The Hire thru Retire Podcast

Best Buy's Melanie Moriarty on Employer Benefits for Working Parents

• Voya Financial • Episode 33

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In this episode, Bill and Heather are joined by Melanie Moriarty, senior director, HR Rewards at Best Buy to discuss a timely topic that many employers might be asking about: employer benefits for working parents. With working parents having experienced some challenging, to say the least, past few years when it comes to childcare, Melanie joins the podcast to talk more about Best Buy’s offerings as a company who is not just talking the talk, but who is also walking the walk when it comes to these employer benefits. Tune in to hear more from Melanie who is responsible for leading a team in the timely and accurate administration of payroll, leave, time off, and work-life well-being benefits for more than 100,000 U.S. Best Buy employees.

 

Bill Harmon is a registered representative of Voya Financial Partners, LLC (member SIPC).

Speaker 1:

You're listening to the hire through retire podcast with Voya leaders, bill Harmon, and Heather laal tackling all things workplace from 401ks to HSAs and everything in between. We're talking to the best and brightest in the industry to bring you the latest in benefits, savings, and investment trends. Come along with us on our journey to help all Americans become well planned, well invested and well protected.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to hire through retire. I'm here today, again with my friend colleague and co-host bill Harmon, bill. Great to see you as always.

Speaker 3:

Hey, great to see you, Heather. And, uh, it's great to be back with everyone today. We're here today for a topic that certainly feels timely. And one that many employers might be asked about, especially as we're thinking about the open enrollment season coming up and, uh, there really an opportunity to take a fresh look at benefits offerings. And that topic is one of particular interest for working parents who have experienced some challenging to, to say the least few years when it comes to childcare. So joining us today from a company who is not just talking the talk, but they're, they're really walking the walk when it comes to employee benefits for working parents and that's Melanie Moriarty, she's the senior director and HR rewards at best buy at best buy Melanie's responsible for leading a team in the timely and accurate administration of payroll. Leave time off and work life wellbeing benefits to the over 100,000 us employees at best buy. So when we're talking about trends and perspectives, it's safe to say that Melanie and her team have their finger on the pulse. So welcome Melanie. We really looking forward to, uh, having this conversation. Thank you so much for being here today.

Speaker 4:

Hi everyone. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be your guest.

Speaker 3:

So Melanie, before we take a dive this great bit yourself and how you got into HR specifically benefits.

Speaker 4:

Sure. Yeah, I've been with, uh, best buy now for almost 25 years. All of that within HR. So I've held pretty much every role you can within HR. I've been a HR business partner out in our field supporting our stores. Um, I've been on our international HR team, HR operations. And now, currently I, um, as you mentioned, have our work life wellbeing benefits, which include a lot of our programs to support working parents, our time away programs, leave of absence. Payroll. How I got into the benefits space is I just had a, a huge passion for how do we help our employees, um, one employee at a time. And so coming up with programs that really support the different unique needs of our employees was just super exciting for me. And we have a, we have a wide range of employees from the, you know, holiday student working in our store to re so it's, um, it's great to be looking for different things that meets everybody's need for where they're at in their life.

Speaker 2:

You know, Melanie, your, your passion for what you do and serving all the employees at best buy really comes through just in those intro comments you made. And, and I have to imagine in, in that, uh, 25 year period, you have seen just a huge amount of change, uh, in terms of needs for employees. So I, I'm gonna set the stage here because as bill framed up, we really wanna talk about just some of the challenges facing working parents. And we know this is something best buy has been leaning into. So let me set, set the stage and provide a little bit of background around the childcare crisis. That is really a company, this pandemic, you know, although we're in a new stage, as it relates to schools where classrooms have reopened and virtual learning is now the exception. We know that young children are still missing a lot of time, a away from school. Now, according to a national survey of 148,000 parents by the New York times and the survey and data firm Dita in the month of January 20, 22, 50 2% of students were at home at least three days a month and 25% were out for a week or more. So that's a lot of disruption for working parents. And, you know, first I'll ask Melanie, does this sound all too familiar to you? And what have you observed, uh, in best Buy's parents workforce, just over the course of the pandemic.

Speaker 4:

Like most people over the last few years, our employees have been balancing a lot, everything from remote hybrid in person work to childcare, to physical and mental health. And that's why we continue to invest benefits that support our employees and their loved ones in all aspects of their wellbeing. So we really focus on the physical, mental, financial, and work life benefits because we know that they're so intertwined and having a, a direct impact across the board.

Speaker 3:

We've talked so many times about there's a new muscle, we've all had to develop and that's flexibility. And boy that really comes to working parents. And you think about a common situation for a parent's primary childcare to suddenly become unavailable. Let's say for example, that someone takes a COVID test on Sunday night and then their daycare classroom is close for the whole week. You know, it really sounds like parents could use this safety net here, but, you know, there was a recent McKenzie survey that found that only 8% of working parents with children under age five said that their employer provided access to emergency and backup childcare. So even though this is happening and it's pretty typical, we've all heard that story, parents working, parents are still faced with this. So kudos to best buy though. I mean, you're one of few employers who had offered this backup program even before the pandemic hit. So can you tell us a little bit more about this benefit and how it helps support your employees when they run into these situations?

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. Our employees love our backup childcare program. Our program is through care.com and we offer employees it's for all employees. So whether you're, part-time, full-time up to 10 days of backup care for only a$10 copay with the pandemic, we actually expanded the program to include, um, what's called personal network. So at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a care shortage, um, even care.com centers were closed. And so it was hard to find care. And at the same time, colleges were, you know, not in person anymore. Neighbors might have been without a job. And we saw this network that our employees could tap into. So we opened up, um, personal network through the pandemic where employees could through care.com, coordinating it, all of this on the backend for us, but they could tap into their own network and get reimbursed for that care. And then in addition to our backup care too, um, Bethy did a lot throughout the pandemic for COVID support. So even in the beginning when, um, schools were closing and, and people had to quarantine, we had paid for programs to support our employees throughout,

Speaker 2:

You know, Melanie. So first sounds like an absolutely fantastic program that your employees have been able to take advantage of and, you know, go back to something you said where you talked about you really thinking about the whole aspect of care that your employees needs and their families, the physical, the mental health overall wellbeing. I'm gonna kind of bring it back to this backup childcare program. Cuz I think about it's been years since I had little ones at home, but I certainly remember those days where we got the call and the child was sick or they were closing and my husband and I would have that panic moment of like, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? Who's gonna stay home. What does your day look like? And obviously all of those challenges were just exacerbated by the pandemic. And so to be able to have something where you're tapping into this personal network and having it be, you know, a very affordable copay, it just, to me, it may not alleviate all of the, the, you know, stress of the pandemic, but in that moment you can help your employees really kind of address that need. So our understanding is that this idea really came from the feedback from your employees and their experiences. Can you just tell us a little bit of a story of how did you go about really understanding your employees needs and gathering the data and, and feedback to bring together this great program?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's really a great story. How we got to our backup care program. We worked with a outside party to develop an employee preference, conjoint analysis survey on our total rewards offering really wanted to get at what do our employees value and if they had to make trade offs, um, amongst the rewards, cuz there's only so much funds a company has to spend, where would the most value be placed through that survey? Definitely the need for caregiver support, um, working parent support team out loud and clear. At the same time we got an escalation kind of a story. Um, you could say from, from a field, uh, HR business partner around an employee who brought their baby to the store and had the baby in the break room while she worked and the employees would take turns kind of checking in and, and watching this baby because her childcare had fallen through and she had no other alternative. And so we got this story and we spotlighted her. She gave us permission to share her story, but that really got our field leadership and the decision makers all on board to say, wow, we really need this. We need to make an investment in this for our employees.

Speaker 2:

Wow. That's, that's a great story. And I can only imagine, um, how that, uh, employee fell to bringing her baby in, but then also the, the comfort of having your colleagues take turns. I mean, I just, I, I, um, boy, as my, my heart goes out to her, can you talk about, are there other ways that best buy has been shaping its rewards and culture to support working parents? You touched on a little bit of caregiver. Are there other things kind of over and above that that best buy has done?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I would say for supporting the, the family, we have a lot of programs that we have in place and some of those specific to the pandemic, right. We saw with the pandemic, there was an additional need. So during the pandemic, we, um, offered a tutor, reimbursement parents aren't cut out to be teachers and all of a sudden children were home with them and they needed support and help. So we wanted to give employees choice on, do you want a tutor coming into your home? Or maybe you, maybe you wanna do online tutoring. So we let employees have that choice and we provided them reimbursement for that. We also have SCY assistance, caregiver pay. Um, so, um, employees can care for a loved one, whether that's for a medical need or family bonding. We also mentioned the COVID support, um, throughout the pandemic, making sure that we could pay employees for being out for D various COVID related reasons. We also partnered with, uh, wealthy, um, and they provide concierge white glove caregiving support, whether it's for elderly parents, as well as we found with our employees, they've really helped employees find that care they need for their children, finding them summer programs, nannies, um, even like parenting networks. And then speaking of parenting networks, of course we have our own internal families bin, which is like an employee resource group where that group comes together and they kind of support each other. And they also bring back ideas through our rewards team.

Speaker 3:

This whole story is fantastic. I mean, best buy is such, just showing how it's a, a great place to work. I love how you're listening to your employees and adapting to their needs as they change. And so obviously it's positively affecting your employees. And I, I would imagine that our listeners right now are saying, huh, I, I, I really wanna go ahead and think about these things, but you mentioned funding. So maybe if we can ask you to elaborate a little bit about how those discussions went for funding for the programs, because again, people are, and the audience are thinking, okay, so that's fantastic, but I don't really have the money to fund those programs. So how would you quantify the value of that? What, how do you have that conversation maybe with the finance department to say, okay, here's the ROI.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it, it's not easy, right? It's it has to start at the top. And, um, you know, we definitely have alignment with our leaders, that our employees are at the center of everything we do. And that wellbeing is a key component of our strategy of being one of the best companies to work for. And we know that our wellbeing strategy helps drive customer obsession and having the right programs to attract, motivate, and retain our employees has a direct correlation on employee satisfaction and engagement, which then directly impacts our customers and business results,

Speaker 2:

The culture, the purpose of the company, it really rings through. And it drives so many of the decisions. Yes, yes. He, yes. The heart of the business. We, we, we all have our copies, you know, there's some companies who talk and then there's other companies who, who walk the walk and then there's other companies who it just permeates their being and best buy is really in that third category.

Speaker 4:

Kim Scarlet stood up at HLM, it's our holiday leadership forum. And she had a slide and it said service over policy that is truly like, you know, we have a HR support center. Um, and even with them, it's like service over policy, right? Sometimes you just gotta break the rules, you gotta treat each person as an individual. I think it really starts with that leadership alignment that the employee needs to be at the center.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like Melanie, that, as you said, if, if, if this is something the way that best buy approaches your employees and caring for not only the employee, but the family is kind of fundamental in your DNA as a company and just a part of who you are.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And, and amazing what, what a, what a difference that makes. And I like the connection over to the customer experience, right? That, that, that, um, the end of the day, we're still in, in service businesses. And, and that matters in a, in a huge way. I wanna say first, Melanie, this has been such a fabulous conversation. I love your passion. Um, I wanna say thank you so much for your time and discussions on just a really timely and important discussion. I'm gonna end with one final question. We've seen research that recently stating that 45% of mothers with children, age five and under who left the workforce during the pandemic cited childcare as a major reason for their departure compared with just 14% of fathers, uh, who said the same. So when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, and we know that this is a critical benefit for employers to consider. So my question is, you know, for employers out there considering expanding or starting to offer these types of benefits to their workforce, what advice would you have for them? And where can they start?

Speaker 4:

That's a great question. Part of our inclusion and diversity strategy is to, um, attract more women in the workforce. And through that, you have to have programs that support them and their families backup care is one program that we felt like was so important to do that because it often falls on the mother to be the primary caregiver in those situations. I think listening to your employees, having a network, um, I mentioned our families in having a network where somebody can bring back to the HR team, what do they need, right. We can, we can sit here and try to guess all day long, but until you listen to your employees and find out what the need is, cuz it might not be the same in every culture. We also know having flexibility, um, is important. And so, you know, through the pandemic, we offered, you know, job shares and reduced schedules. And that was a point in time. So really just, um, listening to what your employees need and, and want.

Speaker 2:

That's a, probably a great message to, uh, to close out our session and something that is their needs change. And it sounds like throughout your career, that's what you've done is you, listen, you adapt and, and bring programs that meet their needs. So Melanie, just a huge, thank you again for joining us on our program today.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3:

Wow. And I, I really love that last topic of how can we find ways to bring women who might have left the workplace due to, uh, childcare issues? How do we bring'em back? Hey, Heather, I think that that'd be a great topic for a future podcast. This has been a great conversation, Heather and I are so blessed that we get to go and spend time with these subject matter experts that are just inspirational. Um, and particularly because it there's such a war for talent and best buy really does listen to their employees and think about ways to, to just address their needs and their ever changing needs. So it was such a great conversation and I hope that the audience found this very valuable, whether you are an employer looking to go ahead and, and how do I adapt to those changing needs? Or even if you are a benefits expert, a broker or financial advisor, looking to go ahead and consult on how to design some of these programs to help employers attract and retain quality employees. We have some very similar passions, Melanie, uh, with best buy and over here at Voya. How can we address those needs? So thank you. Thank you so much. I also wanna thank our listeners for joining us today and as always stay well.

Speaker 1:

This information is provided by Voya for your education only neither Voya north representatives offer tax or legal advice. Any opinions expressed within do not necessarily reflect those of the Voya family of companies or its representatives and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Please consult your tax or legal advisor before making a tax related investment or insurance decision.