“At Wellmark, we have really big, audacious goals about where we’re going as a company.… Every employee, every team member here at Wellmark really believes that they come to work because they want to make a difference. They’re attracted to the mission of making health care better. So how do we use more of our strengths? How do we understand them and how do we apply them, and how do you continue to grow? For me, it starts with the individual.”
Marci Chickering
CHIEF HR Officer
The Client
A passionate commitment to helping people thrive.
Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield is a mutual insurance company owned by policyholders. They are committed to making health care better and working diligently to deliver value to their members.
The Challenge
Build engagement to drive business outcomes.
Why did Wellmark invest in increasing engagement as a priority? Because they felt strongly that it was the right thing to do for their people. They were committed to creating an environment that helped people feel better about their work and deliver better results for the business.
The Solution
Leverage StandOut to tap into individual strengths.
Wellmark designed a program focused on three areas:
1. Help people see their own strengths — and the strengths of others
The StandOut Assessment showed people their Top 2 Strength Roles, capturing what they look like when they show up at their best and what energizes them at work. These insights helped people as individual contributors and also at the level of the team.
2. Establish a ritual to increase connection and collaboration on teams
Wellmark deployed StandOut’s Check-In ritual, enabling team leaders to connect with team members every week. These Check-Ins helped ensure that employees felt heard, clear about the focus of their work, and supported in using their strengths.
3. Build a partnership between HR and team leaders
To empower team leaders, Wellmark gave leaders access to the Engagement Pulse tool. Deployed every three months, this simple eight-question survey painted an ongoing picture of the experience of the team, and the results would instantly go to both HR and to each team leader. The data generated by StandOut allowed both leaders and HR to shift focus away from reacting to engagement survey results toward proactively driving engagement.
The Results
A people-centric approach drives business outcomes
Along their journey with StandOut, employees across Wellmark openly speak of how much they appreciate the opportunity to play to their strengths at work and its contribution to their engagement. Team leaders have appreciated how StandOut’s guidance has helped them to better understand and engage with their people in a way that is genuine.
In conjunction with other important Wellmark initiatives, StandOut has helped to produce the desired impact in business results. The key was a 12% increase in engagement levels, which contributed to:
- 37% reduction in attrition rate
- 38% lower attrition cost
- 7% increase in productivity per person
- 96% member retention
- 15% improvement in HCROI
In short, Wellmark saw their people-centered initiatives, including StandOut, demonstrate a marked impact both on how people felt about their work and on the financial performance of the company.
StandOut was at the center of Wellmark’s employee experience strategy predicated on the individual, the leader and the team. We are proud to be part of how Wellmark’s team has brought this strategy to life, creating an environment in which each and every employee at Wellmark shows up every day to create a better health care experience.
Download the full Wellmark case study below.