Tomekia Williams

▶0:00HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome Tamika to the Built by People podcast. Tamika, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:49GuestSure. So I started in benefits administration by accident, kind of fresh out of college during the recession. Didn't really know what I was going to do. I was applying to a lot of jobs at the time and got offered a position to assist with open enrollment during, I believe that was the fall of 2010. So I started working. I didn't know anything about health insurance except that I had it. So it was all new to me. And that's actually where I realized I enjoyed benefits education. That I was learning myself. And that role, I was responsible for educating employees on their benefits that I was learning. I worked in that role and moved up to being a Tier 2 representative, managing cases, and becoming a subject matter expert for their large clients. I did that for about 4 and a half years until I relocated to Georgia, and that job was no longer available. So that's where I actually started to become a short-term disability claims examiner. So I was on a different side of benefits administration at that point. And then I did that for about a year, and then I moved into HR, and that's where my HR career actually grew. And I've been in HR now for about 8 years at this point. So the majority of my career now has been spent in HR. When I first transitioned, I was working for a company that makes gift cards. So I was able to learn about their industry, how to support their salaried versus their hourly employees. And I was doing everything with benefits, health and welfare, leave of absence, and 401(k). So it was the first time I was managing all of those elements at the same time. After 4 years with that company, I moved into what was my last role at PagerDuty. Which is where I actually entered benefits administration on the manager side. So that taught me a lot as to not just answering employees' questions, but also getting the opportunity to learn about the strategy aspect of it. And then now I'm in my current role as a senior benefits manager responsible for health and welfare, 401(k), and leave of absence, but primarily on the 401(k) side.

▶3:09HostTamika, tell me about a time when you successfully implemented AI tools to enhance benefits administration what were the challenges you faced and what were the outcomes of this implementation?

▶3:21GuestSure. So in my last role, I used AI a lot for benefits communication. So during open enrollment, there's a lot of communications that we're sending to employees as well as internal stakeholders, and we're typically not communications experts. So it was at that time when ChatGPT and a lot of other tools were really popular that we were able to use those tools to facilitate building out the framework, making sure our communications were concise, but also engaging at the same time. And that really helped us with the volume of communications that we had to send out, especially because in that role, we didn't have a dedicated internal comms person. So we really needed that support of the small benefits team. And that allowed myself and my team to focus on the strategy and answering employees' questions in front of them.

▶4:13HostTamika, tell me about a specific case where your focus on benefits education significantly impacted an employee's decision-making and well-being. How did this influence the organization as a whole?

▶4:26GuestSure. So in my last role at PagerDuty, I was there during 2020, which obviously in the United States, we had a lot of things going on at that time. There was the pandemic. And what was happening with that, as well as some civil unrest in the country as well. And it was at that moment that we were able to move quickly and implement a mental health wellbeing benefit called Headspace at the time. And it was Ginger at the time. They have now been acquired by Headspace. And that was one of the things that employees were asking a lot about. They wanted mental health support. Because of all of the things going on in the country and in the world. They're stuck in the house. So a lot of that was during the lockdowns and things like that. So they needed help dealing with that. And we were able to drive that initiative forward in a few months' time where normally that takes around 9 months. We were able to turn that around in around 60 days. And that education was really important to let employees know we're here for you. This is what this benefit can do. This benefit is here for you when you need it and all the tools and resources around it in that trying time.

▶5:43HostTamika, can you tell us about how you've seen mental health benefits transform in your current or past organizations and what practical steps you took to increase employee engagement with resources like this?

▶5:58GuestIt was around that time during the pandemic in 2020 while where it became a very top-of-mind issue for the benefits community. And there's still obviously a lot of stigma around mental health and support and things like that, but this was the first time that I've seen in my career where employees were actually requesting those resources. A lot of them wanted that support, but they didn't know where to get it. The resource that employees are most familiar with that offers that is EAP. So what we did during that time is to give employees what they were asking for when it came to more dedicated mental health support, but also focus on education to say, this is how you can use this benefit year-round, not just when you're in a crisis, not just when you feel like you're having some dedicated mental health challenges. These are all of the other things that it can offer you, whether it's work-life balance support, You're looking for childcare, if you have childcare needs, nursing, just making sure employees are aware that not only do we have a benefit that may suit your needs for something that you're going through in your personal life, but how to use it, I think, is another thing that is really a challenge for employees. They may see the name and phone number of a benefit on their internal benefits page, but they don't know what it actually offers or how to access it.

▶7:20HostTamika, what parting advice would you like to share with our audience?

▶7:24GuestSure. I would say when it comes to HR professionals and benefits professionals alike, think about yourself as the employee. You're employees too. This is not just a job where you push communications out or you just tell them how to do things. What things are important to you when you're deciding if you want to work somewhere? A lot of times it is those benefits. A lot of times you don't know enough about those benefits. And one other thing that is very interesting to me, employees will reach out to us and say, I wish we had a benefit that offered this, right? And our response, fortunately, a lot of times, we do. So it's pushing that communication, that education to them so they are aware that not only does your employer offer a benefit, for something that you need in your life, but how do you access it? How do you use it? So I think having all of HR stakeholders, not just benefits, HR business partners, talent acquisition, payroll, everybody, all of us, these things that you use in your life as an employer, your peers are using those things too. So if you have a good experience with a benefit, share that. Share that with your peers. Let them know how you used it. So it's not just dependent upon the benefits team to communicate that.

▶8:46HostTamika, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

▶8:51GuestThank you for the opportunity.