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Under Jennifer Bauer’s leadership, Delta Dental of Kansas (DDKS) has had a complete culture transformation, implemented a process for employee feedback, expanded our wellness program offerings, and has been named both nationally and locally as a Best Place to Work.
Jennifer Bauer believes that a strong culture and employee engagement drives innovation and success. Bauer has prioritized providing a positive company culture through employee empowerment, transparent communication, encouraged collaboration and connection opportunities by working with company leadership in creating and following a 10-point culture engagement plan1. Our company has created a culture that emphasizes winning and fun by celebrating success, encouraging all ideas, input and views to achieve the best result through weekly employee surveys, learning from our mistakes, and offering an environment where people enjoy their jobs. Under Bauer’s leadership a dedicated Culture Committee was created that provides resources, educational workshops and activities around diversity equity & inclusion, team building and wellness. These efforts transformed company culture, growing the employee Net Promoter Score (NPS) to double the national average.
Bauer deployed a mechanism for continuous feedback through Officevibe, an online employee survey tool that helps create and maintain engaged and successful teams through continuous feedback2. All employees receive short anonymous survey each week. Through this new survey implementation, employees are providing timely and valuable information - contributing directly to improving their work environment and the company’s success.
Bauer implemented a comprehensive wellness program3 with 7 strategic elements:
- Leadership is committed to wellness.
- A diverse employee-led collaborative team runs the program.
- Employee feedback is used to shape initiatives, policies, and facility changes.
- A wellness roadmap maps out the program's plans and goals.
- Initiatives are implemented that support the whole person following 6 pillars: Physical health/exercise, mental health, social, diversity, equity & inclusion, Community involvement and financial health.
- DDKS strives to provide Environment & Policies that promote wellbeing and a healthy work-life balance.
- DDKS looks to continuously evaluate and improve our wellness program and offerings.
Bauer has imbedded wellness into our culture. DDKS is committed to balancing work and life priorities by promoting and encouraging habits of health and wellness and inspiring and empowering individuals to take responsibility for their wellness. We also offer flexible and remote work options, an onsite fitness center, fitness reimbursements, biometric screenings, financial education and employee assistance programs. We also offer team volunteer opportunities throughout the year and provide paid time off for employees to support the organizations they are passionate about.
Bauer also recognizes the toll that COVID-19 has taken on mental health over the last two years. To combat this, DDKS has provided opportunities for team building and physical activity as well as promoted mental health resources such as our employee assistance program (EAP). DDKS has brought in professional mental health speakers to specifically talk about anxiety, depression, healthy work/life balance, and much more.
In 2021 we were recognized nationally as National Company of the Year for Insurance and were selected as a National “Best Places to Work.” We were also honored as a recipient of the 2021 Innovation Award and as one of the Best Places to Work in Wichita by the Wichita Business Journal. Finally, we received the Healthy Workplace Gold Award for our health and wellness program.
And under Bauer’s leadership, Delta Dental of Kansas focus on embracing and celebrating the fact that 68% of our team are women and 50% of our Executives are women. Bauer has spearheaded a focused effort on celebrating International Women’s Day through internal networking events, speed networking and providing the team an opportunity to learn from others.
Bauer understands that great results don’t mean efforts stop - there is always room to improve. DDKS will continue to work to create an inclusive, positive and energetic culture. DDKS looks forward to continuing to hear employee feedback and to finding new ways to improve.
