Employee benefits have long been considered a key resource in HR’s strategic toolkit, a reality that took on new meaning in the last few years. It’s a space that HR can tap to yield meaningful impacts for the workforce and to emphasize HR’s capacity as a strategic driver of the business, says Shereen Solaiman, chief people officer of genetic testing and precision medicine company Myriad Genetics.

Understanding the unique employee benefits needs of the population has been essential to that aim, says Solaiman. For Myriad’s workforce of 2,700 employees, that has led to new financial wellness supports and a laser focus on keeping rising healthcare costs from influencing employee expenses.

Solaiman, who joined Myriad in 2023 after about a dozen years each with OhioHealth and Borders Group, recently shared with HR Executive what drives the organization’s employee benefits strategy—and how it relates to the company’s unique mission.

HR Executive: Most recently, financial wellness has been a big focus of yours at Myriad when it comes to employee benefits. What was the impetus for that?

Solaiman: We have to take care of our teammates. We have to make sure that we’re not just reactive when it comes to market changes and compensation, but more proactive.

You have teammates at all different levels, and you have teammates who are in personal situations that we just may not know about, and they may have times of need. When I first came to Myriad, I was on an email chain about a GoFundMe for one of our teammates, and we didn’t have a fund we could contribute to. So, I talked to the CEO, and he said, “This is something I absolutely want to do.” We quickly developed the Myriad Hope Fund. It stands for Helping Our People Endure, and it’s meant to help people when they have difficult personal circumstances through financial assistance. We’ve had a lot of leaders who have participated, and we’ve already helped numerous teammates.

HR Executive: What’s been the employee feedback?

Solaiman: What’s really cool about our teammates is that, while you may just affect a small percentage of them, the culture is such that it creates this unity, this feeling that we take care of each other. We are a family. Even those not impacted directly love the idea of the Hope Fund and love that we’re doing it.

HR Executive: How do you envision employee benefits driving talent attraction and retention?

Solaiman: In general, the cost of benefits throughout the nation continues to go up. Managing those costs for our teammates, as well as for us financially is really important. We’re trying to get the maximum benefits that we can that are tailored to people’s needs. I’ve gotten great feedback from new hires about the costs of our benefits compared to other organizations they’ve been in. And we’re working really, really hard to minimize those costs.

Learn more: Empowering Employee Health: Strategies for Cost-Effective Benefits Management

HR Executive: How are you approaching AI integration in HR at Myriad?

Solaiman: There’s a change management component of it. AI can be really scary to people. Their first thought sometimes is, “Oh, it’s going to replace my job.” You have to reframe it: “This is here to enable your position.” We started off by giving people access. We have used Microsoft Copilot, giving people access to AI in general to help them in a safe way. And then, from a recruiting perspective, there’s a lot of different ways you can utilize AI: to help create job descriptions, to communicate with candidates. We haven’t done this as much, but I really look forward to diving more into using AI for benefits questions. It can get them speedier answers and can be a great tool.

But the first thing you’ve got to do is disarm people so they don’t think it’s out for them. Because then they’re going to be resistant to any type of AI influence.

HR Executive: You backed into HR through a role at Starbucks. How did that happen?

Solaiman: I was getting my master’s degree and working full-time. I was thinking I wanted to go into hospital administration, and I started working at Starbucks, was quickly promoted to a shift supervisor and then they wanted me to be an assistant manager. I learned very quickly the importance of meeting people where they are, the importance of working with a diverse group of people, the importance of serving others in what’s important to them. And I recognized that I had some leadership skills.

I was recruited by a place called New World Coffee—Manhattan Bagel at the time. Their district manager came in and said, “We’d love for you to work with us. I want you to be a trainer and train other general managers.” I had to manage a store for six months first, and after six months, I started training general managers on skills like leadership, communication, recruiting, all the HR stuff. That’s how I fell backwards into HR.

HR Executive: What gives you the motivation to bring your best self to your HR leadership job?

Solaiman: Gosh, I love what we do. We are impacting people with cancer, impacting people at high risk for cancer, expectant mothers, people who struggle with mental health. I spent 12 years in healthcare, what I call more “sick care reactive.” I wanted to get ahead of the curve, and Myriad Genetics allows us to do that, to ideally reduce the cost of healthcare because we’re getting ahead so that people who struggle with mental health issues, for instance, don’t have to wait 18 months to get medication that helps them. Clinicians ordering the test will get a report that can help guide them. That makes me wake up every morning. The impact is huge.

A mentee recently was looking at how to get promoted, and I said, “I never looked at how to get promoted; I just wanted to have an impact.” That was the most important thing to me: How do I impact as many people as I possibly can in a positive way? People spend so much time with their employer, with their bosses. How do we enrich their lives through making it genuinely a great place to work?

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