5 Ways Deluxe Enhanced Their Wellness Offerings in 2020
In their 2020 Midwest Health Promotion session, Revamping Wellbeing to Be a Cornerstone of Culture, Bridget Neurer and Andrea Kroska share their expertise on transforming Deluxe from a wellness program to a people and performance wellbeing organization — where wellbeing is integrated into the business strategy. The Deluxe Wellbeing vision is “Supporting people so Deluxe thrives.” By having a framework in place for this strategy Deluxe was better able to adapt to the COVID crisis and support the needs of their employees to keep their organization thriving.
1. Increased VTO time
In 2020, Deluxe was initially offering employees 8 hours of volunteer time off, but due to the impacts of COVID and social unrest in their home markets of the Twin Cities and Atlanta, the company increased it to 24 hours of VTO for all employees. They felt it was just THAT important, now more than ever, to allow employees time to get out into the community to give back.
2. Meeting-Free Fridays
Employees were finding themselves in back-to-back meetings all week and struggling to find time to get all their work done. So Deluxe started encouraging meeting-free Fridays so employees could have a day to catch up on work from the week, and feel less stressed going into the weekend.
3. Virtual Fitness
With the shelter in place orders, Deluxe wanted to support employees and their families with virtual physical fitness options. Deluxe offered their employees:
- Access to Gympass, a platform that provides 1:1 virtual coaching and on-demand fitness classes.
- The creation of the “Deluxe Hustle,” a recurring series of virtual 5K races, and the “Deluxe Bustle,” a virtual cycling club for new remote employees.
- Weekly Monday Motivation live Zoom Yoga sessions.
The 15-minute Zoom Yoga sessions, led by an employee, were wildly popular, getting anywhere from 40 to 100 employees to join live each week!
(Want to set up your own virtual 5k? Check out this Blog: 8 Steps to a Successful Virtual Race)
4. Philanthropy Cloud
This tool allows employees to easily access and donate to non-profits. Due to the challenges of COVID, Deluxe added the option to contribute to an employee relief fund, creating a way to donate funds to grants that support fellow employees facing a hard time due to illness-related challenges. Also, they added a way to sign up for community service events (and use some of that extra VTO!) following the racial justice protests in the Twin Cities and beyond.
5. Childcare Support
When COVID hit, and schools and daycares closed, many parents were facing a need for childcare. Deluxe partnered with care.com to give parents a resource to help find childcare, nannies, tutors, and other in-home help. In addition, Deluxe provided back-up care subsidies for workers. Feedback from employees was very positive —‚even employees who didn’t have children were happy to see this support for their coworkers.
About Deluxe
More than a century ago, W.R. Hotchkiss invented a little product that changed banking: the checkbook. With a big idea and plenty of dedication, he took a $300 small business loan and founded Deluxe Corporation. That humble beginning turned into a century of helping consumers, entrepreneurs, enterprises, and financial institutions thrive.
