How to Introduce Wellness in HR: Claude Silver of VaynerMedia

Future of Work Summit 2018 has been filled with game-changing conversation topics helping to shape what the future workforce should look, feel and act like. Claude Silver’s panel, titled The Future of Culture in a Distributed Workplace was no exception to this as Chief Heart Officer, VaynerMedia just joined a panel addressing wellness in HR, personalizing benefits & a much needed rebrand of HR as a whole.

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As VaynerMedia’s first Chief Heart Officer, Claude Silver unlocks employees' potential by forging human-to-human connection, creating cultures of belonging, empowering teams to be purpose-driven, efficient, and strong. Claude infuses VaynerMedia with empathy, humanity, and joy. Her unique perspective on corporate leadership and team-building comes both from her training in Transpersonal Psychology & Human Development and her experience in talent management, leadership development, coaching, employee retention, workplace culture and people operations for over 800 employees.

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Prior to VaynerMedia, Claude held leadership positions at J.Walter Thompson (London & San Francisco), SAYMedia, and Publicis London after founding and running an outdoor adventure & surfing company for women in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mentoring and personal coaching are deeply satisfying to Claude, as she loves facilitating growth in others that enables them to find meaning & purpose in their work lives. Her focus on strengths & wellness, active listening, and nurturing a workplace that embraces inclusivity, collaboration, and candor allows her to build deep trust and respect from those who work around her at VaynerMedia.

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With Claude’s experience in mind, let’s break down some of the key topics discussed in her panel session: what the future of work looks like and, more importantly, feels like, within distributed companies.

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The Re-branding of HR

Claude’s first issue of addressal is the rebranding of HR. “HR has gotten a negative rep in the past years, and perhaps that is warranted? At times ‘HR’  have been seen as strict as the police force, and overly concerned with defending the company rather than cultivating the employee experience.” Claude brings up a concern that HR is constantly on the defence, yet if HR addresses employee experience from the start, they wouldn’t have this challenge to battle further down the line. “HR needs a new BRAND and with that HR professionals need to be trained in creating healthy experiences.”

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High-Performance Coaching/ Therapy

Another topic Claude addresses is the need for coaching. This isn’t just coaching in terms of professional development but personal development as well. “Millenials want to exceed all expectations of performance as well as attempt to successfully balance their work and life; today that is why  energy management is so essential.” This is a tricky desire to manage from an HR perspective, giving employees the tools and emotional stability they need in order to deliver their best work with confidence. Claude finishes by specifying the type of coaching/therapy she predicts a demand for. “I see the need for coaching in areas such as anxiety management, cultivating EQ, effective communication and squashing the imposter complex.”

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Personalized benefits

Benefits have been at the top of a lot of professionals’ lists throughout Future of Work Summit. Claude is not shy to discuss them as well and takes the topic a step further by communicating the importance of personalizing them.  “Benefits are critical to recruitment and retention. Making sure your benefits speak to each employee is essential: health/wellness, therapy, PTO, work from home; these all must be looked at and modified to attract and keep talent!” It seems that we can no longer offer a benefits program that applies to the entire workforce, every employee has different needs and wants, company’s need to adapt to that and be more accommodating if they want to retain their talent.

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Join the #RYFOW18 conversation on Twitter, fire any questions you may have to @RemoteYear and we’ll be sure to find you an answer from the wealth of talent at the event. We’ll also be hosting live Q&A’s with some of our guest speakers on Facebook too, see you there.