60_Banner Health: Removing the Barriers to Employee Well-Being with Nicole Stec

Healthcare Plus Podcast

Health systems are providing employees with more well-being resources than ever, but most have a utilization problem. This week’s guest is Nicole B. Stec, director of well-being for Banner Health based in Phoenix, AZ. In this podcast, Nicole discusses Banner Health’s system-wide comprehensive well-being strategy called “MyWell-Being.” Banner has figured out that the ticket to increasing utilization of these services is to lower the barriers to team members accessing them—in other words, you take the service to the person, instead of trying to take the person to the service.

In this podcast, you will learn about:

• Banner’s “five-pillar” strategy that represents the different dimensions of well-being: physical, mental, intellectual, social, and financial. It all adds up to well-being for the whole person.
• How they worked with their EAP to embed onsite and virtual counselors within their 30 hospitals across the system to help team members struggling with stress and burnout during COVID.
• Creative strategies they used to create a private, discreet experience for employees and achieve a higher utilization of services. (For example, counselors hand out business cards with QR codes people can scan to quickly and easily make appointments, and they can make appointments during work hours, without using PTO.)

Ultimately, Banner’s emphasis on well-being underscores its belief in investing in its most valuable asset: its people. Having a great well-being program helps with recruitment and retention and creates a better, more meaningful work experience…which is what today’s employees want.

In addition to being the director of well-being for Banner Health, Nicole is a national speaker on employer on-site clinics and well-being strategies. For the past ten years, Nicole has worked in community and corporate health settings, designing and implementing population health management strategies for organizations, including healthcare systems, small businesses, the U.S. military, and local government.

In her current role, Nicole is responsible for Banner Health’s system-wide well-being strategy for 55,000+ team members located in six states. Nicole recently implemented the Banner Strong Center for Healing to support the mental well-being, healing, and recovery of healthcare workers post-pandemic. Nicole has also increased Banner’s team member well-being engagement to more than 50 percent in the past two years with the introduction of a holistic well-being approach and new wellness technology.

Nicole is a graduate of the University of Southern California (BS), the University of Phoenix (MBA), and the University of South Florida (MPH). She also holds many certifications, including being certified in public health (National Board of Public Health Examiners) and a certified wellness practitioner (National Wellness Institute).
Nicole's Gratitude Group Presentation