Colleen Falco, HR director, Niagara Casinos
Describe your company’s benefit plan.
It’s a very traditional plan with 100% coverage on so many different benefits, from extended healthcare and dental, STD, LTD, and basic life. We have optional life and optional dental add-ons as well. Our robust [range] of health practitioner coverage, includes programs from massage to physio, acupuncture, naturopaths, nutritionist, chiropractor and some of those lesser known – podiatrist [and] chiropodist. [We have] hospitalization coverage, smoking cessation coverage, fertility coverage.
Layered with that are some of our wellness benefits. An on-site wellness centre with state-of-the art equipment that’s free for all employees. We offer a variety of subsidized and sometimes no-cost fitness programs—from yoga to zumba [and] meditation. We have a hiking club that’s free and a ski club that is subsidized. Our goal is to offer a holistic approach to benefits and not simply to focus on the traditional medical approach. We have a very well utilized EAP program that we promote – not from simply a counseling and support perspective but from a wellness and a work-life balance perspective.
What keeps you up at night, from a benefits standpoint?
We have an aging demographic. Our [company’s] average demographic age is 45. The use of biologic drugs for the treatment of chronic conditions is great because it provides a quality of life. But the cost of those drugs—they’re just so expensive. The drugs for one claimant annually can be well over $250,000. We have 4,000 employees. I just don’t know how that is sustainable in the long term with an aging demographic.
Do you have a big chunk of your employees depending on biologics?
Right now it’s small, but with the average age of 45 and trending upward, the concern is [growing] for the sustainability of the drug plan in the future.
What’s the biggest gamble you’ve taken in your personal life?
Ironically, probably the biggest personal gamble I took was when I started with the casino. I was the program manager for Hospice Niagara before I came here, so I had worked in palliative care at that point about four years. I was leaving palliative care and my education and background and experience to come to the gaming industry, which was completely new and exciting, but completely foreign. And I left a management position to come as an entry-level hourly employee. So I was hired as a trainer to do new hire orientations and have been blessed with working for Niagara Casinos for 17 years now. It has paid off. [I have had] a series of progressive roles. It’s literally learning all of the different HR areas.
If you could offer some wisdom specifically to female leaders, what would that be?
What I’ve found is that diplomacy actually does work quite well in the corporate world. There are times when you have to make tough decisions and you can’t shy away from them because that’s your job. Ultimately, you need to be true to yourself and you need to work hard. You need to understand [things] from the ground up in order to make better decisions, so you need experience [within the company] in a lot of different matters. Support people. My experience has been that the more support I give to my peers, to my boss, to my colleagues outside of my immediate unit, the more they’ll support [me]. And you don’t need to be pushy and aggressive to get what you want. You simply need to develop great relationships, to be good at what you do and work hard. When you take a look at the folks who are successful on your team, it’s generally the people who get along with others and get the job done.
If you could give one bit of advice to your 20-year-old self, what would it be?
When I was 20, I was one of those students in university who had no path. A lot of my peers [and] friends knew what they wanted to be. I kept myself open to a lot of opportunities and tried different things, and every single decision that I made led me to where I am today – even though I didn’t necessarily know where I was heading. So you don’t always have to have that A to Z plan. Which I guess is not great advice for my 20-year-old self because the plan was “no plan.” So if I was going to go back and say, “hey 20-year-old self,” I probably would have said, “travel more.” Because as you get entrenched in a career and family life and other people’s priorities take over, the flexibility to do some of the things that I wanted to do has been put on hold. Temporarily—I can see light at the end of the tunnel.
How do you take your coffee?
One-and-a-half cream and one sugar.
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