How Virta Health applies its evidence-based approach to employee benefits

Virta Health provides benefits for the parents in their employee population with the same care and attention they give to the treatment they create.

About Virta Health

Virta Health is the first clinically-proven treatment to safely and sustainably reverse type 2 diabetes without medications or surgery. The company’s mission is to reverse diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. They enable diabetes reversal with a clinically proven treatment delivered through fully virtual continuous care.

Similar to its treatment, Virta Health takes an evidence-based approach to understanding and supporting their employees’ needs, looking for this same rigour in each of their benefits partners. Virta Health’s HR team identified support for working parents as a key opportunity to improve their employee experience. Over a quarter of their team has parental responsibilities, and in the past year, their team of just over 200 has welcomed nearly 20 new Virtan babies. One of the ways they support this group is by providing their team members with benefits that can be tailored to an employee’s parenting needs.

Download the complete case study

My guide was phenomenal. I wrote to her afterward to tell her how much hope she gave me after so much negativity from my friends about breastfeeding. She was energetic, had such good tangible information to share and was a really engaging presenter.

Anonymous Virta Health Employee

Supporting the individual needs of employees

Virta Health implemented Cleo in 2018 and now has families returning to use Cleo’s family benefit support for the second time as they welcome a second child. As a healthcare company, one of the things that Virta Health’s employees value most is that Cleo is evidence-based and pairs eligible families with experienced Cleo Guides (health and wellness, parenting, and career experts), reinforcing confidence in the benefit offered. “At Virta, our values ‘People First’ and ‘Evidence Based’ drive our benefits decisions. Cleo reflects these values in supporting both our parents and our HR Team,” said Marc Mooney, People & Places team.

It’s also important to their team that Cleo offers flexibility and individualized support, with both immediate resources and personal care. Cleo meets members where they are, offering one-on-one support from a Cleo Guide, live sessions with experts, opportunities to connect with fellow parents in group sessions and live workshops, and personalized content. The fact that Cleo can scale with their team and address a variety of parenting needs while maintaining a personalized approach is what compelled them to partner with Cleo.

 

 

Every parent has unique needs. Cleo’s support is inclusive, for parents who are single or partnered, families that are welcoming a first, second or third child, and for parents of all orientations and identities. We recognized that to provide the personalized and flexible support that our parents needed, we’d have to find a unique benefits partner. Cleo provides a wide range of support in one platform. Cleo’s not just a resource, our employees have someone they can talk to.

Marc Mooney, Virta Health People & Places team

Though it can be challenging to work with benefits providers, Cleo made the implementation process simple for Virta Health’s HR team.

“We’re grateful to have one point-of-contact at Cleo for all enrollment and implementation questions. We also appreciate how hands on the Cleo team is, which allows our team to focus on having the greatest impact with our new parents.”

Benefits that keep parents coming back to work

One of the most important metrics that reflects a company’s culture is the rate of parents who return to work after parental leave. It’s one of the biggest life changes a person can go through and when a company can retain valuable employees after a parental leave, it is a strong indicator of how supported the employee feels. With Cleo, Virta Health has a 100% return-to-work rate for their working parents. Virta’s employees return to work after parental leave feeling engaged and appreciative of the support provided through Cleo for before and after their return to work.

“Cleo supports all types of parents and parenting situations. Since we began offering Cleo, every one of our parents has returned to Virta after their parental leave. And parents consistently recommend Cleo to Virtans who are expecting. When our parents return to work, they’re grateful for the level of support that Cleo provided and that Virta offers such an outstanding benefit,” Marc shared.

Virta Health’s People & Places team introduces Cleo as a benefit in their very first communication with an expecting parent. This reinforces Cleo as a personalized support system for working parents and highlights the breadth of the support that Virta provides as employees welcome a new family member. It also offers a start to a seamless relationship between Cleo Guides and working parents.

 

Virta Health’s People & Places team introduces Cleo as a benefit in their very first communication with an expecting parent. This reinforces Cleo as a personalized support system for working parents and highlights the breadth of the support that Virta provides as employees welcome a new family member. It also offers a start to a seamless relationship between Cleo Guides and working parents.

Cleo is a partner for both our HR Team and our parents throughout this significant life experience.

Marc Mooney

“One of our biggest surprises with Cleo was how seamless it was to onboard new parents. After we introduce a parent to Cleo, their Guide immediately partners with them, working to understand their needs and providing tailored coaching, resources and support. Virtans using Cleo regularly share positive feedback with expecting parents and have highlighted how great a benefit it is during our all hands and group meetings.”

Marc and Virta’s HR Operations leader, Jasmine Cornett, also value the level of feedback from Cleo they receive through quarterly check-ins and reports. This additional insight helps them understand how they can continue to support working parents.

Thank you so much. That was such an awesome class. I’m legitimately energized right now from it. I was feeling really disheartened by some of the classes I’ve taken in the past and just hearing about my friends breastfeeding woes, so thank you for giving me hope, and dare I say, excitement, about breastfeeding and the info around it! I will definitely tell my coworkers using Cleo to take this class with you!

Anonymous Virta Health Employee

Download the complete case study