Kindred Healthcare

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Bringing the Whole Person Well-being Model to Kindred Healthcare

Company Profile

Kindred Healthcare is a top-100 private employer based in Louisville, Kentucky. It employs approximately 88,000 people at 2,500 locations in 45 states.

Kindred employees work in homes, rehab facilities, nursing centers and hospitals. More than 80 percent of employees are women and over half work remotely in homes, commuting between locations. They provide complex medical services and many employees —hospice workers in particular —can become emotionally drained. Their lives revolve around caring for others —not themselves. Despite these challenges, Kindred is a FORTUNE Most Admired Company for six years running, and is just as passionate about its employees’ health and well-being as it is about its patients’.

Challenge

Adapting a Whole Person Well-Being Model to Medical Professionals

Kindred wanted to to improve employee health, well-being and productivity, while also improving turnover. But with 88,000 employees spread across the country —many with limited access to email —Kindred needed a program that was easy to access and personalized for employees with varying needs and interests. How do you build a cohesive company culture that supports a dispersed employee population prone to high stress and low self-care?

Solution

Embracing — and Communicating — All Types of Well-Being

In search of a solution, Kindred turned to Limeade. The Healthy Steps Wellness program kicked off with a well-being assessment and biometric screening. Employees were then incentivized to complete activities designed to improve physical, emotional, work and financial well-being.

Employees in the brick-and-mortar locations were supported with farmers markets, annual wellness fairs, mobile mammography units and a new onsite health clinic. To engage nurses and in-home caregivers without consistent access to activities and computers, Kindred encouraged mobile program access, provided buzzworthy team challenges and encouraged participation in local activities.

Kindred’s many HR resources were difficult to find and underutilized. For example, Kindred offered telemedicine to employees based on their choice of medical plan, but utilization was low. After just three months of integrating with Healthy Steps Wellness, Kindred saw a 400% increase in registration for one medical plan. The other two medical plans increased registration by 120% and 200%.

Results

Showing the Value of a Holistic Approach to Well-Being

More than 70% of medical eligible employees and spouses participate in Healthy Steps Wellness each year and the improvements have been outstanding. Further analysis^[1] found significant improvement in overall health and productivity indicators.

Kindred saw an impact in turnover as well. The Limeade Turnover Dashboard showed that employees who participated in five or more activities had 50% lower turnover.^[2]

“For me, the success has come from the culture shift that I’ve seen since we started this journey. In the halls you hear people discussing their points, which activities they’re participating in or their biometric screening results. You wouldn’t have heard people talking about this without a great well-being program and the excitement we’ve been able to build.”

Cheryl Priddy, Division Vice President, Benefits at Kindred Healthcare

“We selected Limeade because they were different. We selected Limeade because they wanted to understand Kindred and our business and our challenges and make it Kindred’s program and not Limeade’s off the shelf program.”

Andrea Romisher, Senior Vice President,
Benefits & Compensation

[1] Using a three-year cohort of program users
[2] Than non-participants