such a testament to the impact. So let's turn to the audience for a moment and do a quick poll. What percentage of millennials and Gen Z want flexibility in selecting their workplace benefits?

As I give you a moment to answer this question, I'll let you know that this data comes from a recent nationally representative survey of working Gen Zs and millennials conducted by our workforce consulting team. Let me pause for a few seconds and let you answer. What percentage of millennials and Gen Zs want flexibility in selecting their workplace benefits? All right. And we still have a few trickling in, but it looks like most of you said, or a majority said 62% or 84%. And what we found was 62%. So in the survey, 62% of the millennials and Gen Zs said they wanted flexibility in selecting their benefits. They also were loud and clear about them knowing themselves and their needs the best and therefore looking for more flexibility in how they choose benefits that best fit their work-life integration and their well-being.

So, moving on beyond parenting, let's also talk about some of the of data points younger generations mentioned to us in that survey, specifically around their own well-being. So most, we're talking about 86% of Gen Zs and millennials are currently stressed about their financial well-being, and 76% are stressed about their physical well-being. In addition, 1 in 4 Gen Zs and 1 in 10 millennials told us in the survey that they missed work in the past year due to their mental well-being. So these numbers really put into focus for me how much of a concern all types of well-being financial, physical, mental should be for employers. Bret, what are some of the ways that MD Anderson is supporting mental well-being?

Bret:

Sure. That's a great question. It's very interesting that you mentioned the employees who are missing work due to mental health and stress. The pandemic has, of course, just simply exacerbated that issue. And so both through our UT system as well as MD Anderson, we're very pleased to have a very robust menu of services. Specifically, at MD Anderson, we have a workforce wellness team who provides many different programs and services, whether it's at the team level or department level, or even individual level. We have onsite fitness facilities staffed with fitness professionals, health coaches. We also have nutritionists who can provide one-on-one consultation services and personal trainers. We also have a fairly large internal EAP team who's, of course, available at all hours of the day and night to meet the needs of all of our 23,000.

And a few years ago, we actually introduced what we call wellness leave. And this is in addition to a very generous PTO program and sick leave program. But what this is, is it allows employees to take up to 16 hours or, of course, 2 days to care for themselves and their well-being in any way they see fit. So this could be for a doctor's appointment, it could be just because they're having some challenging times and they need a day off. They can go and spend it at the park or do whatever hobby that brings them comfort. And so what we're hoping with this program and what we have seen is that these days and calling them wellness leave really help shift the paradigm in a very positive way and it demonstrates MD Anderson's commitment to helping people with all of their care needs.

And so our message is that we want people to take care of themselves and we recognize that well-being is important. And that includes, of course, mental well-being, not just physical. And we do also provide employees and our families access to various different technology solutions. One being Calm, as I know a lot of folks use, and we're working to really, again, normalize talking about that mental well-being. And our EAP team is doing tremendous work on that front. I will say one of the best things that could ever happen to us is that we have a very supportive president, Dr. Peter Pisters, who is a true champion of wellness. And so in many of his communications, especially during the pandemic, there were always messages that he would have on there on his regularly scheduled email blast that talked about all of the ways we're supporting people's mental well-being and what folks can do. And that has been a real game changer for us.

Elizabeth:

I love the idea of wellness days. And your comments actually reminded me of a prior webinar where we discussed with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts that they were rebranding all of their sick days to wellness days in order to decrease the stigma around taking time off when you needed it. Melissa, can you share some of what St. Jude is doing?

Melissa:

Sure. First of all, I have to say I love the idea of wellness days. Just taking what you already have and rebranding some of them so people really get the message of how important it is to take those days. At St. Jude, one of the things, I think...Actually, we heard about this a couple of weeks ago, but St. Jude was recently named as the top 100 healthiest workplaces in America. And that's something we're certainly proud of, the recognition. What we have at St. Jude to support employees. We do have an employee wellness program. That program is called Living Well, and we focus on five areas within Living Well. There's five core areas, getting active, eating healthy, preventing illness, managing chronic conditions, balancing family and work life, and then coping with stress and burnout.

One of the things that we really try to do at St. Jude is we try to make access to our health and wellness offerings just easy, quick, and convenient so employees feel like they have more time in their busy days that they have. Just kind of tying it back to who we are in our mission. But our mission is simple. It's finding cures, saving lives. And that's really why we focus on how we help our employees be the best versions of themselves. We really want them to focus on taking care of our patients and finding cures for cancer. So we feel like we have an obligation to really try to help our employees be the healthiest that they can be in their lifestyle.

One of the things that we have, I believe it was two years ago, but located in the center of our campus we have an on-site clinic. We call this our Living Well Health and Wellness Center and there's also a full-service pharmacy in there. And I think the unique thing about our center is not only is it convenient, but it's a very holistic approach. When you think about it, within this wellness center, we could call it a clinic, and it certainly is a place that you would go if you have an illness, but it's much broader than that. We want it to be a place that people will go for wellness sort of activities.

Within that clinic, we have behavioral health specialists. It is considered a primary care facility. We have a behavioral health specialist. We have a nurse who does chronic condition management and works also in small groups with our employees. We have an MD and a nurse practitioner, and we have two pharmacists that work down there along with the nurses. I think one of the interesting things about it is we house within the Living Well Health and Wellness Center some of our external providers. We have some on-site, like for instance, through a Blue Cross Blue Shield relationship, we have...we call it an onsite health advocate and she helps employees. She meets with employees. She helps them navigate the health system. She helps them if they have problems with their claims, she can sort of help them with that. We have an EAP counselor that comes on-site. And so it's very convenient, very private, and confidential that employees can meet with the EAP counselor.

And then beyond that, we also have our financial advisor there. This person is almost full-time. She's provided through a retirement vendor, but she's able to sit down not only to help people plan for retirement, but she's also able to help them do financial plans, work a little bit on budgeting, and that sort of thing. And so we love that that's such a holistic approach that we have there. In addition to that, we have an on-site fitness center. And within the on-site fitness center, we have three wellness coaches that work in there. And one of the things that I think we've done in the last year that has really helped is that we have both our health and wellness center and our fitness center staff all are under one third-party vendor. And so what we really have realized through this tighter connection between the two is we have a lot better warm transfers communication because as we all know, wellness and healthcare is very complex and there's a lot of different things. So we feel like we really have a lot of resources actually right here on campus.

Another one, I think Bret talked a lot about this. And really just because everything's going on in this world, we've put a special focus on mental health and how we can support our employees through that. one of the things that we're going to be doing, and this is actually next week. It's November 1st. I can't believe October is already almost gone already. But it's called Mental Health and Suicide Awareness, with the subtitle, You Matter. This You Matter is really aimed at our frontline managers and leaders. And it's going to be a program that's going to be led and facilitated by our on-site behavioral health professional. And they're going to be looking at identifying, mitigating, and accessing resources that are related to mental health risks, not only among our employees but also within the community. So that's something we've been wanting to do and I'm really excited to see that we're going to be kicking that off.

My final thing I wanted to talk about because I think this is...at least I get excited when I talk about it, but we do have a...I want to tell you a little bit about a very special dog that we have on campus. Her name is Rosalie. Rosalie is a golden retriever. And what's unique about Rosalie...because we actually have three dogs who work full-time on campus. Two of them, really, they're therapy dogs, and they work with our patients and our families, helping them navigate the healthcare system. But Rosalie, she is 100% dedicated to supporting our employees who work on campus every day. And really, what she does, if you see her, you'll see her just about every day as you walk the campus, she goes to different departments, she'll go to different events.

And really, what she's there for, her job description is just to help employees find a little joy and happiness in their day. And, of course, beyond that, she's all about getting hugs and a whole lot of pets. She wants to get as many pets as she can from as many employees as possible. The other thing Rosalie does is she participates. We have weekly group mindfulness walks where employees will walk, and Rosalie is right there beside them. I just have to tell you everyone loves Rosalie. Oh, there's a picture of Rosalie right there.

Elizabeth:

Aw. Rosalie is so cute. And pets are definitely a theme that we've been hearing more and more when we talk to clients and employees as 23 million households, so that's around 1 in 5 households, adopted pets during the pandemic in addition to those families who are already pet owners. Melissa, do you think you could share a few details about your new pet care offering as well?

Melissa:

Sure, I would love to. One of our recent benefits that we added is pet care. When I say we added it, we actually...it was not a new benefit. What we did is we took an existing benefit that we already had, which was backup care, and now we allow employees to trade up backup care hours to cover the cost of boarding, maybe walking their pet, such as a dog, or I guess you could walk a cat, too, but I know my cat wouldn't allow that. Pet care, any sort of daycare hours, and things such as that. What I really like about opening that benefit we had to a broader group is I think it really drives benefit equity and so because it reaches such a broad group of employees, and our employees just adore their pets here at St. Jude. Many of them consider them to be part of the family.

Elizabeth:

And we've heard that too that even non-pet owners consider pets part of people's families. Let's move on to Gen X for a few minutes. What stressors, in particular, are they facing at your organization, Bret?

Bret:

Well, sure. So, Gen X, well, I would say also Gen X and some of our older millennials and some of the younger baby boomers, we've noticed they, of course, have children heading off to college and I think it was this year's Princeton Review's College Hopes and Worries Survey that had reported about 74% actually report high stress about those applications. So we know it's a very challenging and stressful time in not only the child's life but, of course, the parent's life. And this is the kind of stress that we want to help our workforce manage. We do also recognize that our workforce, and I would say those in healthcare in general, we tend to place a very significant emphasis on education for our people and for their families.

And so because of that, a couple of years ago, we were proud to be able to introduce College Coach and this actually helps our workforce members and their families navigate this often very complex and stressful process. Part of the offering includes one-on-one guidance and, in fact, our last fiscal year, we actually saw a 178% increase year-over-year of the one-on-one expert guidance minutes. And so we know our people are not only loving this, but they've been craving this for quite some time. And just a few weeks into this year, in fact, our employees have already used just a little less than 25% of those one-on-one guidance minutes that we've actually contracted. So we're in the process now trying to figure out what else we need to add because this has become a very hot topic. And this kind of support we know not only reduces folks' stress, but it really does help them save just hours of time so that when they're at home and when they're with their families, they can relax, reenergize, and just overall recharge. And so we're very pleased to see this program getting so much attention.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. And that goes along with the data that we have internally too in the program that 94% of participants indicated that a college coach reduces their stress. So it really is helping parents with college-bound students stress less, have some time to relax, and re-energize.

Melissa:

Yeah, that's a great program, Bret. I really like hearing about that. In addition to just the college application process, I really think parents are just, in general, I mean, at least I know I was worried about paying for college. One of the things that we offer here at St. Jude, and this is through payroll deduction, we have some 529 college saving plans. And so that just makes it easy for employees to start early saving for their children's education.

We also offer a couple of other programs to help our employees. We are a non for profit organization, so there's a couple of programs that are available specifically for employees who choose to work in a nonprofit organization and one is Student Loan Forgiveness. That's a great program offered by the government where you can actually, after 10 years, have your student loan forgiven after working in a non for profit. And then the other thing I think has been really beneficial is we help them provide assistance of lowering what they pay each month through the income-based student loan repayment options. And that's also we work with a vendor who actually helps them navigate these programs so they're able to successfully do both of those, get their loan forgiven, and then just lower what they pay every month for their student loans.

Elizabeth:

That's great. Thank you for adding, Melissa. And as we all know, that caregiving isn't just for children and pets. By 2030, every baby boomer will be at least 65 years old, which suggests that over the next decade and beyond, employees will be raising children, caring for parents, in particular millennials who are entering the sandwich generation, Gen X, who is already there. We also have baby boomer employees who might be caring for an aging and or ill spouse. Can you share some thoughts on support for the sandwich generation, Melissa?

Melissa:

Sure. I can tell you a little bit, being a member of the sandwich generation myself. But Bret, earlier in the session, you talk a little bit about this backup care program that you offer. We offer it as well. I thought I would just talk a little bit about what it is. It offers caregivers the ability to use their hours. They can care for aging parents, spouses, or any sort of dependent adult. So I think it's kind of cool because the backup care can be used, as we talked about, for childcare, now it could be used for pet care here at St. Jude, or you can also for what I just described, some of the older adults or dependent adults. When I think through why that's really beneficial to have that benefit is because you think about, I think probably most people feel and know that we do have a labor shortage across some of our industries, and it's particularly acute, I believe, in the healthcare industry.

And during the pandemic, there were a lot, across the board, there are a lot of caregivers, especially women, who just left the labor market or the workforce. And, you know, as we continue to need to attract and retain, I think it's just really important for employers to really what I call a 360 view to really take a look at how we support our employees and support them across these generations we've been talking about and throughout their careers. Because at least the way I see it, it never seems that one size fits all works for everybody, so.

Elizabeth:

That's for sure. We hear that a lot, too. Everyone is unique in their families and their lives are unique, and their needs are evolving, and their benefits need to evolve and flex with them as well. Bret, do you have anything to add about your support for the sandwich generation?

Bret:

Yeah. So actually, and Melissa, you hit the nail on the head with some of what you said. First off, with the backup care, oftentimes people automatically just assume that's just for children. And we really try to make it a point at MD Anderson to make people aware that this is for all ages. And so we do have a fairly significant population that does tap into that program specifically for either an aging spouse that may need additional support or their parents if they find themselves in the sandwich generation. And so I love that you brought that up because it's often something that is forgotten. You also brought up, which I thought was interesting, is the challenge with seeing so many women leaving the workforce to care for their families, whether it's children or aging parents. And that's what we have seen as well.

Now, at MD Anderson, our workforce is by far the majority female. It's approximately 70%. And they are, as we all know, often the primary caregivers for their families. But we've also seen somewhat of an interesting trend. And because our workforce members are in healthcare, and Melissa, you might see this as well, that in their extended family, so if they have siblings, whether they live in the area or elsewhere, when an aging parent may need care, often that family turns to the individual who works in the industry, whether or not they are a clinician. Just because they're in the industry, they for some reason automatically get tapped and asked to take care of that aging parent.

And so because of this, in addition to that backup care, we did recently provide access to the elder care platform, actually through Bright Horizons that really assists our workforce and their families with being better able to care for an aging loved one. And so this helps provide support, helps provide navigation, direction, and it also helps provide that platform where all of the information can live so that every family member can actually have access. They can all be aware of the care plan for that parent and so forth. And so what we're hoping, this is a brand new program that we just launched, but we're hoping this really does help facilitate what is often a very challenging, sometimes the most challenging aspect of one's life. And so we're hoping this really does help provide some meaningful services for our people.

Elizabeth:

And that makes so much sense, what you just said, that those in healthcare are probably the first to be called upon for caregiving duties outside of work as well, which actually segues well into our next poll for the audience. How many unpaid hours each week do you think caregivers put in on average? And while you're answering that question, I'll mention that this data point comes from the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers who put out a report that quantified the cost of caregiving. So, I'll give you a few moments to answer. How many unpaid hours each week do you think caregivers put in?

All right. And you as a group chose 20 hours, and 20 hours is what the report said. On average, it's another part-time job for caregivers outside the home. And the average productivity loss was almost 11%, which, assuming a $25-an-hour wage, they quantified as $5,000 per employee. So a big expense. And with inflation, Melissa and Bret, I imagine you both are concerned about the financial stress your employees may be feeling. What are you seeing and doing on this front? I'll start with Bret.

Bret:

Sure. So, financial wellness, it's been a topic for many years at MD Anderson. It's always been a challenge, but we have also noticed that over the last few years, in particular, this has just really taken a toll on so many, it's become a part of our overall well-being strategy for our employees. And so we're in the process of finding new ways and not just looking at some of the traditional financial wellness programs. Of course, there are many out there. They've been around for years. But what we're trying to do is be a little bit more direct and creative, and listening to our population.

And so we're in the process of creating boot camps, or just kind of a fun name we're, of course, tossing around that help educate our employees on finances in addition to some of our existing, kind of, more focused educational sessions, retirement, and so forth. And these are aimed to be very helpful, of course, to those entering the workforce, but also throughout every stage of life, as we understand that every stage does have its own different financial challenges. In the healthcare system, we do recognize that medical care can also be a huge expense for people. And so these boot camps are being designed to help not only with those traditional finances but really to also help become better healthcare consumers. As we know, healthcare in general can be a significant burden when it comes to those finances.

So, for example, and this is one that we tend to use quite often, anybody with children know that for some reason, kids tend to get sick Friday evening after their doctor's office is closed, and you've got an entire weekend. And so what we're trying to do is be better at navigating and helping nudge people to find the best care at that specific time. And so, for instance, instead of going to an emergency room, which we see a lot in Texas, I don't know how everybody else is where they live, but in Texas or the Houston area, you have a freestanding emergency room on every corner. And so people naturally will go there as their source of primary care, in a sense. And what we're trying to do is help educate people what they would pay here in ER versus what they would pay at, say, an urgent care center, which would be a lot more not only affordable, but really just the overall better choice when we're talking about health care utilization.

So, we also have a generous tuition assistance program. This helps people, of course, who want to advance their education. Maybe they're just coming out of high school and they're looking to get their bachelor's degree, or maybe they want to pursue a master's degree or certificate. But we want to help them get there because we know that's not only going to help the person, but it's going to help their career. And especially, it's going to help MD Anderson. And in addition to helping those employees, we recognize this creates that pipeline. It helps us build that pipeline, which will continue to be a critical need in the healthcare space. And so, again, the more we can help focus on educating our people, the better or the more knowledgeable and successful they become, the better we are as an organization.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. We've seen across our research, too, that help with debt sways the younger generations in their choice of a place to work as well. Melissa, where are you placing emphasis in terms of minimizing employee stress due to financial issues?

Melissa:

You know, Elizabeth, really no matter what stage of life that you're in, I think one big expense that comes to mind is healthcare expenses, and in particular, I think, just the cost of healthcare insurance. Here at St. Jude, we recently conducted a survey, I think it was about two or three weeks ago, among our employees to learn a little bit more about what type of benefits do our employees value the most. And one of the things that we found is that 96% of our employees value our healthcare insurance the most. And I think that that's a very telling statistic. One of the things that we recently announced here at St. Jude, and this is actually beginning in January, January 1st of 2023, our employees are going to no longer have to pay a monthly contribution for either their medical, their dental, or their vision insurance.

Yeah. I know. That's right. St. Jude is going to cover these costs for our employees. And that's a really big deal to our employees. That's for employee-only coverage. If they have spouses or children, they have to do part of the contribution, but it is a reduced contribution, so the employee still has that portion of it. So what I really believe this does is this really can promote several things. One is I think it promotes health equity. Plus, who knows, maybe these dollars saved can be used for everyday expenses and maybe cover healthcare costs, I'm sorry, maybe cover childcare costs, or you can save more for retirement for what's not coming out of your biweekly paycheck. There's different ways you can use those dollars.

Elizabeth:

Well, it's such a great financial relief and frees up so much flexibility for other areas to invest. Fantastic. And I'm just noticing how much time has flown by. So I'm going to ask one more question before we turn to some questions from the audience. You both mentioned tuition assistance programs, and I know you both offer some great career development programs. What are some of the more unique ways your organization is supporting career development and growth? Let's start with Bret.

Bret:

I'm so sorry. It's that mute button. I apologize. So we do, of course, value mentoring and coaching. So we do offer quite a few different options, both in formal setting as well as informal setting. We understand that our longer-tenured employees, they're going to have a lot of job experience and extensive institutional knowledge to share with some of our younger folks. Younger people, on the other hand, they might be trained on newer technologies or just be overall more tech-savvy, and they can share that knowledge with some of the older folks. And either way, we're constantly striving to foster an exchange of ideas and knowledge.

And we recognize that employees need time for development, mentoring, coaching, or formal classes. And so we provide various curricula to support everyone in their current roles, be it as an individual contributor or a division leader. And some of these courses are also self-driven, so our workforce members can actually choose when they are able to complete them. And so we feel that with this kind of support, our people don't have to choose between development and having time or money to take a class.

Melissa:

One of the things as you're pondering this, I think a couple of things stand out to me. One of the things is we just like to take advantage of the fact that some of the best doctors and the best scientists choose to work here at St. Jude. And one of the things we do offer are these professional conferences and seminars right here on campus featuring some world-renowned speakers. St. Jude, beyond anything else, we are an academic institution as well as a hospital, and we're lifelong learners. And so St. Jude definitely invests heavily in career development opportunities for employees. Also, we have a St. Jude Leadership Academy, and the leadership academy offers a really diverse set of seminars and courses that apply for both seasoned leaders and emerging leaders here at St. Jude.

Elizabeth:

I love how both organizations are taking advantage of your amazing employees and sharing their knowledge and expertise more broadly. That is fantastic. And what a great way to end my questions. Thank you both so much for answering them. I'm going to stop talking now, and I'll let our audience get a chance to ask their questions, and so I'll turn it back over to Mike.

Mike:

All right, let's turn now to some of the questions coming in from the audience. We'll start here, I think a question for both of our speakers asking, "Can you each share where you see your priorities for 2023 and beyond?" And Mr. Belfer, why don't you go ahead and start?

Bret:

Oh, sure. So, of course, there are many priorities that we're going to have at MD Anderson. I will say for my department specifically, we are really trying to be better at targeting specific populations with our programs and services. We are a very complex organization. We have many different locations. We also speak 52 different languages at MD Anderson. Literally, 52 different languages at MD Anderson. And so what we're trying to do is find the best way to support all of our workforce members and their families. And so, one thing that we're looking at is leveraging both existing technology and also searching for new technology that really helps navigate people to any service that we provide at any given moment. That has been a challenge for many years. People are inundated with vast communication of all different programs and services on a daily basis. We're trying to find a way to help people that when they have a question and they need something and they don't know where to turn, they're able to find support for that specific need, again, at all hours of the day. And so that's one goal, one big goal for my department for this next year.

Melissa:

I guess the other part of that question is for me, huh? When I think about some of our priorities that we have, it really runs along a similar vein than what Bret is talking about. But St. Jude is really experiencing growth right now. We continue to add more and more employees. In fact, over the next three to four years, we're scheduled to add a net 2,300 employees, which is a lot of employees. And as we all know, there's a very competitive war out there for talent and we're in that just like everybody else. But what I always like to say is we're just going to continue to utilize all of the tools in our benefit tool chest to really help St. Jude compete for this talent. And I can't help but plug it because we're in the middle of open enrollment. Our theme is Top Benefits for Top-Notch Talent.

But anyhow, when you think about priorities, how are we going to do that? And there's really two ways. And we really want to expand this by helping employees better navigate the vast resources that we already have today. Just to be totally honest with you, we already have a lot of diverse offerings and we've talked about a lot of those today and they're applicable to a lot of different generations. But I will tell you, sometimes it's really challenging for our employees to really know what we have when they need it. And so I think that's the biggest challenge.

Sometimes they just need just in time help for what that particular situation they're facing at that point in time. And we're addressing that in two ways. One is we're investing in new technology. The technology has some AI capabilities where it basically just uses some employee demographics and some employee preferences. And then what the system will do is really provide some highly customized delivery or list per se of some of the well-being and benefit offerings that we have and the ones that are most relevant and the ones that matter most to our employees.

I mean, if you think about it, if you take, like, an early career Gen Z person, what they would get delivered as far as recommendations would be much different than it would be for more of a late-career baby boomer and such. So every employee is unique and every employee's needs are unique and so that's kind of where we're trying to go with that. And I think beyond that, we've talked a lot about this today too, but we are going to increase our mental health resources that are available and actually the resources that are actually real-time benefits that are available right on campus. And then we're going to continue to have open dialogue, just talking about stress, burnout, and any other type of mental health challenges that we really all face both at work and at home. And so I would say those are our two highest priorities that we have.

Mike:

Right. Let me try and squeeze in one more question here. Our time is running out. A viewer asks, "I'm not familiar with backup care. Could you explain what that is for and how it's used for a newbie like me?"

Bret:

Melissa, do you want to go or would you like me to go?

Melissa:

I think it would be great for you to do this one, Bret. Go for it.

Bret:

Okay. So, for backup care, so this is a program where at MD Anderson, we contract with Bright Horizons and we provide up to 100 hours per benefits-eligible employee. Now, the backup care, as I said earlier, it covers all ages, 6 weeks-plus. And this is a great service that let's say you have a child who is home from school one day, but you really need to get into work. If you're registered, you go onto the website and you find either in-home care where a care provider will actually come into your home. They can care for I believe it's up to three kids for one copay, or you can do the center-based care. So let's say you have a child. The childcare center is closed one day. You can go on, register, and have your child taken care of at another facility for that day or that week, however long it takes, or maybe there's vacation that you need care for.

Ultimately, what it's there for is to help you find care for your loved ones so that you can get into work. That's that backup care. It's not supposed to be long-term. It's not something that we expect people to have to use on necessarily a regular basis, but it is there to help people when their typical care might fall through. And we cover the cost. Each individual only pays a very, very small copay, either $2 or $4 an hour.

Mike:

Well, thank you. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Melissa:

I was just going to add, because I know we talked about pet care earlier, that an option that some employers are adding on is pet care when you can trade in some hours of child or elder care to instead use for pet care hours. So that's the other option with backup care.

Mike:

Thank you. With that question/answer, we, unfortunately, need to bring today's webcast to a close. Before we sign off, we want to thank Melissa Carlton from St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, Bret Belfer from MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Elizabeth Myers from Bright Horizons for the insight and information they provided today. And we want to thank everyone tuning in for being with us and for choosing SHRM for HR webcasts. That concludes this program.