This HR exec brought preventative care to her company's front door

In August 2021, data showed that 85% of the workforce at Hendry Marine Industries were not participating in preventative wellness exams. So in January 2022, their director of human resources, Stephanie Koch, made wellness exams a part of their workday.

"We have 300 employees in the Tampa, Florida area and 80% of them are men in their late 40s, early 50s," says Koch, who has been with the holding company since 2020. "My initial concern was that we have a bunch of ticking bombs. We immediately decided we needed a solution at least to handle the physicals our employees needed."

Read more:  Heat waves are hurting your workforce — here's how to respond

That solution was a mobile walk-on clinic that comes to the shipyard twice a week, with general practitioners and staff who conduct basic exams, bloodwork, EKGs and chronic care management. The clinic is also open to employees' family members over 16 years old and provides sports and back-to-school physicals. To make sure language is not a barrier to care, employees receive bilingual clinic information cards with a scannable QR code to make an appointment, and the clinic offers bilingual services for Spanish-speaking employees. Employees can walk in for a checkup too, and all visits take place on company time. 

Koch even took it a step further: Following an analysis of the workforce's most-used prescriptions, the company recently partnered with a local pharmacy to provide covered medications at no cost and deliver them through the mobile clinic to its patients. 

Read more:  Are your unlimited PTO policies actually working?

As good as the clinic sounds, employees didn't line up in droves when it first opened. During the first few months, workers were given the chance to win five days of PTO if they attended a wellness visit. This boosted participation and ended up saving two lives at Hendry Marine. Engagement levels have steadily increased ever since: Since this January, there have been 320 visits to the clinic, saving the company 1,280 hours in absenteeism.

"One employee went in trying to win the PTO, and the doctor says, 'Did you know you had a lump in your neck?'" she says. "He had no idea. It was cancer, and thankfully it was found early, and he's thriving. That was huge. Another employee went in, and his blood sugar was so high he almost had a stroke. He immediately went on our diabetes management program." 

Read more:  This construction company is on a mission to destigmatize mental health

All offerings available at the clinic are integrated with the rest of the company's healthcare ecosystem, which includes workforce-specific programs for conditions like diabetes — a chronic disease that Koch knows affects 10% of employees.

Koch encourages HR professionals to stop settling for ineffective, irrelevant benefits. When figuring out what to remove and add, be intentional, she says. For example, when determining how to incorporate something like GLP-1s, Koch advises employers to assess who in their employee population needs it, and then come up with a prevention plan as well as a management plan that states who is eligible for the medication, how long it will be offered and what additional resources will be available to create holistic support. 

Koch will speak more about this topic at EBN's Benefits at Work conference, which will be held in San Diego from September 17 to 18.

"It's never one-size-fits-all," she says. "But having an impact on [even] a small part of your population can have a huge long-term effect on the health of your plan, and more importantly, your employees."