At Eide Bailly, we help our clients thrive and grow. As one of the top CPA and consulting firms in the country, we’re dedicated to connecting with our clients and turning their opportunities into results. For us to do our best for the organizations we serve, our people need to be at their best. This can happen only when we make their health and well-being a priority.
Our commitment to innovation extends to employee mental health
The work we do at Eide Bailly is demanding—from building long-lasting client relationships to navigating complex business issues and consistently delivering service excellence. To support our employees, we know we must continually evolve and find new ways to promote all dimensions of their health: physical, social, emotional, and mental.
To that end, we offer a wide range of innovative benefits above and beyond medical and dental plans, including flexible workplace and remote work options, job exchange programs, a lifestyle spending account, volunteer time, and mental health and relationship counseling.
Always strong, our focus on emotional and mental health intensified during the pandemic. With the shift to remote work, and facing prolonged uncertainty and disruption, many staff experienced heightened stress and anxiety along with a lack of connection. We began to explore mental health and wellness tools, including Calm Business, that would supplement our existing employee assistance program (EAP) and help employees address their stress and anxiety before they could escalate into more serious conditions.
Selecting a mental health employee benefit
In addition to our EAP, counseling, and a fitness app, we wanted to offer a mental health benefit that would help employees make wellness in all aspects of their lives a priority. The tool needed to engage employees and their dependents through a wide variety of compelling wellness options—meditation and beyond—and help them feel more connected to the team. Equally important, we wanted a solution that would be easy to implement and simple to access and use from anywhere because that would help us maximize adoption and rapidly bring relief to as many employees and family members as possible.
Calm Business exceeded our selection criteria. First and foremost, Calm’s broad scope of diverse and accessible mental wellness resources—sleep stories, soundscapes, music, and daily meditations—supports a broad spectrum of needs across our diverse employee base. The content is accessible from anywhere, anytime, and can easily be integrated into our work culture. For instance, employees can start a meeting with a minute-long meditation to help people relax, set the right tone, and enjoy a shared experience. Read how to integrate mental health breaks into your workday with Calm Business for Zoom Meetings.
We also were impressed by Calm’s reporting functionality and future possibilities within the app. Calm’s commitment to continuously evolving their wellness benefits solution aligns perfectly with Eide Bailly’s focus on innovation.
Building a supportive culture around mental health
As a resource that’s easily incorporated into our employees’ daily lives, Calm Business helps us build a supportive culture around mental health. We’re sending a strong message that it’s safe to be open about mental health and make our mental and emotional health priorities, just as we do our physical health.
To keep these messages top of mind for our staff, we created a “Wellness Corner” in our internal company newsletter to promote Calm Business and other mental health benefits and to provide articles on mental health topics, such as how to manage stress or build resilience. Holding periodic “Mindful Mondays” in collaboration with Calm Business is another way we try to build our collective muscle around mental health. We also ensure that our managers are able to guide team members to valuable mental health tools and resources when they need support.
High engagement reflects a positive employee experience
Calm’s administrative and reporting tools are very easy to navigate and help us drive and track employee adoption. We can hop into the Partner Portal to quickly understand how utilization is going, gain population-level insight about employee well-being, and get direct employee feedback about their experience using Calm Business.
More than half our organization has signed up for Calm, and we’ve achieved an exceptional engagement rate of nearly 80 percent. Our ability to achieve such high utilization reflects Calm’s ability to meet employees where they are and offer something for everyone.
Our employees have embraced Calm at work and at home, with Calm Music and Sleep Stories the highest-rated content to date. Meditations are also extremely well received as a way to reduce stress and unwind at the end of the day. Here are just a few comments from Eide Bailly employees about making Calm part of their daily routine:
- “It’s teaching me to be present in the moment and focus on what I am doing at the time, rather than worrying about the million other things on my to-do list. Not that I don’t still worry, but I’m learning to worry less. I trust that if I continue to use the Calm App daily, my stress level will continue to decline.”
- “The bedtime stories have been amazing for my kids. They ask for them every night while they’re falling asleep. The meditations and master classes have been so helpful. I’m so grateful to have this Calm subscription!”
- “It has been so helpful and relaxing when I’m going to sleep. Many nights I can’t turn off my brain from numbers and deadlines. Listening to the sleep stories helps me focus on something else and fall asleep.”
- “I use Calm every night as a relaxation tool for better sleep. I don’t spend my evenings spinning with thoughts. I set a timer and I’m always asleep before it ends. When I have a big-focus project I will sometimes play the focus music selections as a nice background. This is a daily benefit for me and I am so appreciative.”
It’s gratifying to see the positive impact of Calm Business on the lives of our people and their families. We’re excited to see where we can go next with Calm as our partner in employee mental health and well-being.
About Eide Bailly
Founded in 1917, Eide Bailly provides tax, audit and assurance, and consulting services for mid-market organizations across all industries. We’ve grown to more than 3,000 employees and operate out of 40+ offices in the U.S. and India. Our clients count on us to bring forward inspired ideas and innovative solutions to help them tackle complex business and regulatory challenges in always-changing environments.
For more information on supporting employee mental well-being and creating a positive work culture, connect with our Calm specialist today.
