Registration & Breakfast

Icebreaker

Chairperson’s Opening Remarks

Denise Gaskin | Former Chief Operating Officer | Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt Anjali Bindra Patel | Editor at Large, Overcoming Lawyer Burnout | Thrive Global

Anjali Bindra Patel

Anjali is the Editor at Large for Thrive Global’s Overcoming Lawyer Burnout platform. She is also a TEDx speaker, lawyer and serial entrepreneur. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sweatours, a well being platform for law students and lawyers, as well as a Faculty Member at WELCOA Wellness Council of America.  Anjali is a member of the […]

Denise Gaskin

The ABA Pledge and Resources Available for Mental Health Programs

This engaging session will bring insight from the American Bar Association and discuss why and how they created a well-being pledge for law firms and how those in legal services can better protect their lawyers and employees through mental health programs.

Theresa Gronkiewicz | Senior Counsel, Center for Professional Responsibility and Working Group to Advance Well-Being in the Legal Profession | American Bar Association

Theresa Gronkiewicz

Theresa (“Terri”) Gronkiewicz, is Senior Counsel at the American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility, providing national leadership in developing and interpreting standards and scholarly resources in legal and judicial ethics, professional regulation, professionalism, lawyer and judicial assistance, and client protection. In her role, she serves as counsel to the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs […]

The Development and Evolution of a Workplace Wellness Program

Considering the Wellness Council of America has been around for 30 years, one might think that the steps for creating and launching a wellness program is easy; providing gym memberships, prizes for healthy eating, access to counseling or supporting athletic endeavors, etc – but it is not that simple. Lack of employee engagement, a shortage of leadership support, complicated incentives all have the potential to derail your wellness program before it even starts. In this session, we will look at the steps you should take in creating a workplace wellness program. We will discuss:

• Don’t rush – take your time to develop a formal strategic plan with measurable goals
• Recruit employees for a wellness committee
• Exercise creativity in identifying free and cost-effective activities to improve employee health
• Create a program that demonstrates the company cares about their employees
• Give your workplace wellness culture time to develop
• Determine ways to collect data and provide measurement options
• Prioritize privacy
• Don’t let the program run on auto-pilot, you need to keep it running and moving effectively

Melinda Rombold

Melinda Rombold is SAE International’s Chief Human Resource Officer.  In this role, she is responsible for leading all strategic aspects of the Human Resource function for the organization.  Melinda and the HR team focus on advancing cultural/organizational change, enabling SAE to achieve its growth objectives and to attract and retain talent.  She partners with leadership […]

Walking for Wellness – How Ballard Spahr Jump-Started their Wellness Program

Could starting a wellness program be as easy as kicking-off a walking challenge? In this interactive interview-style case-study we will hear how Ballard Spahr and Walker Tracker partnered together to create an engaging competition that (literally) put their firm’s Wellness initiative on the map. We will hear:

• Launch, promotion and buy-in - how to get your challenge off the ground
• Engagement tips - how the firm got and kept employees engaged
• Unexpected results
• Next Steps for the Wellness Committee

• Taylor Welsh | President & CEO | Walker Tracker
• John Pergolini | HRIS Analyst and Co-Chair Wellness Committee | Ballard Spahr

John Pergolini

Taylor Welsh

Taylor Welsh is the CEO of Walker Tracker, a technology platform that drives employee wellbeing through activity and wellness challenges, social connection, and insightful data. A huge advocate for physical activity and movement, Taylor earned a degree in Community Health and started her career in fitness education.  She quickly realized the need to lower the barriers […]

Fireside Chat: Living With Depression: How Two Professionals Battled Their Demons And Lived to Talk about It

This engaging fireside chat will share real-life stories as how two successful professionals have battled depression. You will hear how the stigma of mental health initially affected their professional and personal lives; what they both did to change the way depression and mental health is viewed and what they are doing now to carry on personally, while shedding light into this important topic.

• Benjamin Greenzweig | Mental Health Soldier & CEO, Co-Founder | Momentum
• Mark Goldstein | Partner, Labor & Employment Group | Reed Smith LLP

Benjamin Greenzweig

Benjamin Greenzweig is an entrepreneur and a seasoned business development and strategy executive whose experience includes more than two decades of working with media, technology, retail, consumer goods, financial services, energy, food & beverage, defense, government and professional services executives across the globe on a variety of topics and conference formats, from roundtables to tradeshows. […]

Mark Goldstein

Mark is Counsel in the New York office of Reed Smith and a member of the firm’s Labor & Employment Group.  Mark’s practice is focused on helping companies in New York and around the world manage their workplace needs.  To that end, Mark counsels clients on a variety of day-to-day and also big-picture workplace issues.  […]

Networking Break

Environment and Culture: How Design, Approach and Compassion Can Help Support a Culture of Well-Being all While Managing Costs

The environment of your workplace is much more than creative decorating; it also the feeling that your employees have when walking into the door. Your environment contributes to the overall culture of your organization more than you know. Additionally, the culture of your organization is defined through the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values and ways of interacting – all of which can make or break the idea of well-being. In this session we will examine items such as:

• Designing the right environment to best exemplify the culture you want to be seen and promoted
• Understanding the role that compassion has in creating an engaged workforce
• Learning how the approach you take can affect authenticity and brand
• Identifying how a supportive culture focused on well-being is important
• Determining ways to manage costs when developing a wellness-based culture
• Examining the ways that a supportive culture of well-being helps in maintaining retention and morale

Meghan Hollan

Meghan Hollan, is a Human Resources and personal brand enthusiast, and is coined as “the unlikely HR person.”   Meghan currently is the Vice President of Human Resources for CR Architecture + Design, a national firm.  She holds her degree in Public Relations and Marketing from Northern Kentucky University and is working on a Masters in […]

Wellness as a Strategic Growth Driver

Employees are costly, likely your first or second largest cost. The cost to recruit and retain are sky rocketing. If you don’t look at your employees’ overall well-being, then you are missing out on huge opportunities to retain, engage and grow your customer base, plus grow your bottom line. Employees are looking at you for you – are you ready to meet their needs? We’ll discuss questions such as:

• Have you really looked at your employees as a strategic asset vs. just a cost?
• Have you peeked under the cover of what’s really brewing with your employees?
• Do you prefer to offer standard insurance products, just to remain compliant, without asking your employees for their wants/needs?
• Do you actually value your employees’ well-being?
• Have you determined the actual cost of losing a talented employee?

• Philip Romm | Chief of Strategic HR | Growth Solutions Team
• Brea Giffen | Director Sales & Partnerships | Sprout Wellness Solutions

Brea Giffen

Director of Sales & Partnerships at Sprout Wellness Solutions, Brea Giffin has spent years working with companies all over the world to help them implement leading employee wellbeing programs and use them to solve complex and costly business problems. Brea holds multiple degrees across various areas of human health – including a BSc in Neuroscience […]

Philip Romm

Phil started his human resources career in 1998 and over the course of his career he has held a variety of position in many different types and sizes of organizations.  For the past 3 years, he has provided business owners & community leaders with human resources & management advice. Phil possesses an MS in Industrial […]

A Culture of Employee Engagement – Finding Strategies that Makes Workplace Wellness Work

HR & Benefits Executives tend to have employee engagement constantly on the mind. How do you engage your employees? Can I get more workers involved? Did we do everything possible to keep people actively utilizing our benefits programs? This session will take a look at how organizations changed their approaches to benefits delivery and achieved a dramatically higher member engagement, better employee experience and overall cost-savings. This session will take a look at things such as:

• Garnering initial buy-in from your employees
• Understand the changing trends in workplace wellness
• Develop programs that will get employees to stick to it for the long-haul
• Reframe workplace wellness so the C-Suite will support

• Mary Jackson | Chief Officer, Professional Resources | Blakes, Cassels & Graydon LLP
• David Milani | Vice President | Optum

Mary Jackson

Mary is the Chief Officer of Professional Resources at Blakes, Cassels & Graydon, a large national law firm in Canada.  She sits on the Executive Committee of the Firm and is responsible for the management, recruitment, professional development and training of legal professionals and staff at Blakes.   She is also actively involved in many […]

David Milani

Mapping Culture + Wellness + Strategy

According to the ABA’s Well Being Initiative, Wellness is about creating Healthy People and a Healthy Firm: one in which all members collaborate to continually improve processes to protect & promote member well-being and firm success including profitability. In a Healthy Firm, we seek alignment of both the firm and member goals and needs so that we can grow and thrive together.  In this workshop-style session you will learn from someone who has worked both outside and inside a law firm and we will share how to measure your own culture, and “map” those findings to the elements of a healthy firm including your firm’s strategic goals. A few things we will discuss include:

• Understanding that culture is the way things ARE around here
• What wellness has to do with culture
• Examining how culture can show if your organization is healthy
• Understanding how to improve your culture and how that can improve your firm’s health & well-being

Denise Gaskin

Lunch

Impacting Employee Well-being Through Diversity and Inclusion

An inclusive workplace supports employee well-being through its positive effects on employee self-concept and self-esteem; enhanced career achievements and progression; greater work-life balance; social connectedness and belonging; reduced discrimination, prejudice and harassment and pro-social behavior. In this session we will examine how diversity and inclusion can truly impact employee well-being, through topics like:

• Workplaces that are inclusive foster enhanced employee well-being
• Employees with high levels of well-being are more inclusive
• Effective well-being initiatives accommodate the unique needs of different employees
• Best practice diversity and inclusion programs recognize mental health and well-being as a diversity issue

• Lacy Nations | HR Director | Crowley Fleck
• Michael Baptiste | Head of Diversity and Inclusion | Justworks

Michael Baptiste

Lacy Nations

Lacy is the Director of Human Resources for a regional law firm, Crowley Fleck PLLP. Prior to entering the legal industry, she spent over 10 years in the energy sector. Lacy believes that mindfulness and genuine interactions in the workplace is the key to success.

Worksite Wellness Programming: Is it Built to Last?

In this session you will be immersed in how to create and spread a successful wellness program with support and collaboration of key internal and external stakeholders awhile addressing barriers and threats to sustainability.  We will explore:

• The various theoretical and practical wellness program designs
• The implementation and evaluation strategies that will enhance the health outcomes of employees
• Ways to gain support and collaboration from leadership
• Ideas to keep all employees engaged
• Manners to keep your program continuing into the future

Nicole Hare-Everline

Dr. Nicole Hare-Everline is a dynamic and creative organizational leader with doctoral-level training and human resource background and over 15 years of experience developing, implementing, and marketing benefits programs to multicultural populations.   She is the Assistant Director of Benefits for the City of Houston. Her areas of responsibility include Benefits Operations and Strategy, Employee Assistance […]

Get Off Your Butt: Integrating Exercise & Healthy Habits Into Your Workplace Culture

Changing the mindset of your employees to one that includes health and wellness can be done simply by integrating exercise, nutrition and healthy habits into the workplace culture. This interactive session is sure to get you moving as it will provide demonstrations as to how you can incorporate fun and effective exercises and simple healthy tips into any workplace environment. We will look at such things as:

• Simple breathing techniques to de-stress
• Mindfulness exercises to clear the head
• Short walks, walking through conference calls and ways to increase the steps
• Using standing desks, wireless headsets to encourage movement
• And more

• Eilene Spear | Operations and Projects Manager | The National Law Review
• Elena Rand | Chief Marketing Officer | Wiggin & Dana

Elena Rand

Elena Rand serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of Wiggin and Dana focusing on business development, strategic planning and legal marketing. Prior to joining Wiggin, she served as the Director of Business Development-Litigation for Paul Weiss. Before re-entering law firm life, she served as founder of Law Scope Coaching, LLC which she ran for over […]

Eilene Spear

Networking Break

The Positive Impact of a Mental Fitness Program

Like physical fitness for the body, having a mental fitness program in your firm trains people to improve their focus and calm their minds, giving them the ability to better manage stressful situations at work and outside of it. This short recharge session with Journey Meditation will include a simple, guided meditation, plus some insights on how multiple ABA wellbeing pledge member firms have created onsite programs with Journey to help:

• Reduce attorney & staff burnout
• Reduce the impact of stress-related illness
• Increase focus & productivity
• Increase employee engagement and improve culture

Jay Williams

Jay is a mindful leader who has been helping companies his entire career. He and his team at Journey have been on a mission since 2015 to introduce mindfulness and meditation into organizations, resulting in lower turnover rates and reduced stress levels, especially at law firms. Journey’s programs have been offered at 50+ firms and […]

Utilizing a Remote Work Policy to Help Reduce Burn-Out While Managing the Loneliness Factor

Burnout is a phenomenon that is becoming progressively common worldwide, so it’s important to be able to identify the initial symptoms of this struggle and implement a solution before it escalates. Research indicates that offering flexible work options including a remote work policy increases job satisfaction and lowers burnout. Also, we will take a look at the work and study by Cigna which looks at the impact of loneliness in our culture and in our workplaces. In this session, we will examine things such as:

• Identifying the signs of burnout
• Describing flexible work options
• Understanding the benefits of flexible & remote work policies
• Key determinants of loneliness in America
• Loneliness across key demographics
• Loneliness in the workplace
• Costs of loneliness

Heather Gleason

Luis Torres, M.D.

Dr. Luis Torres is a Cigna Behavioral Medical Director. He collaborates on the Tele psychiatry growth and use at Cigna. He is Cigna’s lead behavioral Medical director for pharmacy related issues. He has beenvvery active with CIGNA’s Juntos Hispanic ERG. He founded and manages a large private practice, Advanced Behavioral Health Center in Tavares, FL, […]

Manage Fairness for Better Health

Life isn't fair. We know this from experience. But what happens when work isn't fair? Organizational unfairness, or injustice, refers to a pattern of exposure to inequitable conditions that undermine employees’ dignity and self-respect. It runs the gamut from being unsupported by your supervisor… to being spoken to rudely… to being bullied… to being assaulted. Organizational unfairness is linked to heart disease along with a variety of other physical and mental health problems. In this session, we will cover:

• Understanding the four categories of organizational injustice and its link to wellbeing
• How different policies for different workers contribute to unfairness
• Is the notion of fairness at work a product of a self-entitled workforce?
• Strategies to prioritize wellness for everyone

Melissa Nelson

Chairperson’s Closing Remarks

• Denise Gaskin | Former Chief Operating Officer | Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt
• Anjali Bindra Patel | Editor at Large, Overcoming Lawyer Burnout | Thrive Global

Anjali Bindra Patel

Anjali is the Editor at Large for Thrive Global’s Overcoming Lawyer Burnout platform. She is also a TEDx speaker, lawyer and serial entrepreneur. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sweatours, a well being platform for law students and lawyers, as well as a Faculty Member at WELCOA Wellness Council of America.  Anjali is a member of the […]

Denise Gaskin

Cocktail Reception