Jillian Plummer
Director, Employee Health and Wellness
Quest Diagnostics
Episode 145
Employee Wellbeing: The Strategic Imperative Driving Business Performance & Sustainability
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJune 17, 2025 · 12:46
Thesis
“Employee wellbeing is not a mere perk but a strategic imperative that directly impacts business performance and sustainability, necessitating a data-driven, employee-centered approach embedded in the daily culture by leadership.”
Show notes
"Employees and their managers have much more impact on their mental health than a therapist or doctor." Gillian Plummer says this not to diminish clinical care, but to redirect where organizations put their energy. At Quest Diagnostics — managing wellbeing programs for 50,000 employees — the insight that the most powerful mental health intervention is a well-trained manager isn't theoretical. It's the basis of a strategy.
Gillian came to HR from marketing, and she's never entirely left that lens behind. When you're designing wellbeing programs for a workforce as large and diverse as Quest's, she argues, you're essentially running a segmented marketing campaign: understanding distinct populations, identifying their specific risk factors, and creating targeted interventions that reach them in ways that generic programs don't. A mobile mammogram van parked outside a facility for a week isn't just a healthcare service — it's a trust-building gesture that removes a barrier and changes a relationship.
Her framework for justifying wellbeing investments is CFO-ready: cost avoidance, productivity multipliers, reduced long-term healthcare spend. She's not making a moral argument for caring about employee health. She's making a financial one — and the data at Quest backs it up. The episode is a masterclass in how to build a wellbeing strategy that lives at the intersection of human care and business discipline.
- Segmented, data-driven wellbeing programs — why "one-size-fits-all" is a category error for a 50,000-person workforce
- The ROI case for employee wellbeing — cost avoidance, productivity, and long-term spend reduction
- Managers as mental health multipliers — why training leaders matters more than adding EAP services
- Preventative care as a trust-building tool — mobile mammography vans, biometric screenings, and what they signal
- Embedding culture around health — the leadership modeling and structural changes that make wellbeing feel real, not performative
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What you'll take away
- 1Employee well-being is a strategic investment that drives productivity, reduces long-term costs, and is critical for business sustainability, moving beyond the perception of a mere perk.
- 2A data-driven, segmented approach is essential for effective well-being programs, moving away from 'one-size-fits-all' to tailor solutions based on risk factors, job families, and regions.
- 3Leadership modeling and manager training are paramount for embedding a culture of health and support, as managers have a more significant impact on employee mental health than external specialists.
- 4Proactive and preventative care initiatives, such as mobile mammogram vans and yearly biometric screenings, are highly effective in early detection, improving health outcomes, and driving cost avoidance.
- 5Rising mental health and financial stress necessitate dedicated programming, including financial wellness education and accessible mental health support, to meet employees' evolving needs.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Employees and their managers have much more impact on their mental health than a therapist or doctor, shifting the focus to internal leadership as a primary support system.
- •Employee wellbeing is not a perk, but a strategy for performance and sustainability, challenging the view of wellbeing as a discretionary benefit.
In Jillian's words
“My career journey is— it did not start in HR, it started in marketing... essentially you're marketing to your employees.”
Highlights a unique career path that brings a 'marketing' perspective to engaging employees in HR.
“These aren't just cost avoidance strategies. They're driving productivity. They reduce long-term spend.. And that essentially leads to healthy employees that are leading healthier lives, et cetera.”
Connects wellbeing initiatives directly to tangible business outcomes and financial benefits.
“employees and their managers have much more impact on their mental health than a therapist or doctor. That is, that's huge.”
A surprising statistic that underscores the critical role of immediate leadership in employee mental health.
“it's not a peanut butter spread approach across the board. You really have to dial into different populations, different segments, and deploy tactics, strategies and tactics that work for that.”
Emphasizes the importance of data-driven segmentation for effective, targeted well-being interventions.
“we're having mobile mammogram vans going to laboratories and meeting our female population where they are. If they can't go out and get their mammograms, we're gonna, we're gonna meet them at their job.”
Showcases a highly practical and empathetic strategy for delivering preventative care to a hard-to-reach frontline workforce.
“Employee wellbeing is not a perk. It's a strategy for performance and sustainability.”
A concise summary of the guest's core thesis, framing wellbeing as a business imperative.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Balancing better health outcomes with managing healthcare costs in a self-funded environment.
- •Addressing the rising trends of mental health and financial stress among employees.
- •Engaging a large, diverse frontline workforce (40,000 employees) with relevant and accessible health support.
- •Moving beyond 'one-size-fits-all' wellness programs to tailored solutions that address specific risk factors and social determinants of health.
- •Ensuring leadership and managers are equipped to model and encourage healthy behaviors and support employee wellbeing effectively.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
Your career journey started in marketing and then led to HR
How to Get Out of Your Career Path
Quest oversees employee health and well-being for 50,000 employees
Quest Diagnostics oversees employee health and well-being, especially in
Quest is seeing a rise in mental health and financial stress among employees
Q&A: Well-being at Quest Diagnostics
Quest uses data to create targeted strategies by our regions
How Data Analytics is Driving Quest's Marketing
With 40,000 frontline employees, what strategies have you found most effective
Quest Diagnostics' Wellbeing Strategy
Quest Diagnostics focuses on 3 pillars of employee health and wellbeing
Q&A: Quest Diagnostics Employee Wellbeing
If leadership isn't modeling wellbeing, it won't stick
A message from Wellbeing Champion Jillian
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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