Excellence in HR: Equinix's Bekki Early is making business more human

Bekki Early loves her job. As the global well-being program manager for Equinix, a platform that provides digital infrastructure for internet platforms like YouTube and Facebook, she's living, breathing and sharing the benefits of wellness and self-care each and every day. 

"I care so deeply about this. I like to tell people, I found my dream job at 35," Early says. "I was reading the books and nudging my friends and my partner about all this health and wellness stuff, and now I have a willing audience — and more than that, people who appreciate it." 

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Early started at Equinix as a social media and talent brand program manager, and has since transitioned to HR, spearheading their global well-being benefits. Throughout the pandemic, Early introduced a number of programs that helped employees prioritize their physical and mental health, and her efforts have produced a sea change in the culture of the organization. 

"This is a global company and it felt like the pretenses and the walls fell down [during COVID]," she says. "We're on a mission to create a workplace where employees feel they are safe, they belong and they matter." 

Early shared how she revamped the company's wellness programs, boosted engagement in their EAP, and turned to her own employees to advocate for the benefits of a healthy workplace. 

You didn't start out in HR when you joined Equinix, and now you're spearheading their health and well-being efforts. What has that evolution been like for you? 
I fell into talent acquisition after spending five years outside of the country traveling and teaching English. I lived in the Czech Republic, in Spain and China and Japan and Korea and Israel. I got really good at understanding the nuances of people and reading between the lines. Also, well-being is just a personal passion of mine — I'm a marathon runner, and I have a love of athletics and sports and health, so when I saw this space, I knew I could make a dent. 

I joined Equinix in 2014 and at the time we had 3,000 employees. Our VP of talent wanted to quadruple the size of the company in the next handful of years. So while I was trying to entice people to come over, I was asking, "What are we doing for wellness?" And it was literally nothing. I started to listen to the murmurings of a couple of people who were doing things that were well-being related, committees that were forming of employees who also recognized that we didn't have a wellness program. And in 2017, the chief of staff created a part-time role related to community impact, and I headed up that well-being pillar. In 2021, that became a full time role. 

That transition coincided with the pandemic. How did you help employees prioritize their wellness during this time? 
Honestly, it felt like a 180 because the programs that we had in place did not serve our employee population in the new normal of the pandemic. All of the in-person stuff got shut down. People weren't taking time for their wellness — their days got longer and they were in more back-to-back meetings. 

So we flexed and tried something new, which were our well-being breaks. These are 15-minute microbreaks to make time for self-care. Mindfulness Mondays, Transformation Tuesdays, a movement break on Wednesdays. We did a group gratitude practice called Thankfulness Thursdays. Foodie Fridays were really focused on nutrition and family meal-planning. We did these mini breaks four times a day, so whenever you could attend, it gave them a network and got them to connect to our offerings. We're two and a half years in, and people are like, don't take this away. 

People were sharing really personal experiences in these groups — how did this change the culture at Equinix? 
I'm on a mission to make business more human. And for me it felt like, here we go. People are showing up, they're crying. People are bringing their whole self to work. We're creating these coral reefs where people know this is a safe space you can go. We have team members around the world that are expanding that reef and making it bigger and bigger and promoting it so that all the fish know about it.  

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You've revamped employee participation in your Virgin Pulse-provided EAP, which serves your global workforce. How did you highlight those benefits? 
How do you make an EAP cool? I started going on a kind of road trip, to visit teams who had raised a red flag about their people not doing well, and I'd promote the program there. I shared, here's all the things it does, and here's what I've personally used it for. I have a strained relationship with an extended family member. I used it for that. We relocated, I had to find child care for my daughter, we needed a tax person for a living will and trust. So I just made it clear that whenever you have a problem that's too big for you to solve by yourself, the next step should be calling the EAP because they will have a resource. Immediately after this, we just saw participation in the program skyrocket, to the point that now we're 17% above the book of business average. 

When you're working with such a large workforce, do you ever get overwhelmed by the amount of needs your programs have to address? 
The global EAP is amazing because it's customized to provide local resources. We have a speak up, step up culture at Equinix — I'm constantly on the microphone being like, if benefits aren't satisfying your needs, please speak up — and we also have a network of champions with a local well-being lead in each of our global communities. 

As a leader, how are you caring for yourself and leading by example when it comes to prioritizing well-being in your own life? 
I have a number of rituals and personal practices — I make sure I get the amount of sleep I need. I have a gratitude journal and a five-year check in. I drink lots of water. I have fitness trackers. I do all the things. And then I model that behavior to others — people see me working during work time. I support people taking their PTO and I do the same for myself. If you're following or watching Bekki Early, she's living this through and through. If you see me working during a lunch hour, please call me out!