That includes making three of the company’s external facing, consumer products —the MyLife meditation app, Synapse’s 4YourHealth virtual gym platform and the soon-to-come The Well portal, which curates Meredith’s brands’ health and wellness content into one location — free to staffers. Employees are given a free one-year membership to MyLife’s premium app while the rest of the services are expected to remain available to employees even after the pandemic is over, O’Neil said.
Generally speaking, core benefits like paid time off, health insurance and wellness services have remained relatively unchanged during the pandemic. There were some changes that went into effect this year, including increasing paid parental leave to 12 weeks and adding telemedicine as a covered benefit. But the most significant changes to benefits are how they are delivered and the forms in which they take.
For example, Meredith launched its virtual gym 4YourHealth, in October for employees to take workout classes online. This was in addition to what the company typical does, which is paying for employees’ gym memberships, for those staffers whose gyms remain closed.
Condé Nast is also repurposing its health and wellness benefits to be more applicable in the coronavirus era. A company spokesperson said that U.S. staffers are able to use their annual health and fitness stipend on home office equipment or virtual workout classes or at-home gym equipment. They would not disclose how large the stipend is.
Additionally, Condé Nast employees who choose to be a part of the long-term remote work option (meaning they continue working remotely post pandemic) will receive a larger stipend to support their home office, the spokesperson said.
Mental health services are also a particularly important benefit that digital publishers say they are looking to offer.
Condé Nast started giving its employees access to eight free counseling sessions through a mental health service platform called Talkspace during the pandemic. Staffers also get free access to the mediation app Unplug.
Three of the companies Digiday reached out to — BuzzFeed, Group Nine and Vox Media — reported that they have partnered with a mental health support platform called Ginger to give employees access to on-demand therapists. Some also pay for six to 10 sessions with licensed therapists and psychologists.
In 2020, Group Nine, publisher of Thrillist, PopSugar, NowThis, also started offering its employees free access to the meditation app Headspace and made a licensed therapist available during election week, according to a company spokesperson.
Vox Media also launched a partnership with
meditation and yoga class provider HealHaus last year to give its employees access to the online classes, according to a company spokesperson.
BuzzFeed has started encouraging employees to take a monthly self-care day that’s not deducted from their PTO days after receiving feedback from its parenting employee resource group that this was a perk they needed while working remotely.
According to Guillermo Corea, managing director of the Workplace Innovation Lab & venture capital at the Society for Human Resource Management, employees want to feel like they’re still “getting skill sets that make them valuable in the workplace,” especially at a time when layoffs are common and keeping your job is not a guarantee. He added it’s important for employers to implement trainings and keep job security in mind when thinking about employee wellness.
Career expert Salemi added that modifying the simple “lunch and learn” structure to include speakers that can offer career advice can make that hour-long lunch break feel worthwhile to employees.
Both BuzzFeed and Vox Media have created one-to-one programs that employees can take part in to learn from career counselors and executives at the respective companies about how to advance in their careers.