PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

I graduated summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa from McDaniel College with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. I’ve always been passionate about learning and pursuing opportunities to grow due, in large part, to the inspiration from my 66-year-old father. He has run his own management consulting company for 35 years, is always reading and pursuing learning, and recently completed his 6th Ironman triathlon.

In September 2007, I tapped into my father’s entrepreneurial spirit and my interest in health, created the role of Wellness Coordinator at SIG, and started our wellness program. Throughout my career, I’ve been influenced by what I’ve learned through WELCOA’s webinars, white papers, interviews and annual training summits and from other experts in the field, who I’ve pursued as mentors. Completing my certification as a Wellness Culture Coach through the Human Resources Institute in 2013 helped me further my understanding of the connection between culture and health. In 2012, I earned my Master of Science degree in Community Health Education and Health Administration from Towson University. Wanting to dig deeper into nutrition, I completed training to become an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, earned a Certificate in Plant-based Nutrition through the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, and was certified as a Culinary Nutrition Expert through the Academy of Culinary Nutrition. The most valuable training I completed because of what it did to shift the direction of my life and give me hope that I could heal my body from years of being sick was training to become an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. I honed my cooking and teaching skills through the Culinary Nutrition certification, and that has directly influenced what I do today as a culinary nutrition and health educator and cooking class instructor. I share what I’ve learned with the wider world through my blog, Rachel’s Nourishing Kitchen, and on other media outlets, including mindbodygreen.

It’s been exciting to see all of the recognition our program has received over the years. Our first official recognition came in 2012, when we were recognized for the first time as the Baltimore Business Journal’s Healthiest Company in the small business sector. Since then, we’ve been recognized by the American Heart Association as a Fit-Friendly Company five years running, received WELCOA’s Well Workplace Award for Small Business in 2014, were selected as one of SmartCEO’s Healthiest Companies in Baltimore in 2015 and won the award for our market segment in September 2016. SIG was named the Best Place to Work in Insurance by Business Insurance for the under 250 market segment in 2015 and 2016 and placed in The Baltimore Sun’s Top Workplace contest in 2015. We were also a Finalist in the Baltimore Business Journal’s 2016 Best Places to Work contest and are one of SmartCEO’s Corporate Culture Award winners. Earlier this year, we were named the #1 Most Active Company in the U.S. in the Small Business Category for WELCOA’s first On the Move Challenge.

I’ve also had the honor of receiving professional recognition at an individual level. I was named the #1 Health Promotion Professional in the U.S. by WELCOA in February 2015 and spoke at the 2016 national training summit. My blog was named one of the Top 50 Clean Food Blogs by the Academy of Culinary Nutrition in 2015. Most recently, I was recognized as a Brava Award Winner for Female Leadership by SmartCEO during the summer of 2016. I became a founding member and Young Board Member of the Global Women for Wellbeing initiative in October 2016.

DEMONSTRATED SUCCESS

As a whole, the greatest success of our initiative is that our commitment to wellbeing has come to define who we are; it’s not just a siloed program that gets occasional attention. Our focus on the whole person has made us an employer of choice, and most of our new hires are referrals from existing employees. We integrate all of the major dimensions of wellbeing – career, social, physical, financial, and community – into our organization as often as possible. We offer employees opportunities to grow, learn, connect, and contribute. Our culture is rooted in ROWE – Results Only Work Environment – which assumes employees can and will self-manage and get their work done at the time and in the place that works best for them. In addition to giving our employees a tremendous amount of autonomy, flexibility, opportunities to grow, unlimited time off, days of service, tickets to fun social events, financial education, a generous 401k match and tuition reimbursement, we also make it easy for our employees to feel good and stay energized by promoting movement, nourishment, and friendship.

Our brand (SIGSpark!) and tagline (Come alive!) reflect our commitment to focusing on the whole person and igniting a spark in them to feel better, be better, and live better. Our program is based on the idea that everything we offer is an opportunity to “spark” someone on to change and that being healthy means coming alive. It’s about what health allows us to do and who it allows to be; it’s not just a box to check. Each of our employees received Spark! t-shirts, gym bags, and keychains to carry the message wherever they go.

One of our most popular initiatives is our annual JERF (Just Eat Real Food) Program, which builds community and awareness around connecting with our food and where it comes from, sharing potluck meals, and nourishing ourselves without guilt, shame or deprivation. Employees look forward to it each year. It’s been so successful that a group of employees created their own salad club, and each week, they share in the shopping and make meals together.

Our most successful program to date has been the On the Move Challenge. Because most of our employees are in sedentary desk jobs, we knew that promoting movement was important for us to do. But we wanted to do it in a way that wasn’t punitive and made everyone feel included. On the Move helped us bring people together, open up lines of communication and build buzz and pride in our employees. 80% of our company participated. Our daily walks, On the Move wellness wall, company-branded FitBits, onsite fitness and yoga classes, messages from our CEO, and team-based scavenger hunt gave employees opportunities to come together, spend time with each other and move more. Here are some of the outcomes of our program:

• We won first place for the small business category!
• There was a 71% increase in employees rating their fitness level as “excellent” after the challenge was over.
• After the challenge ended, the percentage of employees moving at least at a moderate intensity level every day increased from 0% to 13%.
• After 12 weeks, 87% of employees migrated into an activity category conducive with weight loss and health improvement. Only 3% of employees remained in the sedentary category.

Because of the success of the challenge, we are going to bring it back next year. A group of employees continues to participate in their own weekly FitBit challenge, and the movement continues!

We’ve used WELCOA’s 7 Benchmarks as a guide since the inception of our program. (1) Capturing CEO support in words happened early, but now our CEO is truly a face of our program. He is committed to making our workplace one where people feel included, have growth opportunities, have flexibility to spend time with their friends and family, take time for self-care, and give back. Last year, he gave each employee two $100 bills to pay it forward to others during the holiday season. The impact of that gesture of generosity on our culture and the pride we felt in working here was profound. He regularly leaves voicemails and emails, writes messages with fun questions for us on the writeable walls, supports what we want to do financially, participates in the onsite fitness classes, and takes walking meetings throughout the week. Once we figured out that it was important to him that we lead by example and make everything we do FUN, he gave us his full support and buy-in. (2) Our wellness team has been the longest standing committee at our company, and we’ve been up and running for ten years. We’ve cycled through different employees to keep creativity flowing and to prevent burnout, but two of us have been on the team since the very beginning. We meet monthly, laugh a lot together, and lead by example in both words and actions to promote a positive approach to being well. (3) Each year, we conduct an employee interest survey and we send out evaluations after every program we offer. We also invite employees to send us ideas or find that ideas will come up organically in conversation. We also use data from best places to work surveys, when we receive a summary report, and use that to determine what we should continue to do and what we could do differently to be even better. (4) + (5) Each year, we take input from our employees about what they loved and what they’d like us to change, and we use that feedback to craft our plan and calendar for the following year. We work with our CFO for approval of our budget and our CEO for his input on what we are proposing, so everyone is on the same page. We work in partnership with the community service and social committees, which collectively fall under our culture team. We look for opportunities to support each other. For instance, if the social committee is planning the Thanksgiving luncheon, they’ll come to us for recommendations about nourishing and tasty meal options. We make it a priority to come together and to get rid of silos and a sense of competition among our committees. It’s been rewarding to see that shift happen over time. Our employees feel heard and tell us that one of the things they like most about our approach is the variety that we offer. They feel like there is something for everyone. (6) From an office Vitamix, free fair trade tea and coffee, oatmeal bar, healthy snacks, potlucks, cooking demonstrations, and filtered water stations to writeable walls filled with encouraging messages, company-branded FitBits, 1-mile walking path around a lake, white noise to promote focus, collaborative and social spaces, onsite fitness classes and yoga, financial education seminars, encouraging emails and voicemails, chair massages, free thank you notes, and a team of employees who genuinely care about and like each other, we have created a supportive environment that promotes health and wellbeing. (7) As mentioned previously, we use evaluation results gathered throughout the year to inform our planning and decision-making and determine what is working and what can be improved. WELCOA’s benchmarks have guided us to make all of those steps priorities.

LEADERSHIP

Wellness isn’t just my job. It’s my calling. It’s my passion. It’s why I was born.

Over the past six years, sparked by a wellness program that we offered at SIG in 2010, I've learned how to heal my body from what I assumed was going to be a lifetime of suboptimal health and illness. After going through a half dozen surgeries, taking countless doses of antibiotics, and medicating chronic acid reflux for a decade, I discovered that my future didn’t have to look like my past. I learned that I could feel better, have energy, and not get sick. I found hope and now offer that same hope wherever I go. I eat food that nourishes my body, move my body in ways that bring me joy and freedom rather than guilt and pain, and my husband and I are active members of our church community. We also financially and relationally support orphans in Central America on a monthly basis. I surround myself with people who also live with a sense of purpose and meaning, and we feed off of each other’s energy.

My mission is to create a safe and inviting space for people to experience more joy, fulfillment, energy, and purpose in their lives – to help them come alive. I do this by taking a refreshing approach about what to eat and how to live in a way that is fun, enjoyable and promotes connection. I believe in inviting people into a conversation to get curious about their health and life rather than telling them what to do. I take my message beyond the workplace and into the larger community, too. I teach workshops and cooking demonstrations at the Institute for Integrative Health in Baltimore and with the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine. I also speak at women’s retreats and partner with other health-focused organizations locally to do other events.

From leading health education workshops and cooking demonstrations for my coworkers and our clients to teaching leadership teams about creating a culture of health in the workplace, I bring what we’ve done at SIG to our clients. I spoke at WELCOA’s 2016 summit, served as a panelist at the American Journal of Health Promotion Conference, am a top-rated speaker among nearly a dozen regional human resources organizations, and regularly speak at companies representing a variety of industries throughout the Mid-Atlantic. I’m also one of the founding members and Young Board Members of Global Women 4 Wellbeing.

I’ve always liked to write and knew that the information I had learned over the years throughout my healing journey would inspire and help others, so I started a blog – Rachel’s Nourishing Kitchen – in January 2014. I am also a contributing writer to the online lifestyle platform mindbodygreen.

One of the experiences that has helped me achieve leadership status in my field is applying for and receiving recognition for various wellness awards. We got press from all of the awards we won, and we started to stand out. In the midst of all of that and years before we ever thought to apply for an award as a company, I was regularly seeking out other leaders in the field who seemed to be doing things differently and were innovating. I remember talking with a workplace culture expert back in 2009. It planted the seed for the approach I take now. I learned from as many people as I could. I completed their trainings, read their books, followed their blogs, connected with them on LinkedIn, and reached out to them. My dad has taught me that the worst thing someone will say is “no” in response to a request to talk. Everyone was open to sharing with me what they had learned, guiding me through my own challenges with our program and with clients, and connecting me to other people who could teach me something more. I wasn’t afraid to ask questions. I wasn’t afraid to put myself out there. And I was always very appreciative; appreciative of their time, their insights, and the years of experience they shared with me.

Being honest about my struggles and my story helped me emerge as a leader as well. People can spot authenticity and true care and concern from a mile away. After years of playing the part of the wellness person, striving for perfection in image and in actions, I got real with people and shared my story of how I struggled with my body, mind, and other health issues for years. Sharing my story invited other people to share theirs. That has made all the difference for me.

For other wellness professionals hoping to become leaders in the field, I would suggest that they honestly answer these questions, “When do you feel MOST alive?” What makes you light up inside? What topic fires you up and drives you to learn more, so you can share and guide more? What have you struggled with in your own life that you could share as an opportunity to inspire someone else? Where do you see brokenness in the world and at work? Being honest about answering those questions can provide a lot of insight that can then propel them to stand out and lead.

INNOVATION

To generate better results, we’ve:

• Lightened up! I used to be one of those people who freaked out if donuts or cupcakes were brought to the office. Now, on the rare occasion that something like that happens, I focus on the intention behind the action – someone was being thoughtful and that should be appreciated and celebrated. We don’t even have to have conversations around having nourishing options at every social event. It’s become the norm, but not because people feel like we are forcing this on them.
• Collaborated with other teams to create a unified strategy that promotes every aspect of wellbeing. The community service team arranged a trip to a nearby farm that grows food to feed the homeless in Baltimore. They’ve donated over 10 million pounds of food to the homeless, and we went to their farm to harvest kale and collard greens. In addition to supporting the cause, we had fun together, moving for the entire morning as we harvested crops. We laughed a lot, talked about recipe ideas for what to do with the food we were harvesting and then celebrated with a company lunch at the end of the day. It’s all about integration and collaboration and sending out a consistent message.
• Made wellbeing part of our value proposition to potential and current employees. When someone comes in for an interview, they’ll often mention that they’ve been following us on social media and see all of the cool, fun things we are doing and that we really seem to enjoy working here. That’s what this comes down to – promoting a culture of wellbeing and connection to recruit and retain quality people and then make them feel cared about while they are here working for us.
• Gotten back to basics. It had been years since we had come together in a team-based movement challenge that was as successful as On the Move was for us this past spring. We dedicated an entire writeable wall in our office to On the Move for the duration of the challenge. We organized a team-based scavenger hunt using the Scavify app and a local teambuilding company and went on a scavenger hunt throughout Baltimore to promote movement in a fun and social way. Our CEO sponsored monthly team dinners at local restaurants in Baltimore to celebrate our success.
• Our employees love our annual Make Your Own frozen yogurt bar. We use a Yonanas machine to make the frozen yogurt out of frozen fruit and then provide toppings like mixed berries, shredded coconut, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and cinnamon. Employees love this event and look forward to it each summer.

We’ve gravitated away from specific numbers about our employees’ health status and focused more on the impact what we are doing is having on engagement, morale, retention, recruitment and performance. With 100% of our employees participating in some aspect of our program, we know we are providing what they want. In addition, we continue to receive recognition from a number of organizations that seek out companies that are doing things differently. We’ve been recognized as a top workplace, healthiest company, fit-friendly company, WELCOA well workplace, best place to work in insurance, and top corporate culture. We’ve become a company committed to taking care of our employees. Our CEO’s motto is, “If you take care of Baltimore, Baltimore will take care of you.”

COMPELLING VISION

I’m excited about the future of our field. As millennials begin to dominate the workplace in terms of our sheer numbers, there will be increased demands for balance. The days when we had to give our lives away working for the same company for 40 years and look forward to retirement to start living are over. As the economy and job market pick up, employees won’t settle for an okay job that pays them a lot but doesn’t support them as a whole person. They will look for organizations that “get it” and recognize the importance of providing opportunities to socialize, give back, have fun and prioritize employee health – in every sense of the word. It’s been exciting to see the subtle shift in language over the past few years to the more holistic term “wellbeing.” We will be talking more about culture, shift the business case from ROI to recruitment, retention, engagement, morale and performance. We will see more workplaces build using guidance from the WELL Building Standard to focus on improving the built environment. This is the most promising time in history for our industry. There is a need and a demand from employers and employees alike.

The biggest threats to our industry are internal conflict and blaming and shaming that are happening on social media. We have to rise above that and not contribute to conversation that is demeaning, derogatory, insulting or shaming. One of the secrets to my success has been to look for the good and intentionally be a positive, uplifting voice whether I’m in conversation or on social media.

In the next five years, I plan to build community around healthy workplaces in Baltimore, bringing local speakers to our clients and prospects on a quarterly basis to meet with and teach us what they’ve learned about what it means to be well. We’re bringing in experts on workplace design, mindfulness, communication and appreciation, and will be convening a panel of local companies committed to serving the community well. We want to position ourselves as leaders in this space and continue to walk the walk. I plan to take a leadership role in the newly formed Global Women 4 Wellbeing organization to focus specifically on women’s health. I plan to continue teaching at the community level and spreading a message infused with hope and life that invites people in to wanting to be well. I plan to continue conversations that help us more clearly define what it means to be well and to open the conversation around wellness to be more inclusive and comprehensive and to tap into organizational development concepts. I will continue to pursue opportunities to speak and share the message with our local and regional human resources groups and to other insurance brokerage firms and their clients throughout the country in partnership with the Benefit Advisors Network. I’ll continue blogging and sharing these messages with the wider world on social media. My ultimate goal in the next five years is to give a TED Talk.

So let’s continue to have big dreams and a bold vision about what is possible. To challenge the status quo and ask the tough questions but do so with kindness. To be pillars of hope and voices of love and encouragement. To do what we can, with what we have, where we are and to honor the calling placed on our lives.