• FREE RESOURCES
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • HR DEEP DIVES
        • Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources for HR Professionals
          Employment Law
          Labor Law Posting Requirements: Everything You Need to Know
          Recruiting
          businesswoman selecting future employees on digital interfaces
          Recruiting Resources for HR & Hiring Managers
          Performance Management
          vector image of young female making star rating
          Performance Review Resources
          Employment Law
          Understanding Equal Employment Opportunity and the EEOC
          Recruiting
          Onboarding Resources for HR & Hiring Managers
  • CORONAVIRUS & HR

  • LOGIN
  • SIGN UP FREE

HR Morning

  • FREE RESOURCES
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • HR DEEP DIVES
        • Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources for HR Professionals
          Employment Law
          Labor Law Posting Requirements: Everything You Need to Know
          Recruiting
          businesswoman selecting future employees on digital interfaces
          Recruiting Resources for HR & Hiring Managers
          Performance Management
          vector image of young female making star rating
          Performance Review Resources
          Employment Law
          Understanding Equal Employment Opportunity and the EEOC
          Recruiting
          Onboarding Resources for HR & Hiring Managers
  • CORONAVIRUS & HR
  • Employment Law
  • Benefits
  • Recruiting
  • Talent Management
  • Performance Management
  • HR Technology
  • More
    • Leadership & Strategy
    • Compensation
    • Staff Administration
    • Policy & Procedures
    • Wellness
    • Staff Departure
    • Employee Services
    • Work Location
    • HR Career & Self-Care
    • Health Care
    • Retirement Plans

Work from home: Trust and transparency are critical

Clear communication is a key to WFH success
Misty Guinn, HR Expert Contributor
by Misty Guinn, HR Expert Contributor
April 14, 2020
3 minute read
  • SHARE ON

At Benefitfocus, our Benefits & Wellness group is working hard to keep our employees engaged and productive while they work from home during this crisis.

It starts with trust

The foundation of our company culture is trust and that has never been more important than now, when everyone is scared and uncertain about their work situation.

These are the times when employees are going to remember how we treated them, including how we communicated.

During this crisis, our Benefits & Wellness team members are doing everything we can to maximize transparency.

We are striving to be as upfront as possible with our teams on what we know, what we don’t know and what we can’t talk about.

Worplace Virtual Summit

Four Pillars

On the benefits side, we are working to enhance and expand the benefits that are of greatest importance to our people right now.

This means we are thinking about all aspects of our employees’ health:  physical, mental and emotional, financial, and then what we call social and purpose.

Even before this crisis, we sent our remote folks a “benefits fair in a box” package. And that will be our template for sending out care packages to remote workers when it’s again safe to do so.

In the meantime, we are delivering virtual packages using the Calm app and other electronic means.

We’ve also started live and recorded webinars 4 days a week, touching on the various aspects of the “four pillars” each one about 25 minutes long.

Emotional and Financial Healthcare

As I mentioned, we are also trying to address emotional and financial health issues our team may be dealing with.

We’ve brought in CariLoop, a solution and support platform that connects employees to care coaches.

We are covering the cost for that service to help our team find and navigate caregiver support resources.

Many of our webinars cover financial topics, including what’s happening in the legal arena around tax deadlines and new legislation.

And we’ve partnered with Kashable to provide access to a short-term loan benefit that can help avoid bad moves like borrowing against a 401(k) to pay for unexpected expenses, especially if a spouse or partner is laid off.

Regular Cadence

It’s important for us to make sure communications go out with a regular cadence, so everyone knows what we are thinking about and working on.

But we also know everyone is being bombarded with so much right now that we are careful not to hit them too frequently or with too much information at once.

Our CEO has made video messages that were sent out to our associates to communicate everything that is going on and we have hosted follow-up team meetings within all the different areas of the organization.

We are also making our execs available for scheduled chat sessions to keep everyone as involved as possible while we go through this together.

Finally, returning to trust, we are being very careful to make sure any information we share is accurate. And we are reminding our teams regularly that they need to take breaks from the news tsunami and be very careful about where they get their information to help reduce stress from inaccurate stories and scams.

Misty Guinn, HR Expert Contributor
Misty Guinn, HR Expert Contributor
Misty Guinn is the director of benefits and wellness at Benefitfocus, where she works to design and maintain a culture supporting employees’ total well-being through education, programs, and policies and to improve employees’ health and financial literacy and healthcare consumption.

Get the latest from HRMorning in your inbox PLUS immediately access 10 FREE HR guides.

I WANT MY FREE GUIDES

Keep Up To Date with the Latest HR News

With HRMorning arriving in your inbox, you will never miss critical stories on labor laws, benefits, retention and onboarding strategies.

Sign up for a free HRMorning membership and get our newsletter!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
HR Morning Logo
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linked In
  • ABOUT HRMORNING
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
  • WRITE FOR US
  • CONTACT
  • Employment Law
  • Benefits
  • Recruiting
  • Talent Management
  • HR Technology
  • Performance Management
  • Leadership & Strategy
  • Compensation & Payroll
  • Policy & Culture
  • Staff Administration
  • Wellness & Safety
  • Staff Departure
  • Employee Services
  • Work Location
  • HR Career & Self-Care

HRMorning, part of the SuccessFuel Network, provides the latest HR and employment law news for HR professionals in the trenches of small-to-medium-sized businesses. Rather than simply regurgitating the day’s headlines, HRMorning delivers actionable insights, helping HR execs understand what HR trends mean to their business.

Privacy Policy Terms of Service
Copyright © 2021 SuccessFuel

WELCOME BACK!

Enter your username and password below to log in

Forget Your Username or Password?

Reset Password

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Log In

During your free trial, you can cancel at any time with a single click on your “Account” page.  It’s that easy.

Why do we need your credit card for a free trial?

We ask for your credit card to allow your subscription to continue should you decide to keep your membership beyond the free trial period.  This prevents any interruption of content access.

Your card will not be charged at any point during your 21 day free trial
and you may cancel at any time during your free trial.

preloader