How BDO’s Do What You Love program is helping employees pursue their passions

Employees at the manager level and above are able to reimburse up to $1,350 per year and those below that level get $1,000 annually to put toward experiences. The program is administered internally by BDO’s human resources services team and is set up like a wellness account with set eligible expenses. However, the company also provides a separate traditional wellness spending account for employees.

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“It’s one of the things that both our employees and partners love,” says Brooke Schwarz, manager of national total rewards for BDO. “It’s a great feature we have for our people to support their well-being.”

Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the company made a number of enhancements to its total rewards offering, including improvements to its benefits and wellness programs and off-cycle firm-wide bonuses. But as the war for talent ramped up, Schwarz says her team felt BDO needed to further differentiate itself. After market research and conversations, they settled on the experience reimbursement program.

“The hope was really that the experience-type bonus would be appreciated and remembered more than an off-cycle monetary bonus,” Schwarz says.

And that it has: the program has already had significant uptake in its first two years, with 74 per cent of employees using it in 2022 and 81 per cent in 2023. Schwarz says employees have also posted enthusiastically about Do What You Love on its intranet page and through its employee communication platform and have high-lighted its importance in engagement surveys.

Making wellness centre of attraction and retention

Experience reimbursement programs are a newer form of wellness account, says Taylor Valée, director of national enterprise group solutions at People Corporation, noting BDO’s program is unique within the Canadian marketplace.

“Getting employees actively managing their health from a physical perspective, a mental perspective, as well as having those experiences, you’re able to make sure they’re their best selves when they’re not only at work but also outside of work, too.”

It’s also part of a broader trend among employers to use their wellness programs as a way to differentiate themselves as they seek to attract and retain key talent, she says. Typically, companies use initiatives that help employees actively manage their physical and mental well-being, such as wellness integration incentives that provide dollar rewards to employees who complete certain tasks, like a workplace step challenge or speaking with a diabetes educator. Some plan sponsors provide wellness dollars, gym memberships, travel discounts, gift cards or other rewards for plan members who link their smart watches to the company’s own well-being app and log healthy behaviours.

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The program also speaks to the evolution of wellness initiatives over the past few years, says Jennifer Schmidt, partner and innovation leader at Mercer Canada. “Not even 10 years ago, wellness programs meant flu shots.”

BDO’s program “goes a long way to building . . . the employee value proposition and pride in the brand,” she adds. “If you’re proud to work somewhere, if something your employer does resonates personally with you, you’re much more engaged.”

Easing financial pressures

Schmidt notes the program comes as employees are facing many financial pressures, including higher cost of living, rising rents and mortgage payments that have ballooned with interest rate hikes. According to an Ipsos survey from January, many are responding by cutting back on the discretionary areas of their budget. Dining out less frequently and spending less on entertainment were among the top five ways Canadians handled inflation in 2023 and planned to continue doing so for the year ahead, with roughly half of respondents saying they have or plan to do so. A quarter of respondents also said they planned to cut back on travel within or outside of the country.

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Schwarz says the most common expenses employees reimbursed were related to travel, entertainment, education (such as cooking, painting or other classes) and health (such as yoga retreats or ziplining).

“Our people [feel] they can do something fun without having to worry about the cost. Some of our employees have said it was a major part of them and their families deciding to take a destination vacation because they could afford it with BDO’s help,” Schwarz says. “A lot of them says it really encourages them to balance work and play and to take their time off.”

BDO also gives employees a certain number of paid days off per year — depending on their seniority, length of service and other factors — to be used however they wish, including for vacation, personal days or illness. Due to the nature of the firm’s business, the first two quarters of the year are “quite busy,” says Schwarz, noting her team encourages employees to use their paid time off.

“Do What You Love certainly helps with that. It helps cover the cost so people can experience something they always wanted to do while they’re on PTO.”

Getting creative

For employers that are considering a similar program or expanding eligible expenses within a more traditional wellness account, it’s important they first consider their organizational culture, their mission and values and their objectives for the company and employees, says Valée.

While plan sponsors tend to add gym memberships, fitness classes and pet insurance, she notes some more creative recent additions include childcare or elder care expenses for sandwich generation employees, subscription-based apps, green fees for golfing and even transportation expenses such as car repairs.

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Understanding the demographics of the workforce and what perks would actually be helpful or meaningful is key, she says. “Every single organization is unique. Gathering feedback through focus groups, surveys and communications is going to help employers decide what types of experiences are going to impact their employee population in the most positive way.”

BDO reviews the list of declined expenses each year to see if there are any that it should be covering, says Schwarz. Since the program’s inception, the company has expanded the eligible expense list to include tattoos and expenses related to life events, such as party buses, event rental costs and catering. “We’re always looking for ways to improve and enhance it.”

Kelsey Rolfe is a Toronto-based freelance writer.