Employer Profile

Top 10 ranking: No. 1 for diversity Last year, this health maintenance organization in Oakland, Calif., launched a new comprehensive wellness program, "Healthy Workforce," designed to support employee health, wellness and balance both inside and outside the office. One of its key offerings is an eight-week physical activity program and cross-country virtual journey called Thrive Across America. Employees and teams were encouraged to track their physical activity via a Web portal that also offered content on exercise and wellness, group fitness, recipes and more. Minutes of exercise were converted into miles on a cross-country journey across all of the eight regions from east to west, culminating in Hawaii. Meanwhile, the IT organization launched a concurrent program called CIO Challenge, in which the CIO invited IT employees to join him in increasing their physical activity and losing 5 pounds by the end of the Thrive Across America campaign. Nearly 400 IT employees collectively lost 1,500 pounds during the CIO Challenge. Other health initiatives included Healthy Tip Card Packets for managers (a year's worth of weekly health tips to use in meetings), online Total Health Assessments (personalized health recommendations based on responses to a questionnaire) and Healthy Meeting Tools (resources for incorporating health tips, stretch breaks, healthy food choices and so on). Star employees The company also offers four types of awards for exemplary performance and behavior, and employees may receive multiple awards, up to a total of $7,500 per year. The Outstanding Achievement Awards are presented by the CIO to top performers at the IT Summit, an annual meeting of top IT leaders.