Under the Rock: Mental Health Benefits & Resources at Ro

What does it mean when a company says they offer comprehensive mental health benefits? In this feature, we’re taking a look under the rock into our benefits program to show you how Ro has worked to ensure that our team has year-round support for their mental health & wellbeing. Read to learn more and don’t miss out on opportunities to join our growing team — explore careers at Ro here.

Hi, I’m Lauren Zimmerman, and I’m on the People Operations team at Ro! Our work touches on everything from new hire onboarding to benefits to workplace experience and events. We spend our days building programs, offerings, and tools that foster a fun and inclusive employee experience for all Ro’ers.

While Ro’ers work so hard to take care of others — our patients, our families, our communities — sometimes we need a little help finding the time and space to take care of ourselves. This is why I feel so lucky that I get to work on programs that directly impact and support Ro’ers in feeling their best, both in their professional and personal lives. Ultimately, our ability to provide thoughtful and holistic benefits programs for our team ladders up to our ability to help patients and build our patient-centric healthcare system.

While the need for thoughtful and accessible mental health resources is not new — and has always been in the fabric of Ro — recent events continue to underscore just how important it is to invest in mental health tools and resources for ourselves and our teammates. As we built our benefits program, we wanted to ensure that we could provide flexible and inclusive benefits that support the whole Ro’er. This meant looking at the areas we could support them in their day-to-day work and in the lives they lead outside of Ro.

Supporting Ro’ers at Home

Knowing that we have a diverse population with a variety of wants and needs, we’ve put a heavy focus on providing flexible and not one-size-fits-all programming. Different tools and modalities work for different people, and our goal was to provide a suite of options so that Ro’ers have access to the resources that are right for them — whatever that may be.

• Therapy & Counseling — In 2021, Ro introduced Modern Health to its benefits package for U.S. based Ro’ers. Modern Health provides mental wellness support options such as counseling, therapy, and community sessions led by therapists and counselors. This benefit also includes unlimited access to community-based sessions called Circles, which are designed to be spaces to collectively learn, grow, and connect across topics that impact employees’ day-to-day lives. Especially for a topic as delicate and personal as one’s mental health, it was critical to Ro that it could provide all employees — whether they identified as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, or otherwise — with resources that supported their individual needs. With a diverse network of coaches and therapists, employees on Modern Health’s platform can request providers of a certain race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or other characteristics.

• On-Demand Tools & Apps — Ro’ers also have access to free, full subscriptions to Headspace and Ginger, which each provide guided meditation and virtual mental health support, respectively. Both apps offer around-the-clock tools to help Ro’ers address their mental health on their own time.

• Physical Health — As a healthcare company, we understand the deep connection between a person’s physical and mental health. Through our benefits platform, Ro’ers have full subscriptions to Aaptiv, a workout app that provides fitness classes and training programs; and Omada Health, a virtual physical therapy.

• Medical Coverage — These benefits are in addition to Ro’s health plan through Empire which includes coverage for mental healthcare and prescription drug therapy when deemed medically necessary.

Acknowledging Our Mental Health in the Workplace

We recognize that transforming healthcare is no small feat. Ro’ers are relentless and pour themselves into reimagining this industry for the better. As a People team, we want to support those efforts and give Ro’ers opportunities to pause, rest, and recharge.

We think of this as the ‘put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others’ concept. We know we need to invest in our own team’s well-being in order to help others.

In the workplace, there are a few programs we’ve put in place to practice this philosophy:

• Ro’fresh Days — “Ro’fresh Days” are company-wide days off that, collectively, ensure that Ro’ers have the time they need to reset and refresh. While Ro maintains a flexible PTO policy, our teams have agreed that taking a collective company-wide day off would fortify our PTO-positive workplace culture. Sometimes it’s easier to hit pause when you know others are doing the same!

• Work It Wednesdays — Technology has allowed us to be always-on, but we are actually more effective when we have long stretches of uninterrupted deep work. Every Wednesday morning — until 1pm ET — Ro’ers have a no-meeting calendar hold, reserved for focus time.

• Wellness Stipend — Finally, Ro has a variety of flexible annual stipends for Ro’ers to use including an annual well-being stipend, learning and development stipend, and remote work stipend, each of which employees can use toward whatever supports well-being or makes them feel most productive.

As Mental Health Awareness Month winds down, I’m reminded of just how lucky I am to be part of a team and a company that cares deeply about employees’ well-being both in and out of the office. As a new mom who welcomed a little one during the pandemic and found myself needing some postpartum support, I’m so grateful for all the flexible resources Ro provides. Whether it’s the ability to connect with a support system within our company, attend a Modern Health Circle, or use Headspace meditations when I have a few minutes — the support has been invaluable. But our work doesn’t stop there and we are always looking for ways to maintain and grow our benefits to ensure they are accessible and flexible to fit everyone’s unique needs.