OCTOBER 2020HR TECH OUTLOOK8In MyOpinionHarmons has built a reputation of being the top grocer in Utah by offering its customers more. Things like fresh bread made daily from scratch or higher quality meat and cheeses. In-store dieticians and pharmacists, who go out of their way to help its customers make better decisions.The grocer has also been ahead of the curve on employee wellness, offering its associates weekly opportunities to participate in walks or learn via healthy cooking demos. A Harmons pharmacist even created a smoking cessation program that has been in place for years. Just over a year ago, Harmons introduced a mobile application to help align its 19 stores and support office under a unified goal of communicating wellness incentives and benefits to its associates. As of March this year, they've successfully encouraged adoption over 50 percent in all but three of their locations with some locations above 60%. Engagement figures continue to grow as well. We already had a lot of great resources in place that a lot of other grocery stores don't offer to its employees. Introducing mobile app technology into our wellness program was just a way for us to say `hey, here is everything we offer.' We wanted to make it comprehensive and accessible. We wanted everyone to be aware of it.I have a "pretty wild job title." As Wellness Champion, I over see 19 wellness ambassadors, who double as any other role within the grocers' organization. Due to how the associate population is dispersed, it was critically important to find technology that could allow access to digital communication anywhere, at any time. We have wellness ambassadors who work in bulk foods or who are checkers," said Kiel. "They're allotted a few hours each week to go and talk to their associates and see what kind of things they want to see in the wellness program".The wellness ambassadors are able to intimately gauge what Harmons' associates are going through. As Harmons looks to build the program to be more engaging and current, the grocer has found its associates to, once again, be its best resource--and by tracking localized engagement, Kiel has a detailed view of what's working in the program and what's not. I always think I know what would be fun, but our local ambassadors tend to come up with better ideas than I do. We really needed to talk to all the different kinds of people in our company. We realized they don't all want or need the same thing. People are interested in topics we hadn't considered.Harmons even fuels the beneficial use of its wellness app by incentivizing their employees. There are wellness apps that help people to stop smoking or to dial back their drinking. It's as easy as creating a reminder to cut your smoking by one cigarette a day. Then Harmon's awards point for consistency in meeting those goals. The rewards structure includes money. We give away a lot of money.One of Harmons' most successful campaigns was its simplest ­ a challenge for employees to simply pack a vegetable with their lunch, which created a lot of interaction. Through the mobile app, they were able to track that daily goal and report their success as a Sarah Kiel, RDN, Wellness Champion, Harmons GroceryByTechnology Puts Harmons Ahead of the Curve for Employee WellnessSarah Kiel
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