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Author: Aleena Gardezi

Golin’s Life Time: “Happy People Make Happy Clients”

Posted November 2, 2016

Last April, Interpublic Group agency Golin announced Life Time, an expanded and flexible global employee benefits program. The program is centered around four major new or improved policies: Unlimited Time Off, Enhanced Family Care, Extended Health & Wellness and Work-from-Anywhere Flexibility.

“Agencies have long expected staff to fit their lives into their careers, but we have made the bold decision to instead help ours fit their careers into their lives,” said Gary Rudnick, president, Americas and key sponsor of Life Time in a press release.

“We believe the best way to do that is to be far more flexible, trusting, relevant, generous and supportive. And in turn, we are convinced that our people will produce even better work, they will be happier and healthier, and they will be even more passionate advocates for our agency.”

Unlimited Time Off states that employees will no longer be subject to a fixed number of days off, nor will any time be accrued. Employees will take time off at their discretion, and in concert with their team and clients.

The four policies:

Enhanced Family Care is set up to support employees in balancing their families and careers through the Maternity Ease Out/Ease Back program for new mothers. In conjunction with a new IPG policy, paid parental leave from IPG has also expanded from two weeks paid to six weeks paid. This is in addition to extended time and pay to care for a family member. Other Family Care initiatives will include New Parent Counseling and emergency daycare support.

The Extended Health & Wellness program includes a monthly stipend of $75 for each employee, to cover activities such as gym memberships, pet care, personal growth classes, fitness training and other activities employees feel would make them healthier and happier away from the office environment. Other Health & Wellness initiatives will include a test of Mind & Body Training – where professional training will be combined with physical training in a gym environment.

Work-from-Anywhere Flexibility gives employees the option to work from home one day a week. Flexibility initiatives also include new part-time and job sharing options for staff.

Since the program was implemented, Golin has noticed that sixty percent more of employees use their health and wellness perks, take more vacations with an average of two extra days per person/per year and they are all a part of teams who take advantage of the work-from-anywhere-flexibility.

“Employees love these initiatives and we found that a lot of people have applied to work here because of the new policies,” said Fred Cook, CEO of Golin.

The company has also noticed that a number of mom and dads are utilizing the enhanced family care policies and unlimited PTO.

“Much of our workforce is female and a lot of them have children; this allows them to feel a little more relaxed about time off when their kids are sick or when the schools are closed, explained Cook.” “This way, they don’t have to use up all of their vacation time.”