Navigate's People First Podcast

Navigate Wellbeing
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Welcome to The People First Podcast by Navigate! Each month, our CEO and Founder, Troy Vincent will bring you an episode featuring some of our favorite people in the employee wellbeing industry, as well as insights from our own team. Get ready to learn and grow with us as we discover and discuss the resources you need to bring more health and happiness back to your people and culture.  Navigate | Corporate Wellbeing Platform Subscribe on Goodpods today! 134354

  1. Oct 7

    "Be Seen": How One County's Wellness Coordinator Drove an 84% Engagement Jump

    Drew Mettille is a Human Resource Analyst and Wellness Coordinator for Polk County in Des Moines, Iowa, where he and his team have driven an 84% increase in wellbeing engagement over the past two years. Troy and Jay sit down with Drew to go behind that number, not just what the program looks like on paper, but how a single wellness coordinator earns the trust of nearly a thousand employees spread across 20 buildings.Drew walks through the flexible, points-based system that lets a mechanic, a park ranger, and a detention officer all define "wellbeing" on their own terms; the pivot from an expensive gym-and-Peloton reimbursement program into the more sustainable "Wellness Bucks" model that helped drive the engagement spike; and the very human, very specific barrier that decides whether a department goes all-in or opts out almost entirely. We also cover: Why Polk County's points system rewards "overall wellbeing" broadly enough that an employee at the equestrian center earns credit for playing flute for the horses, and why that flexibility matters for a workforce this diverseHow an unsustainable, wildly popular gym and personal-training reimbursement program got consolidated into "Wellness Bucks", a $200 annual reimbursement that became a major driver of the 84% engagement increaseWhy Drew's simplest advice to other wellness coordinators is also his most repeated: "be seen"

  2. Sep 22

    A new framework for wellbeing. Empowering employees to thrive

    Ask almost anyone how they're doing at work and you'll get the same word back: fine. Meanwhile your tenured people are quietly heading for the door, claims costs keep climbing, and half your workforce is carrying financial stress, burnout, or quiet disengagement that never shows up on a dashboard. Fine isn't thriving, it's just where struggle goes to hide in plain sight. That gap between looking fine and actually thriving is exactly what Jen, who leads product and strategy at Navigate, and Matt Percia, a Navigate strategic advisor, spend their days closing. They walk through why most wellbeing programs (with their gamification and engagement dashboards) never touch the real reasons an employee is struggling, and introduce the PAVE framework Navigate uses instead to picture the future, assess the present, find the highest-value opportunities, and engage employees for the long haul. Along the way they share what happened when a 29,000-person health system stopped guessing about what its people needed and actually asked. We also cover: How to read the eight pillars of wellbeing so you catch financial or career strain before it shows up as a resignation or a claim What Prisma Health did differently that turned one new financial wellbeing benefit into a 44% jump in learning completions and a 1,000% spike in webinar participation Why letting go of last year's wellbeing playbook (even one that "worked") is often the fastest way to get better results this year

  3. Jul 30

    From checking the box to all in: Box Butte's wellbeing transformation

    Some wellbeing programs are built quickly, without thought or strategy. Others are built over decades. Refined, rethought, and rooted in something real.Box Butte General Hospital's story is the second kind. In this special edition webinar-turned-podcast episode, our EVP of Client Services and Experience, Jim Barclay, has a conversation with Dan Newhoff, Organizational Development Specialist, and Peggy Hinman, Certified Life & Wellbeing Coach, from Box Butte General Hospital. Box Butte General Hospital has spent decades evolving their wellbeing program.  In this episode, you'll also hear: A new way to think about incentives — what Box Butte tried, what they changed, and what finally clicked for their peopleThe Peggy Effect — why hiring a dedicated wellbeing coach became a turning point for the entire programHow they made the business case — the data, the frameworks, and the conversations that earned lasting leadership buy-inWhat employee engagement looks like — and why it starts long before anyone opens a wellness appLessons from 30 years in the field — the good, the hard, and everything worth stealing for your own program

  4. Jun 25

    From culture to VOI: proving wellbeing's business impact

    If you're being asked to prove the business impact of your wellbeing program, you're not alone. Healthcare costs keep climbing. Leadership wants numbers. And somewhere between participation slides and vendor promises, the real question gets lost: Is this actually working? In this webinar-turned-podcast episode, Navigate Strategic Advisor Matt Percia sits down with three HR and wellness leaders who are answering that question every single day, each in a different industry, each with a different workforce, and each finding their own path to proving value. You'll hear from Ann Medakovich, Employee Well-being Lead at Nebraska Medicine, who is using personalized health journeys and biometric screenings to meet healthcare workers where they are. From Michelle Matthews, Wellness Coordinator at Rogue Credit Union, who's built a culture where wellbeing shows up in everything from financial wellness to ergonomic assessments. And from Cheryl Murphy, Human Resources Manager - Wellness at Hillsborough County who transformed their program from education-heavy webinars into action-driven challenges that 6,600 public sector employees want to join.

  5. May 28

    The future of health coaching in employee wellbeing

    The wellbeing space is moving fast, and if you're feeling the pressure to cut through vendor noise and prove real results, you're not alone. Organizations everywhere are asking the same big question: Where is health coaching headed, and how do we get it right? In this leadership roundtable, our Navigate experts tackle the shifts happening right now in the coaching landscape. Employers are no longer asking whether to offer coaching, they're asking where individual support creates the most strategic value for their population. The panel pulls apart vendor fatigue, the GLP-1 cost crisis, and why complexity itself has become one of the biggest barriers to employee engagement. We also cover:  • The vendor consolidation reality and how to navigate point solution overwhelm •  How a large food production client cut through years of vendor churn and, within 60 days, saw more than 400 members at a manufacturing client enroll in coaching, in an industry most people assume is impossible to reach •  What GLP-1s have to do with coaching: why 29% of members in one Navigate program reduced or skipped their prescription entirely after working with a health coach

  6. Apr 30

    Rethinking how workplaces support women’s health

    Most employers have a women's health benefit somewhere in their stack. It probably covers fertility or pregnancy, maybe menopause. And then it stops — as if women stop having health needs the moment they step off that particular conveyor belt. In this episode, Troy sits down with Dawn DuBois, Director of Community Outreach at St. Luke's Health System, and Dr. Jen Musick, Navigate's VP of Clinical Strategy, to make the case for treating women's health as a continuous, coordinated enterprise strategy — not a series of disconnected point solutions. Dawn brings 16 years of community health experience and a front-row view of where women fall through the cracks. Dr. Jen brings the clinical lens, including a sharp focus on why cardiovascular risk in women remains one of the most overlooked gaps in employer wellbeing programs. Together, they outline what it actually looks like to move from check-the-box women's benefits to an integrated strategy that follows women from their 20s through menopause and beyond. We also cover: Why heart disease — the number one killer of women — rarely shows up in employer women's health programs, and what closing that gap looks like in practice How St. Luke’s Spirit impacts women’s health in the community across all stages of life, meeting women where they are in the times that matter most.The two building blocks every HR leader should start with when launching or overhauling a women's health strategy — regardless of budget or company size

  7. Mar 26

    Reaching diverse workforces across industries - why your wellbeing program isn't working (and what actually does)

    If your wellbeing program looks the same for every employee, it’s not a strategy — it’s a guess. And guesses don’t lower healthcare costs or fix burnout.In this episode, Troy Vincent and Jeremy Knipper sit down with Navigate’s VP of Clinical Strategy, Dr. Jen Musick  to unpack a reality most HR teams are quietly facing: wellbeing programs often fail because they ignore how people actually work. A plant worker on second shift, a burned-out nurse, a union crew member, and a high-performing consultant all face different pressures — yet companies still roll out the same step challenge and call it engagement. That’s where things break.The conversation dives into how Navigate approaches wellbeing differently: by aligning clinical science, workforce culture, and real engagement data to design programs that actually work across different industries. We also explore: Why cookie-cutter wellbeing programs quietly fail across industriesThe engagement myth that’s costing employers millions in healthcare spendHow personalized pathways drive 50%+ risk migration and real behavior changeWhy public sector and union workforces often outperform expectations in wellbeing engagementHow leadership participation and culture determine whether a program succeeds or stalls

  8. Feb 26

    How culture turns wellbeing Into clinical results with Toby Stime and Jad Khalil

    If your wellbeing program can’t prove outcomes, it’s not a benefit — it’s budget confetti. In this episode, Troy Vincent and Jeremy Knipper sit down with Toby Stime, Director of Benefits at Foster Farms, and Jad Khalil, Team Lead Client Success at Navigate and for a blunt look at what actually drives measurable wellbeing results — especially in complex, diverse, frontline workforces. Foster Farms nearly cut their wellbeing program entirely after three vendors in three years left them with admin headaches, plateaued participation, and “same poster, same program” fatigue. Then they switched to Navigate — and the story flips from transactional vendor chaos to a true partnership built on trust, cultural alignment, and relentless personalization. You’ll hear how they made wellbeing accessible across 7–8 primary languages, why “culture first” unlocked real engagement, and what happened when they moved from surface-level participation to targeted condition support and human coaching (not just tech). The payoff? Biometrics that don’t lie plus a clear framework for how brokers and HR leaders should evaluate a wellbeing partner without getting sold another shiny dashboard. We also explore: Why “nice-to-have” wellbeing dies the moment budgets tightenThe real cost of plateaued programs (and why vendors love it)How personalization + human coaching becomes the ultimate outcomes engineWhat brokers/HR should demand in a vendor evaluation (culture + evolution, or walk)

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Welcome to The People First Podcast by Navigate! Each month, our CEO and Founder, Troy Vincent will bring you an episode featuring some of our favorite people in the employee wellbeing industry, as well as insights from our own team. Get ready to learn and grow with us as we discover and discuss the resources you need to bring more health and happiness back to your people and culture.  Navigate | Corporate Wellbeing Platform Subscribe on Goodpods today! 134354

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