Many workers in the healthcare industry find themselves juggling their professional responsibilities with family obligations. In addition to meeting career demands, their priorities might include picking children up from daycare on time, attending special events at their kids’ schools, carpooling to basketball practice, caring for aging parents and more.
Family-friendly employers find ways to support their staff members’ needs outside the office through accommodations and generous benefits.
“We want to acknowledge that you can work and still be a whole person,” said Alicia Raymond, head of people and culture at b.well Connected Health, a Baltimore-based digital health platform.
The organization provides unlimited paid time off. Staff members do not accrue vacation days, nor do they report days taken to the payroll department.
“PTO is mainly tracked by the employee and their manager,” Raymond said.
Company leaders motivate managers to create an environment in which staff members feel comfortable taking time off when they need it and stepping in for vacationing colleagues. But during the pandemic, those in charge began to suspect staffers were not using enough time away to fully recharge and reset. They updated the policy to explicitly push workers to take one week off each quarter.
“We communicate that to new hires and employees because we are trying to encourage behavior change,” Raymond said.
b.well has not seen its roughly 125 employees, all of whom work remotely, abuse the PTO policy. Raymond attributes the behavior to “the integrity, ethics and professionalism that we’re looking for when we hire.”
