The way a company cares for employee well-being might be the most important thing to consider when finding a job
Let’s be honest: Whether or not you love your job, the vast majority of us work because we need to earn a paycheck. Still, if you’re currently hunting for a new position, salary is certainly important, but there are a slew of other factors to consider. After all, that new gig is likely to take up a lot of your time: Experts say that in a lifetime, workers spend about 90,000 hours in the office. So if your company treats you like you’re just a cog in a machine, that office will probably be a place you dread, no matter the financial incentive.
Enter “employee wellness,” a focus that’s ramped up at companies across the country, particularly over the last decade. But what does it mean, and how do different businesses approach it? We spoke with Claire Carr, a human resources specialist at P&G, who says that if companies truly make an effort to boost their employees’ sense of well-being, those employees might even stick with them for life.
Carr grew up in northeast England, but moved to Cincinnati with her family 7 years ago. And she began working at P&G in 2020, right when offices began closing from the pandemic. “It was a crazy time to start a new job,” says Carr. “I’d been home in England visiting my mum when the U.S. government announced it would be closing its borders. I remember when I finally booked a flight out, my mum and I looked at each other and asked, ‘Will we ever see each other again?’”
She knew she needed to focus on supporting her mother while she still could.
This question was especially pressing for Carr because of an additional factor: In 2019, during a visit to Cincinnati, her mother Maureen told her family that something worrying was happening with her health. “Every 12 weeks my mother would donate blood,” says Carr. “The last time she’d gone they told her she was anemic, which isn’t something that happens all of a sudden. But she said she felt fine.” Months later Maureen finally went to the doctor, where they discovered she had a rare form of bowel cancer.
Maureen underwent a successful operation to remove the tumor and was put on chemotherapy as a precautionary measure. But in April of 2020, the hospital paused all non-urgent procedures, so Maureen stopped receiving chemo after just two rounds. A year and a half later, the cancer returned. This time, there was very little doctors could do.
While Carr loved her job, she knew she needed to focus on supporting her mother while she still could. “The first thing my manager asked was, ‘What can we do to help?’ She helped sort out all the logistics so I could focus on being there for my mum.”
Carrr was given the flexibility to organize her work in a way that balanced the business’ needs with her desire to spend more time with her mom.
Sameh Magdy — SVP of Human Resources for Global Total Rewards, Employee, Labor Relations and Corporate Services at P&G — says this type of holistic approach to employee well-being is the norm at P&G: “A company can only deliver the best results if our people are at their best and work as a team,” he says. “Can you imagine preparing for the Super Bowl with a team that’s tired, under mental pressure, or has trust issues with their coach? No team can operate well with that dynamic.”
It seems obvious that a company would want its employees to be in top mental shape, but Magdy points out that too often, this attitude can fall by the wayside when a company or industry is under pressure. “A lot of companies have the right principles, but during times of stress they make short-term decisions that have major consequences on the people who work there,” says Magdy. “But if your employees can’t trust you during a time of crisis, you’re not going to retain top talent.”
Luckily, Carr experienced P&G’s people-forward attitude firsthand during the pandemic. Even though industries all over the world were struggling to cope with the new normal, she felt completely supported by the company to focus on her mother, and to focus on her own mental health.
In fact, employers all over the world dealt with the rise in employee mental health crises during the pandemic, and Magdy says P&G was no exception. “People everywhere were struggling to find the line between their personal and professional lives,” he says. “Since everything became virtual, people felt like they needed to work around the clock. Add to that the loneliness and isolation, lack of physical activity, and financial strain so many families felt when a partner or parent was laid off. We stepped back and decided we needed to treat our employees with a more holistic approach, to ensure their physical, mental, financial and work-life well-being.”
When employees feel supported by their companies, it benefits everyone. “The connection between supportive leadership and positive business results means we’re continually going to find new ways to invest in employee well-being,” says Magdy.
Magdy believes P&G’s emphasis on understanding and accommodating their employees’ personal circumstances is a major reason why the company has such a high retention rate. “We know that every single employee is going to go through life-changing events while they’re with us that have nothing to do with work,” he says. “When someone goes through something significant and their employer handles it with grace and gives them the time and space to deal with it, they develop a real sense of loyalty for their place of work.”
In June of 2023, more than two years after Carr’s first conversation with her manager, her mother Maureen passed away. “She was an amazing lady and supported me in everything I did,” says Carr. “She was relentless in her quest to spend as much time with us at the end as she could, and I’ll always be grateful for those extra months I got to spend with her.”
A year after Maureen’s passing, Carr’s oldest son graduated from college and began looking for his first job. Carr recalls her guidance before each of his job interviews: “I would ask him, ‘What is the benefits package? What kind of additional support do they offer? What are the incentive programs?’ We all want to have a long career somewhere, so you’ve got to find somewhere you feel valued. That’s what my experience with my mum taught me. I want to give as much to this company as it gave to me.”
