You’ve made your elections, maximized your 401k contributions, and even named a beneficiary or two. But how much do you really know about your total wellness benefits? Join host Jennie Brooks as she sits down with Booz Allen senior lead engineer, Joe Racine, to learn more about his journey as a Wellness Champion. Joe shares why he thinks it’s so important for people to learn more about the oft-overlooked aspects of our compensation packages, and how doing so can help us to have a greater impact in our own communities. Stay tuned to learn how taking an extra step or two could reframe your relationship with your company from transactional to transformational. Episode 1 of our 2024 Wellness Series: https://unstoppabletogether.simplecast.com/episodes/exploring-wellness-what-is-it-and-who-is-it-for Episode 2 of our 2024 Wellness Series: https://unstoppabletogether.simplecast.com/episodes/exploring-wellness-caregiving-its-impacts
You’ve made your elections, maximized your 401k contributions, and even named a beneficiary or two. But how much do you really know about your total wellness benefits? Join host Jennie Brooks as she sits down with Booz Allen senior lead engineer, Joe Racine, to learn more about his journey as a Wellness Champion. Joe shares why he thinks it’s so important for people to learn more about the oft-overlooked aspects of our compensation packages, and how doing so can help us to have a greater impact in our own communities. Stay tuned to learn how taking an extra step or two could reframe your relationship with your company from transactional to transformational.
Episode 1 of our 2024 Wellness Series: https://unstoppabletogether.simplecast.com/episodes/exploring-wellness-what-is-it-and-who-is-it-for
Episode 2 of our 2024 Wellness Series: https://unstoppabletogether.simplecast.com/episodes/exploring-wellness-caregiving-its-impacts
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together Podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with the diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them, and all of us, unstoppable.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Unstoppable Together Podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Brooks, and today I'm excited to be joined by Joe Racine, Senior Lead Engineer, and also one of our Wellness Champions at Booz Allen. This is just one of the episodes in our Unstoppable Together Wellness series. So if you haven't checked out the other episodes, go and give them a listen.
Joe, welcome to the podcast.
Joe Racine:
Thank you for having me.
Jennie:
Thanks for joining us today. We're talking about wellness and well-being, can you start us off by talking a little bit about how you became a Wellness Champion, and what a Wellness Champion is?
Joe:
Yeah, sure thing. So the Wellness Champion Program I think has been around for a few years. I got tapped to join a little over a year ago, and really what it is is just being an overall advocate for all the wellness type programs that Booz Allen offers. From emotional wellness, to financial wellness, to physical wellness, there's a variety of portals and programs available to employees that just help everyone grow their wellness in all aspects. The PowerUp Portal to help people get moving, for fitness tips, as well as a lot of information on financial aspects like budgeting, planning for retirement. It's not just all those benefits that we sign up for in November. There's a variety of things available to employees, and the Wellness Champion is not supposed to be the expert on that. We definitely claim that we're not that. But really just being an advocate and helping our fellow employees navigate the various things, point them in the right direction, and help organize events for their local offices. So that's just that really championing, pardon the pun, all the benefits that are available within Booz Allen.
Jennie:
What attracted you to the idea of helping serve as a Wellness Champion?
Joe:
I think one thing, selfishly, I love to maximize my compensation. There's all these things available that Booz Allen offers.
Jennie:
Yes. I feel you're right. Right. Go on.
Joe:
And so it seems silly to not take advantage of all these things that are available. The company's paying for them, they're baked into your labor rates and stuff like that, and even through the PowerUp Program, there's just an easy way for every employee, and even their spouse, to earn $400 throughout the year for just doing basic stuff that I'm already doing. So I'm already an enthusiastic user of all the programs, and I think when the program got launched, I reached out to Daphne Gillie, and she was all on board about me joining. Many of the things that I do as the Wellness Champion I was even doing prior to having that official title.
Jennie:
Okay. So like what? Can you share with us a little bit of your wellness program, inspire us?
Joe:
Absolutely. One is, I'm all about, from the financial side of things, knowing how to leverage the match on the 401k, and just maximizing what the company offers, and how to plan accordingly for retirement. On the health benefits side, I have three kids and my wife, so knowing the ins and outs of the benefits to meet our family needs was critical. And like I said, I use that PowerUp Program to get the $400 for both me and my spouse, and I'm tracking my steps no matter what through my Garmin, so that's an easy way to get points.
The other thing that I've organized the last few years, and participated in for nearly a decade, is there's a race that's held here in Charlottesville, Virginia called the For Our Freedom 5K. The event raises money for military families and veterans, and it's just been an awesome event in Charlottesville. I think the first year was 2011, and now is ran where UVA runs their home cross country meets. So I've been a very proud participant in that, and Booz Allen has been a sponsor, I think, since its inception, and also provided a large group of volunteers for the water stop. And it's a great event that just brings people in the Charlottesville office together.
We're divided between two main clients down here, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Ground Intelligence Center, as well as a variety of remote employees that are supporting other contracts, not even in Charlottesville. So outside of the holiday party, it's rare for all of us to come together and to come together for an event that's in line with our client missions and promoting wellness, both physical and social wellness. I've been a very proud participant in this event. Plus, I love running. I've been a runner since 1989 when I joined my sixth grade cross country team. So to be able to lace up the spikes again and run on a cross country course, somewhat relive my glory days, is always a good thing.
Jennie:
I think that's such an important point in underpinning of what we seek to achieve through some of these dialogues, which is really around building, it's not individual wellness, but building community and building community resilience through some of these programs and these opportunities. How would you like us to think about that, particularly through your lens of the 5K or other areas?
Joe:
Well, I alluded to it. Many of our clients, not just here in Charlottesville, but even across the company, are defense related contracts. Many of our employees are former military, or they're current reservists, or have a connection to the military. So obviously being able to go beyond our technical acumen and support them for their wellness is just a great thing. And the company gets behind that by being a proud sponsor of the race.
And this is where I can give a plug for Booz Allen Cares, people that don't know about it. That's our portal to Booz Allen's philanthropy team where you can request funds for an event, or an organization. It also allows you to log volunteer hours for really any type of activity, and convert those hours into monetary contributions. I think it's $5 per hour that once you log that, then you can send those funds directly to an organization that you really care about. It's also the window to the Booz Allen Foundation, which has some very specific causes that the company contributes to every year. So the Booz Allen Cares Program is really that way of tapping into how the company is able to give back to the community.
Jennie:
Absolutely. I've used it a number of times myself and I can absolutely advocate and endorse the Booz Allen Cares Center. I see all of the programs as they're there through the year, and in that moment when I see I'm like, oh, it's just another thing to do, right, to take the video, even though the vignette is a short snippet to get through with the incentive for budgeting, or for your steps counting, or whatever the incentive might be. For those who might be skeptical, are listening and like, "Okay, Joe. I just don't have time to get through the financial wellness model. Thanks." What would you offer to those listening?
Joe:
Yeah, I think the big thing is like, oh, it is another thing to do. My wife doesn't even log her steps with anything, but she'll watch a video here and there, or challenge me to a step off and she logs it in. I log mine. But even though it's just maybe a tedious type thing, it's still your gateway into learning about what's available through Booz Allen. And there's videos on financial resources, there's video on budgeting. There's videos, and resources on weight loss.
The other thing is it's a good gateway into our employee assistance program and emotional wellness. So not just going through the company portal home.bah.com or benefits, but PowerUp actually has an easy way of seeing the wide variety of things available to us as employees and be able to take advantage of those resources. Like I said, the company's paying for them, so you want them to stick around, use them. You already have your own financial incentive to get that $400 each year, and another $400 for your spouse or domestic partner. But it enables all these programs to stay and for the company to keep on investing in them because that's how they, in addition to our annual compensation, but this is a way that the company supports us beyond the cash that goes into our bank accounts.
Jennie:
Awesome. All right, so let me, in all seriousness, I was tongue in cheek teasing about yet another video to go watch, to be totally fair. Let's talk a little bit about some of the upside of those resources, and some of the other ways you've been able to tap the company resources for wellness or building community.
Joe:
Yeah, sure. Now, in addition to using the Booz Allen Cares portal to support the For Our Freedom 5K, actually just recently I found another opportunity. My oldest daughter is a sixth grader at an all girls middle school here in Charlottesville, and they put on an event in the fall called the Girls Excelling in Math, where the middle school girls put on a series of math games, and a math competition for the elementary age school girls within Charlottesville.
And I think I was at the school one day, and her math teacher was saying that they hadn't secured a sponsor for the fall event. And I was like, "Oh, well, I already know how to go to the Booz Allen Cares website. I've done it before, so let me see if I can get Booz Allen to be a sponsor. This seems in line with our values of technology, and using math and science to solve our nation's challenges. And why not invest in the next group of mathematicians and scientists when they're at an early age?"
So I went to the Booz Allen Cares portal, put in a request. It literally took maybe one to two minutes, sent it off. Within a couple of days, they came back and said, "Yes, we'd love to be a sponsor and here's the money and send it off to the Village school and please post a bunch of pictures once the event happens." So—
Jennie:
That's awesome.
Joe:
It was that easy. And I was nervous at first because I didn't want to over-promise my daughter's school and her teachers, but I was so excited to see Booz Allen come back and say that they were willing to sponsor this event.
Jennie:
It's fantastic. Love that. Girls, and math. Love that.
Joe:
Exactly.
Jennie:
Joe, I think you provided us with great things we can grab onto whether we're pursuing individual wellness with the resources available to us, or doing step-off challenges with our spouses, or building community through something like a 5K, or drawing some resources for your child's school. At the end of every podcast, we ask our guests to provide us with some final words for those listening. What would you like to leave us with today?
Joe:
Two things that come to my mind are, one, that we work for an amazing company. And obviously, I'm not just trying to blow smoke, but we work for a company that values us as employees, not only for the work that we do for our clients, but they want us to have fulfilling lives outside of that work that we're doing, and there are resources available to make that even easier.
The other thing that I want to hit upon is that coming out of the pandemic, I think we lost ways of connecting with each other, and there are easy ways for us to come together, whether it's if we're all stuck on site at a client space or working remotely. The company can provide ways for us to come together for events that are fun, yet have a significant impact on our community. And given a little bit of knowledge about the resources available for the company, people can make things happen with not a lot of legwork. So the company has made it really easy to make these requests, but it just takes just a little bit of initiative to make it happen, and that way you can bring your colleagues together for things outside of all that work that we're doing for our clients.
Jennie:
Awesome. Thank you, Joe.
Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future. Work with us. The world can't wait.