With Millennials and Generation Z overtaking Baby Boomers in the workforce and employee bases generally skewing younger, today’s HR leaders are looking for ways to support the 73% of employees with caregiving responsibilities. Felicia Cheng, Director of Global Wellbeing at Salesforce, the world leader in AI and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, recently shared the benefits and strategies her company employs to build a sustainable workforce and retain working caregivers.
Can you share some background on the challenges and opportunities Salesforce is seeing in recruiting and retaining employees?
With more than 72,000 employees globally, Salesforce continues to grow rapidly. As a tech company, we compete for talent everywhere we operate. While our employees trend younger – either through direct hire or through the acquisition of other companies – we have also noticed an increase in the median age of our workforce, signaling strong retention.
We are very intentional about company culture and employee experience. While currently we’re about 63 percent male, we’ve established equality goals for hiring more women and minorities as part of our global go-forward strategy. Our efforts have resulted in ongoing recognition as a preferred employer worldwide.
Stress and burnout have made employee wellbeing and mental health top priorities for most employers. What strategies has Salesforce implemented?
Managers are an important part of our wellbeing strategy. In a high-performance culture like ours, they’re our frontline team. We want them to lead with empathy, but don’t want to put all the pressure on them. So, we offer continued training on how to recognize signs of distress within teams and respond appropriately. We teach managers and leaders a method that we created, called The 3Rs: role modeling, recognizing signs, and referring to appropriate resources. Our health and safety team leads mental health first aid training for a deeper level of education and awareness. We also provide a variety of mental health and wellbeing resource kits, encourage staff to take wellbeing breaks, and provide meditation rooms and mindfulness zones in our offices.
Why was it important for Salesforce to provide support for its working caregivers?
As more employees mature in their careers and personal lives with us, we’re servicing an expanding work base with families who have a variety of caregiving needs. We’re committed to supporting the full spectrum of their needs, from family planning to school-age support to elder care with best-in-class solutions and an easy employee experience.
We know working caregivers have challenges and stressors outside of the office. Helping them manage these stressors can have a positive impact on our business and employee wellbeing. From an organizational standpoint, it’s about reducing absenteeism and assuring we have people in seats when customers call for support. When employees can’t find the care they need for their child or other family member, they may be physically “at work” but unable to focus or be productive. Additionally, since women often manage the greater share of caregiving duties for the family, we believe that supporting these needs will help us attract and retain more women.
Could you describe some of the family care programs you currently have in place?
Many of the programs we’ve developed for employees, we extend to their families. Bright Horizons is one of our strategic vendors. For parents with preschool age children, for example, we offer discounted enrollment at our on-site Little Trailblazers child care center managed by Bright Horizons. When an employee’s regular child or elder care is unavailable, they can use our back-up care program to gain access to the center, or to other resources, for their loved ones.
We’re also conscious that childcare needs do not disappear when children enter school. Last year, 39% of back-up care days our families used were for school-age children. So far this year, we’ve seen a 20% increase in back-up care use, indicating the importance of having benefits available across the caregiving spectrum.
Finally, for parents with older children, we offer access to College Coach through Bright Horizons, which pairs students with a former college admissions counselor to guide them through the stressful college process. Last year, we saw a 32% increase in employees using College Coach, so it’s having a strong impact.
How do you effectively communicate your benefits to employees, particularly working caregivers, to ensure utilization?
We publicize our offerings through a variety of channels: Slack, broadcast newsletters, employee resource groups, and our benefits website, which employees and their family members can access. Additionally, we’ve introduced a concierge service to help ensure that our families can be connected to the care and resources available to them at the point of need. Family Concierge from Bright Horizons provides a dedicated 1-to-1 specialist who will create a customized care plan and help employees find and coordinate a range of services including child care, summer camps, elder care, housekeeping, and more. It’s a perfect resource for our busy employees and has a tremendous impact on utilization.
Thank you so much to Felicia for taking the time to speak with us!
