Kristen Gradney
Chief Wellness Officer, VP of Total Rewards
LCMC
Episode 78
Beyond Perks: Leaders Must Weave Wellbeing into the Fabric of Culture
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleAugust 12, 2025 · 12:10
Thesis
“Integrating wellbeing into the core of an organization's culture and daily operations, with leaders taking direct responsibility, is essential for true employee thriving, moving beyond isolated initiatives.”
Show notes
Kristen Gradney's background is clinical nutrition and population health — not traditional HR. That unconventional path to Chief Wellness Officer at LCMC Health turned out to be exactly the right preparation for the problem she was hired to solve: a large healthcare system where employee well-being was understood as someone else's job. Leaders were focused on their operational responsibilities. HR owned the wellness programs. No one owned the connection between the two.
The breakthrough came from something disarmingly basic: asking employees what they actually needed, rather than designing programs based on leadership assumptions. The survey data revealed needs that were both more specific and more operational than a traditional wellness program would address — not yoga classes or gym subsidies, but changes to daily work environments and routines that made it possible for people to actually take care of themselves. Kristen's response was to equip leaders with Lean Six Sigma-based tools that integrated well-being directly into operational workflows, making it everyone's responsibility rather than a program that ran parallel to the real work.
What she's clear about in this conversation: this is a long-term culture change, not a campaign. The organizations that treat wellbeing as an initiative will be running a new one every eighteen months. The ones that embed it as a shared leadership accountability will see results that compound. Her one regret is not securing top-level buy-in earlier — a lesson worth building into any wellness strategy from the start.
- Give people what they want, not what you think they need — how LCMC's employee survey changed the entire direction of their wellness strategy
- Wellbeing as operational responsibility, not HR program — equipping frontline leaders with practical tools to integrate well-being into daily work
- Building a shared vision across leadership — the accountability structures that made wellness everyone's job at LCMC
- Measuring cultural traction — the leading indicators (leader engagement, proactive resource requests) that signal real culture change
- Why top-level buy-in can't wait — the lesson Kristen would apply if she were starting over
- Tailoring over copying — why adapting evidence-based practices to your specific culture outperforms importing programs wholesale
Previ is an employer network that provides private pricing for employees — saving the average employee $2,200/year on essentials like cell phone service and insurance, at no cost to the company.
What you'll take away
- 1Culture change, especially around employee wellbeing, is a long-term journey requiring consistent intention, education, and reinforcement.
- 2Actively solicit employee feedback through surveys to understand their specific needs and tailor wellbeing efforts accordingly, rather than assuming solutions.
- 3Equip leaders with practical, operational tools (e.g., Lean Six Sigma-based) to integrate wellbeing into daily work processes and environment.
- 4Move beyond superficial 'point solutions' like yoga or pizza; true wellbeing is about weaving support into every task and interaction.
- 5While a 'groundswell' approach can be effective, securing top-level leadership support from the outset can significantly accelerate cultural transformation.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Wellbeing is often seen as a peripheral committee or isolated initiative, but it is a direct responsibility of leaders impacting the daily work environment.
- •Education and awareness about wellbeing-informed environments do not automatically equate to ownership; deeper engagement and individual connections are required.
- •Avoid blindly implementing wellbeing practices that work elsewhere; tailor evidence-based approaches to the unique challenges and culture of your own organization.
In Kristen's words
“culturally, it felt like, hey, I'm here to do a certain job, but the wellbeing of my employees and the environment that they work in wasn't for them to be responsible for.”
This quote identifies the initial cultural challenge of leaders not owning employee wellbeing.
“give people what they want, not what we think they need.”
This emphasizes the data-driven, employee-centric approach taken to understand and address wellbeing needs.
“creating a culture of well-being is not just You know, it's not just about having Code Lavenders and yoga and pizza, and we do a lot of those things, right? But it's really that weaving it into the culture of every moment, every day, every task.”
This is a core thesis statement, differentiating deep cultural integration from superficial perks.
“culture change takes time. It takes real intention. It's not something that we can talk about, set goals on a paper.”
This reinforces the practical reality and significant effort required for organizational culture transformation.
“don't assume that what worked everywhere else will automatically work for your organization... let it be tailored to your organization.”
This provides crucial advice against generic solutions and highlights the need for context-specific strategies.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Leaders perceive employee wellbeing as a peripheral responsibility, not core to their role.
- •Employees experience burnout and feel their work environments are not welcoming or supportive of their wellbeing.
- •Traditional 'point solutions' for wellbeing (e.g., EAP, gym memberships) are insufficient to drive meaningful cultural change.
- •Difficulty in securing top-level leadership engagement to support and accelerate wellbeing initiatives.
- •Challenges in moving from employee wellbeing awareness to tangible ownership and consistent action among leaders.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
You are now LCMC Health's Chief Wellness Officer
LCMC Health's Chief Wellness Officer on her Career Journey
LCNC recently tackled a cultural challenge around employee well-being
The LCNC Workforce Well-being Challenge
Looking back, why was addressing this challenge so important to the organization
The Need for Wellbeing at Work
Culture change takes time; what lessons did you learn from this experience
What would you do differently as a leader?
What parting advice would you like to share with our community about workplace wellbeing
What parting advice would you have for Wellbeing professionals?
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
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