How Family-Friendly Benefits Lead to Workplace Wellness for All

Although flexible work options have become much more commonplace since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gannett Fleming was an early adopter and already had a foundation of work flexibility well before 2020. We were able to build upon this foundation quickly when the pandemic forced most of our employees to become fully remote almost overnight. As we’ve navigated our “next normal,” we’ve found that offering hybrid work models and flextime provide excellent work-life balance options for our teams.

We offer hybrid work models that vary across the firm. Under our hybrid approach, managers work with their staff and directors to determine the optimal approach to in-person days for their teams. Ultimately, we strive for meaningful collaboration during our in-person days. For example, some teams work locally on projects, so they may need more in-person days than a team spread out across the U.S. and Canada.

One of our most popular employee benefits is flextime. With flextime, we empower our employees to balance life and work priorities by adjusting their schedules accordingly. This can include starting work early to take time off during the workday to attend an appointment or perhaps working extra hours to enjoy a Friday off. As long as the employee has supervisor approval, they can use flextime for most situations, particularly if they don’t wish to use paid time off (PTO).

Many employees choose to start and grow their families during their careers at Gannett Fleming, and it’s our goal to maintain a family culture and benefits supporting all family types.

Gannett Fleming champions LGBTQ+ pride year-round, and one way we do this is to ensure equivalency in the following:

• Same- and different-sex spousal medical and soft benefits.
• Same- and different-sex domestic partner medical and soft benefits.
• Spousal and domestic partner family formation benefits.
• Spousal and domestic partner family bereavement benefits.

In the U.S., approximately one in eight couples struggle to conceive. That’s why we’re proud to offer medical insurance coverage that includes fertility benefits for infertility services, including testing to diagnose the causes and treatments and procedures for infertility. Since infertility treatment and options can be highly personalized, we encourage our employees to contact our benefits administrator and health plan’s member services to learn more about covered services.

Gannett Fleming is dedicated to supporting employees who become new parents through birth (including surrogate birth), adoption, or foster care placement of a child. As part of this dedication, Gannett Fleming provides U.S. employees with two weeks of paid parental leave, which runs concurrently with the 12 weeks of leave allowed by the Family Medical Leave Act and is sometimes colloquially referred to as maternity or paternity leave, to all eligible, full-time employees to allow them to bond with their child. Eligible part-time employees can also take paid parental leave at a prorated amount. If both parents work at Gannett Fleming, they are both eligible to use the benefit. Gannett Fleming also complies with the requirements of specific province, federal, state, and local government laws and regulations regarding parental leave.

U.S. federal law requires employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act to provide basic accommodations for breastfeeding parents at work, including time for the parent to express milk and a private space that is not a bathroom to use each time they need to pump. However, many of our offices have been outfitted with private wellness rooms equipped with a fridge, comfortable chair, and Wi-Fi to go beyond the requirements and create a more relaxing experience.

When we talk about having a culture of health, we know that this includes physical and mental well-being, and we feel a responsibility to provide tools and resources to improve the health of each of our employees and their families.

Getting a yearly health screening is important at any age because it can help catch problems early and provide an opportunity to discuss and address any future health risks. Not only are in-network health screenings for employees and their dependents covered, but getting screened allows U.S. employees to lower their yearly health plan deductible by hundreds of dollars.

Additionally, our health plan members have access to 24/7 virtual care to diagnose common illnesses and send prescriptions straight to the employee’s pharmacy without requiring them to leave home. The virtual care program also includes nutrition, psychiatric, and general counseling services.

Providing wellness programs gives our employees tools and resources to adopt healthy behaviors and maintain them into the future. We offer many programs at little or no cost to the employee. Additionally, participating in wellness programs improves employee health and helps to address some of the most common chronic diseases, such as heart disease.

Some of our most popular programs include:

• Calm – A mental health and wellness tool for the whole family, Calm is the premier app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation and is offered at no cost to all full- and part-time employees.
• Life Assistance Program – For help handling life’s challenges, employees and their household members can receive support and resources on family, finances, caregiving, aging, grief, balancing priorities, working smarter, and much more.
• Fitness Your Way – As part of our health plan, Fitness Your Way allows our employees to exercise when they want, where they want. Employees can access 10,000 gyms nationwide for a low monthly fee and no long-term contracts, and it also includes online tools to help track exercise and nutrition goals.
• Health coaching – All employees can learn from personalized health coaching that includes personal training and nutrition sessions.
• Wellness reimbursements – We regularly provide reimbursements for items like fitness trackers, gym equipment, and gym memberships. These programs vary based on funding and employee feedback.
• Walking challenges – Since 2021, the Gannett Fleming Wellness Committee has led companywide walking challenges. In the first-ever Walk for Wellness, more than 230 employees actively participated in the eight-week challenge, collectively logging 96,403,853 steps, or more than 45,600 miles. Sixty-four percent of participants met the challenge goal of an average of at least 5,000 steps per day.

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