Taking Your Company’s Health Into Your Own Hands

Before becoming chief executive and chief experience officer at Advance Financial, I worked as a nurse practitioner in Tennessee. That training has stayed with me even in running a business. That’s why, when I stepped into my role as CEO and CXO, I made sure the health and well-being of all of our team members were top priorities.

The health of a company’s employees has a direct effect on the health of the company itself. Helping your employees stay healthy will improve their work experience and motivate them to do their best work. It also shows you genuinely care about employees as people, not just as workers. We work to address a variety of needs for our team, and that has been one of the keys to our success.

Physical Health

Even with all of the new and creative employee benefits companies are touting, research shows that health insurance still ranks as a top benefit preferred by employees. We want our team to have all the resources necessary to stay healthy throughout the year, without the added stress of wondering how they are going to pay for quality care. For that reason, we pay 100 percent of health insurance premiums for our employees. We also know how complicated it can be to schedule a visit with a doctor during the workday, so we bring that personal care to our employees. Each week at our Nashville headquarters, employees can take advantage of a free on-site visit with a nurse practitioner. For a minimal fee, they can also work out their bodily kinks during biweekly visits from a masseuse.

It’s a commonly known fact that to remain in peak physical health we need to pay attention to our physical fitness. One of the main roadblocks in a person’s fitness journey is access to health and training resources. We remove this obstacle with the availability of an on-site fitness facility at our main headquarters and weekly yoga classes. We also host weight loss challenges and educational sessions about making healthy lifestyle choices through our Weight Watchers at Work program. Our employees can get active with their peers by participating in company-wide fitness events like 5K races and intramural sports. The company pays all registration fees for participants.

Emotional Health

According to a report by Harvard Health Publications, there is a correlation between volunteering for the community and “the happiness effect.” Studies show that volunteering has many benefits for both the body and mind, including combating the effects of stress, anger, anxiety, and depression. Much like with physical health, common obstacles to actively volunteering include getting time away from work and making up for potentially lost wages.

We want community-minded people on our team, and we don’t want them to struggle to find the time to give back. We are proud to offer all employees 40 hours of paid time off to serve our communities. We also bring the company together to participate in community events like sponsoring a walk or scheduling a service project. We know that investing in our employees in this way will help them find happiness and fulfillment that will contribute to their emotional well-being.

Financial Health

There are times when the stresses of life affect us in ways that even a good sweat or a fun volunteer activity can’t cure. Chronic or prolonged stress can take a negative toll on our immune systems, making us sick and unable to perform well on the job or at home. We understand how the ups and downs of life can affect our employees. Many times those ups and downs are due to emergency financial crises. We set up the Advance Financial Corporate Care Fund to take care of our team members in the wake of these types of unforeseen circumstances.

Our employees contribute to the fund through payroll deduction and we match the contributions dollar for dollar. Best of all, every employee is qualified to get support from the fund to cover housing, utilities, healthcare, and other necessary costs in times of unexpected need whether they contributed to the fund or not.

Your employees are the lifeblood of your company, and your company’s health is dependent upon their well-being. The impact you’ll make by investing in the whole health of the individuals who keep your company thriving each and every day is priceless.

Tina Hodges is chief executive and chief experience officer at Advance Financial. Follow the company on Twitter at @AF_247.