Employers can’t ignore the long-term effects the pandemic has had over healthcare and corporate benefits and are working to expand, enhance and add new benefits that will help their employees navigate these new times.
Walmart is on the front lines of making these changes for their 1.6 million U.S. employees. The retail giant has added a number of new and updated benefits, including a virtual physical therapy program, virtual access to primary care doctors, free therapy options, a care-navigation platform tailored for the LGBTQ+ community, and doula coverage for employees based in Georgia.
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Adam Stavisky, senior vice president of U.S. benefits for Walmart, recently connected with Employee Benefit News to discuss the changes Walmart has been making in response to COVID and how these updated benefits have helped employees better navigate the ongoing crisis.
How did Walmart support employees at the start of the pandemic with your benefits?
When the country went into lockdown, we saw a dip in healthcare services and there were concerns around emotional well-being, so we created a number of new mental health features for our associates. We also waived all our employees’ co-pays for telehealth services, and that included mental health care.
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We also subscribe to the Cares Act, and we allowed our associates to take withdrawals from the 401(k) plan commensurate with the act, to help them with their financial well-being. We really had a full court press for physical, financial and emotional well-being that ebbed and flowed as the requirements of our associates changed. So we've been in an 18 month-long firefight with COVID.
How is Walmart supporting employees’ financial well-being?
One of our signature programs is the work we do with Even, and that service provides associates with accelerated access to their earned wages, and there’s also a budgeting aspect to it, which I think is even more powerful. This service links in with both your scheduling and your bank, so it knows your income and it marries that with your expense history. We have seen a tremendous reduction in employees’ overdraft fees from their banks.
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We also worked really hard to keep employees’ healthcare costs low. The medical plan cost is increasing by 3%, but this is far below industry norms and our dental and vision costs are not going up at all. Those were very conscious decisions to help our associates financially.
How is technology playing a role in how you’re offering these initiatives, especially when it comes to healthcare?
We're expanding a few of our existing pilots in the digital space for a variety of reasons. One reason is access: we have a digital physical therapy benefit that is in two states now that we are expanding into a number of other states, and we have another digital telehealth pilot. That program is your actual doctor, who is there to help you manage your diabetes and other chronic conditions, and we are expanding that to another 16 states.
We've got other pilots we're running where we offer concierge services, because navigating the healthcare system is really hard, so we are also expanding that and we're seeing really encouraging signs.
