At the IT Security Guru we’re showcasing organisations that are doing great things for employee wellbeing! This week, Gianna Driver, Chief Human Resource Officer at Exabeam, tells the Gurus about how Exabeam are championing wellbeing support within the organisation. Driver has over 20 years of experience in executive human resources management across all sorts of organisations.
According to Driver, the next-gen SIEM and XDR company are “mindful that wellness is about considering the whole human and caring for their needs.” Putting this into practice, the company offer benchmark pay to offer competitive salaries, provide mental health benefits and unlimited time paid off. They also have tools that monitor the utilisation of their benefits, which, ultimately, helps shape the benefits they offer and how they promote them. For example, Driver notes, “if our employees aren’t maximising their use of retirement planning and benefits, we might offer financial literacy courses.”
Attempting to avoid burnout, Exabeam also try to practise gratitude towards their employees to thank them for their hard work. Driver adds: “We know that our employees at Exabeam work really hard to make our company successful, and so we want to say “Thank you” to them! We’ve implemented multiple Thank You Days – company-wide days off each year – which have been positively received. We’ve found that when everybody in the company takes the same day off, everyone can recharge and come back with less intimidating inboxes.”
Earlier this week research was released that found that over half of individuals have felt socially excluded in the past year, leading to poor mental health outcomes and feelings of anxiety, sadness and isolation. The report also suggested that those who are part of at least one team or society experience personal, professional and health benefits including feeling happier (30%), more confident (26%) and more likely to achieve their health and fitness goal. At Exabeam, the company have launched several groups for employees to join. Driver notes:
“In the spirit of social and emotional wellness, we launched several Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for both in-office and remote employees. We have six ERGs: ExaGals; Somos, which is for our Latinx population; Waves, our Pan-Asian ERG; Pride, for the LGBTQIA+ community; a veterans ERG; and BAE, for our Black community.
But what have the productivity outcomes been for the business?
“When we initially started investing in and making time for these different initiatives, there were concerns that these projects would take time, energy, or focus away from business operations. Over time, we’ve realised that we’re not taking away slices of the “productivity pie”, but instead, we’re growing the pie.
“We have a learning division that we started earlier this year, and it’s part of the overall People and Culture team. That department works with leaders across the organisation and creates content to support leaders and help them become better. We believe better leaders create happier employees. We also do company-wide surveys to gauge individual feedback and ensure initiatives are tailored to specific teams.”
Do you know an organisation that’s doing incredible things for employee wellbeing? Email us at [email protected]