More than 100 HR Executives Gather at Viacom Headquarters to Discuss Employee Benefits

October 19, 2018 – Earlier this month, Bright Horizons brought together more than 100 HR Executives who met at  the Viacom headquarters in New York City for a Regional Forum about corporate culture and the workplace of the future.  Employers including Accenture, Comcast, Dow Jones, EY, KPMG, MassMutual and PepsiCo led and participated in discussions on topics such as “Enhancing Your Employer Brand” and “Career Development as a Corporate Culture.”

Fukiko Ogisu, Viacom’s Chief People Officer, opened the event by talking about the importance of identifying a company’s employee value proposition, asking: “Why should people work here, why should people stay here, and what is the value of being at this company?”

“This is important to us right now because there is a huge war on talent,” Ogisu said.  “If your employee value proposition is understood and resonates, people will come and people will stay.”

“We have had a partnership with Bright Horizons for 20 years,” she continued.  “When we started this partnership, we didn’t have an employee value proposition.  But we have a 100% satisfaction rate for our back-up care, and 94% of our employees say ‘I just couldn’t do my job without this.’ So we know that there is a value proposition there.”

Julie Wilkes, North America Wellness Lead for Accenture, spoke about creating an employee wow factor through leadership.

“Courageous leadership is staying authentic and proudly passionate, despite the presence of challenge or fear,” she said.  “You never know which direction you are going to take things, but if you bring your whole best self, your true identity, your authentic self, without apologies, without filters, without exceptions and without excuses, you are going to create a ‘wow’ factor over and over and over again.”

Other speakers included Jose Borbor, Global Head of Total Rewards at Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and M. Britt Sinha, Corporate Director, Benefits, Health & Wellbeing at NewYork-Presbyterian.

Bright Horizons CEO shared the sentiments of the other leaders regarding the importance of providing value to employees through benefits.

“Whether it is helping one of your employees go back to school and achieve their educational and career goals or a family who needs accessible and affordable child care in one of our centers, it is when your culture and employees value proposition connect that things really start to happen.”