Kim
Hello everyone. I’m Kim Thiboldeaux, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to NEBGH Voices, a new podcast from the Northeast Business Group on Health. Today’s guests are guaranteed to give us something new to think about. Naeemah Blakely is the leave of absence manager and Alan Lubeck is the head of US benefits at Sanofi. Naeemah and Alan, welcome to the podcast.
Alan
Thank you for having us.
Kim
So before we dive into our topic today, please tell me a little bit more about about you and what led you to a career in HR and benefits. Alan, let me start with you.
Alan
Sure! So everyone’s journey into a career and employee benefits is somewhat unique. I don’t think anyone chooses it as a childhood career, but I started out doing actuarial retirement work for about 14 years, and defined benefits systems work. I did that for 14 years around and then I moved into the corporate employee benefits side, more on the retirement side, at a very large employer in the US, or a global employer, and I was fortunate enough that they spun off their financial services arm, and they asked me to head up all of their benefits, not just retirement. So I was my first foray into health and welfare and total well being, in addition to retirement. So I did that for 10 years, and then I’ve been fortunate enough to be at Sanofi for seven as head of US benefits. And I not look back once.
Kim
Amazing. Amazing. So you’re saying Alan when you were eight years old, you didn’t say, I’m either going to be a fireman or an HR and benefits professional
Alan
Haha! Definitely not an actuary.
Kim
Haha! Naeemah. How about you? What brought you to this work
Naeemah
So much like Alan, my story is a little bit… it wasn’t… I didn’t plan to land here. I actually wanted to be a nurse, but my career in HR has actually been a full circle moment. So I started off managing claims with Prudential. I worked at Prudential Financial for 14 years, managing short term and just short term and long term disability claims. Um, I pivoted to the pharmaceutical industry, and I started my career as a benefit administrator. So it probably was the foundation that gave me the skills that I have in my job now, which is the leave of absence manager here at Sanofi. And right now, my responsibility is to handle all things leave of absence related internally within Sanofi, but then also externally with our vendor.
Kim
Fantastic. Well, I do find in working in this space, that a lot of you have arrived sort of accidentally in your careers. But what I do find is that all of you are kind of wonderful and amazing people really trying to support your employees. And that kind of leads me to our, you know, to our topic for today, Alan. Let me bring you in here. I want to dive into Sanofi’s cancer and work program. This program provides employees with one year of salary benefits and job protection if they’re diagnosed with cancer or other critical illnesses. Alan, this is quite, um, an extraordinary benefit. Can you tell us a little bit about its inception? What led Sanofi to implement this benefit?
Alan
Sure. So let me give you the story of how this started. So in early 2023 Sanofi, along with many other employers, signed up with this working with cancer pledge, and basically it recognized the stigma of cancer and tried to reduce that in the workforce. That was the idea behind it, but it didn’t really have any meat behind it, right? It was really just a pledge, and Sanofi really took it upon itself to go above and beyond that and really implement a up to one year of base pay, salary benefits and job protection globally. So if you think about that, it sounds so simple in a sense, but realistically, to do this, it was groundbreaking, very innovative. You know, I’ve worked on a lot of exciting projects, large projects, over my lengthy career, but never have I done something that was never done before, right? There was always, you know, one or two companies that may have started it, but this was really, we didn’t really have a base. How do we do this? And, you know, this was so, Sanofi wanted to do this and not just look at what I mentioned, but they wanted to hit on not just the employees, but how this indirectly affects family members and other employees?
Alan
So they’re, they’re, direct or indirectly affected by cancer. And then outside of cancer, there’s critical illness, right? So that’s a even a bigger question mark, right? Because that, that, that’s enormous how many critical illnesses are there so and Sanofi wanted to incorporate financial, which we talked about, but also the emotional and social well being perspectives of this program. So they called it like a 360 approach, okay? And that’s what we started to do, and build it in. You know, Q1, Q2, of 2024, I’m sorry, 23. And, uh, but we had to develop a global definition of how we were going to define cancer and critical illness. And you know, Sanofi has over 85,000 employees in over 90 countries. As I understand it, the scope was 64 countries. So I’m not in charge of global benefits, but I’m only going to talk about the US portion.
Kim
Sure.
Alan
But we did want some minimum standards and the definition, we wanted a global standard, how we were going to define cancer and critical illness. In addition, there’s no tenure requirement, which is pretty amazing in itself, and no pre existing condition exclusions, which is pretty, pretty cool as well. So you know, how are we going to do this? And that was the big question. So we defined a generic terminology that would cover every country and how we would define critical illness. Not going too deep, because every country could have it a little differently, but basically we define it as you know, it could be mortal, it could kill you, right? And that was, that was one of the primary things that we had to incorporate in the definition. But then, which critical illnesses were you going to add in there?
Kim
Right. Right.
Alan
You know, cancer itself is a huge… I there’s probably 100 different cancers, right? Where are you going to… what if somebody had a mole on their finger that was cancerous, melanoma, the start of melanoma, it was stage zero. Are you going to allow that. We decided, no, we’re not. But again, you have to come up with these sort of rules, guard rails.
Kim
Sure.
Alan
So our program really incorporated, um, I’m going to tell you the critical illnesses. It was cancer, obviously, Alzheimer’s, coronary artery disease, heart attack, kidney failure, major organ transplant and stroke, and those were the conditions we were covering in the US. Outside of the US, it may be doing a little different
Kim
Ok.
Alan
But we had to do this in the confines of our lease administrator. How are we going to do this with a short term disability and long term disability? How are we going to do, you know, no LTD carrier is going to cover you at 100% that’s not feasible. So how are you going to make up that remainder of what LTD covers? And, you know, the payroll aspects of it that we had to consider that.
Kim
Right, right.
Alan
So, and then the STD policy, because we didn’t have 100% up to 180 days where, that’s where our LTD program takes over after six months. So we had to make some changes in this to incorporate this in the US. So it wasn’t just a, a, big financial um cost. There was a lot of resources that we had to invest in. And Naeemah, credit to her, has really taken a lot. I mean this, this was probably a nine month project for both of us, but Naeemah was intimate, and I will turn it over to her.
Kim
I’m sure, yeah, and I just want to, for our listeners, maybe not in the benefit space, STD, short term disability, LTD, long term disability, just so that we’re clarifying for folks who are who are listening, and that’s our HR benefits shorthand, so for our listeners. But Naeemah, so I would like to please bring you into the conversation. I know you really had your hands in this and your heart in this. Tell us more about, just for a moment before we get to some of the nuances of the program, tell us more about the impact of a critical illness, like like cancer on an employee. In your experience, what does that journey look like, and why is this benefit so important?
Naeemah
So, once an employee receives their initial or a recurrent cancer diagnosis, right? Because it could be it could be an initial diagnosis, or it could be a cancer that has come back, they are often met with like, grief or disbelief, right? It can’t be me. This isn’t happening to me. These feelings are usually hard to process, and some employees even experience numbness or denial, right?
Kim
Yeah.
Naeemah
I remember very vividly. I had a gentleman who was diagnosed, and he was very angry. He was angry with me, he was angry at the world. He just was not able to process his diagnosis. But I think the most common emotions employees display more so are surrounding fear and anxiety, specifically of the unknown about their careers, their salaries and just their survival.
Kim
Sure
Naeemah
employees have also reached out to Me for guidance and inquire about how they can work while receiving chemo and or radiation. It is a practice, that I heavily discourage. But at the end of the day, what I have been told is that employees are raising a hand to work because it’s a necessary distraction. So um, when I hear that, I tend to relax my guidance because I want people to feel comfortable in their journey, and I want them to feel like I’m forcing them to take option A or pption B. I just share with them, from a financial perspective, whether you work or you do not work, you will be covered at 100%.
Kim
Yeah, that it’s real, it’s really such an incredible benefit Naeemah and I’m sure you’ve seen, you know, in your work up close the impact and the challenge of the diagnosis on folks. Um, Alan, can you just go back you touched on it a little bit, but just go back a little bit about Sanofi, I know you’re a global company. You talked about how this is a benefit, um you know, that is worldwide. Tell me again, how many countries you guys are in, how many employees you have, and then talk about those numbers in the US, and a little bit more about what the rollout looked like on the US side.
Alan
Sure. So we are in over 90 countries. We have 85,000 employees globally. Our headquarters is in Paris, right? So we are a French company, but global multinational. In the US, we have about 13,000 US employees. Um, you know, Germany as an example we have 8000. China you know, almost 8000 as well, India. But we are in the globe, right, every continent except for Antarctica, basically. And, you know, this program was rolled out to 64 countries in scope. So that’s what Sanofi wanted to do, and we set minimum standards that all the countries have to abide by.
Kim
So I have been to Antarctica. I will tell you, Alan, I did not see the Sanofi office there, so I think you’re right, not in Antarctica. Hahaha, um but again, it’s just an incredible you know, number of employees that you’re that you’re covering. What a, what a sort of complex, you know, roll out of this program. I’m sure it’s just been an extraordinary effort. Naeemah, can you tell us a little bit more about what Sanofi is doing to support employees with cancer and other illnesses? Obviously, this program is very generous, but you talked about that sort of 360 approach. Are you providing navigation support, financial resources, psychosocial support, counseling, you know, talk about that 360 wrap around.
Naeemah
So there’s about a half a dozen support benefits that Sanofi just has as a standalone just because we’re in a pharmaceutical space and we do have to offer competitive benefits. And I’ll just, I’ll name some of the resources that we have and give you a brief introduction to what they are. So we, right now our insurance is with Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and we do have a Horizon Health Guide. And what this in essence, is it is a personal benefits concierge service, so it will help our employees schedule an appointment. It assists them with complex case management, so if they have a cancer diagnosis, they can get a team assigned to them to help them through the ins and outs of their diagnosis, treatment, um returning back to work.
Naeemah
And then, um, in order for employees to be eligible for that program, they would need to be involved in in a Sanofi US medical plan. We also have employee resource groups and/or affinity groups. I’m not sure what name works for the listening audience, but these programs offer safe spaces for our employees who are affect who may have been affected by cancer, be it they are a patient, caregiver or colleague, and this format allows them to connect and share their experience and support one another. We also have a cancer care program through our our “My Medical Ally” program, and it offers employees and their eligible family members to get quality medical care when facing a can— when facing a cancer diagnosis, and it’s incentivized by offering a $500 prepaid card for those who for those who complete the program. We also allow employees to work flexibly. So if a nine to five schedule doesn’t work for you, but because you may be receiving chemo, in the middle of the day, we will, we allow our employees to work with their managers to off to say, “Okay, I’m going to start at nine, but I’m going to take a break at 12, and I’ll be back on at four, and I’ll work the duration of my day after I receive my care and treatment.”
Naeemah
We also offer backup care for both adults and children, and that can be leveraged by employees who may need that um and care of their traditional daycare or adult care for the age group that they’re providing care to. We also offer in the US, we also offer pay four paid weeks of caregiver leave, so this can be utilized for employees who are um looking to reconcile their caregiver responsibilities for close family members who are suffering from cancer and/or critical illness, and most importantly, we do have an array of mental health resources. We have a standardized employee assistance program. We also have a partnership with Headspace, and we also have several other mental health resources that our employees can leverage to help them with the initial diagnosis and then the life cycle of their cancer diagnosis, treatment, recovery and return to work.
Kim
That’s a great overview, Naeemah. Thank you so much for that. And I know that that, aside from from critical illness, that mental health has become a huge priority issue for employers. And I think that that employers were very much tested, you know, during COVID. And I think it brought to light a lot of the, you know, mental health challenges that employees are facing. And I think it also really gave folks permission to talk about some of these issues and bring it to the fore once they realized so many others, you know, were dealing with the same. Alan, can you expand a little bit? Naeemah talked a little bit about the caregiver benefit. We certainly know that a serious illness can have a significant impact on families, on caregivers at home. So talk about a little bit more about the benefits you’re providing to someone, if they are a caregiver, your employee and a caregiver of someone with a serious illness. What, What, What benefits are there? What support is there? What resources are there for them?
Alan
Yeah, so, as Naeemah said, we offer flexibility, right? That’s so somebody who falls under this program, they can take flex time, part— they can go part time, they can work remotely. You know, we’re open, right? We want this person to be fully supported. And if they want to work, they can, right? So we were open to that. But in addition, we have this four weeks of paid caregiver leave, which we’re really proud of. Like that is, that’s a pretty cool benefit that somebody can take advantage of, you know, if they have, you know, an elderly parent or a child or whatever, or somebody who has cancer and they’re trying to take care of them,. They can just take that time off and and focus on the needs of of their loved one or whoever. And I think that that really is a testament to this company. I mean, I am so proud of what Sanofi offers to our employees and dependents. It, it goes above and beyond my experience at other companies.
Alan
And, you know, I think Sanofi deserves a lot of kudos for starting this program, uh, which is really groundbreaking. And I don’t want to, I really don’t want to tiptoe on that, because that that really, I mean job paid job protection in the US, it doesn’t exist.
Kim
Yeah yeah.
Alan
And I think, you know, I kind of glossed over that in the beginning, and I should have spelled that out, but I think that is one of the most important factors of this program. We want people to take care of their health, get better, come back to work
Kim
Yeah.
And that, and we offer all these different solutions that Naeemah and I talked about to help them and support them.
Kim
Well, I certainly think this benefit is going to is going to achieve that. Alan, really, really exciting, and it is groundbreaking. You’re absolutely right. And I think getting the attention of many of your peers in the HR and benefits world, for sure, as we sort of wrap up the conversation today on the podcast, we are committed to storytelling to bring these kinds of benefits to life. Um. Naeemah, is there a success story? Maybe one or two stories that you can share since you rolled the program out? Maybe an employee who’s benefited from this cancer and work program?
Naeemah
Yes. So I have two I have two stories. I have one from the lens of an employee directly, and then I have one through the lens of our vendor who administers the benefit. So the employee story was that she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her sentiment about the program was “Sanofi’s cancer and work benefit was very helpful. As I was going through treatment for breast cancer, doing my leave, I underwent two major surgeries, not have to worry about retaining my job, enable me to focus on my recovery. Sanofi, support of his employees who are experiencing a significant health crisis is one of the many benefits that come with working here.”
Kim
Mmm. Beautiful quote, beautiful quote. Yeah
Naeemah
And the second employee. So just to give you guys context at with our vendor, we have a nurse case manager program as an overlay. So the nurses look at the Cancer Network claims for eligibility, and then they make outreach to the employees to guide them through the claim process. So the testimony I’m going to share now is from that lens. The employee said that the nurse team helped him walk through the disability process and helped him to understand medically what was going on and how to handle what was happening. He reported that he was thankful for the program and really appreciated that he had the opportunity to experience the nurse intervention firsthand. He stated that they gave him follow up calls to help reassure him, and um, he was excited about just knowing he has someone to call that was very helpful, and it helped relieve some stress.
Kim
Fantastic. Another great share. Naeemah, thank you so much, um, for that. I really want to thank you both for joining us today and sharing about this wonderful benefit. I’m sure that it will be an inspiration to many, and thank you, especially Naeemah for sharing those quotes and sharing those stories. Because it is one thing to talk about the program and its framework. It’s another to hear directly from folks who are benefiting from it, so I appreciate you sharing that today
Kim
Today, I want to recognize our premier sponsors, Pfizer and Sanofi. Our presenting sponsors, Grail and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. And our supporting sponsor Johnson & Johnson. Grail is an independent sponsor of this podcast and is not affiliated with the other sponsors. These wonderful partners make it possible for us to share this content with you. This is NEBGH Voices. We hope you’ve learned something new today, until next time. I wish you wellness.
