Hydro‑Gear: From Top-Down Efforts to an Employee Guided Wellbeing Strategy

Recognizing the Need for Structure and Local Ownership

After completing their baseline HealthNEXT Culture of Health and Wellbeing assessment, among other things, Hydro‑Gear identified a high priority common challenge: plenty of health and benefits activity, vendors in place, reports available, but not being sure what to do next to make a greater impact. The solution? Build a wellbeing team to bring structure, alignment, and accountability throughout the company.

Leadership identified a critical gap, not in commitment, but in coordination and accountability at the site level. Without a centralized structure:

  • Initiatives were inconsistent across sites
  • Participation levels varied widely
  • Wellbeing lacked visibility in broader business conversations

To address this, Hydro‑Gear made a deliberate decision to establish an all level, cross‑functional, multi‑location wellbeing team positioning wellbeing as a strategic priority with defined ownership and buy-in throughout the organization, including HR, operations, safety, and executive leadership to ensure decisions reflected both strategy and frontline realities. While there were some concerns about how this effort would be received and if people would actively participate, identified issues were remedied and buy-was achieved. The plan and approach was presented to leadership and upon approval, the Health Transformation Team was formed.

The Health Transformation Team included:

  • Executive leadership to provide sponsorship and strategic alignment
  • HR and benefits to guide program structure and vendor strategy
  • Operations and plant leaders to ensure frontline relevance
  • Stakeholders to align with existing safety culture
  • Representatives from multiple locations to ensure geographic equity

Aligning Around Purpose: Defining Mission and Vision

One of the team’s first actions was to establish Hydro‑Gear’s health and wellbeing mission and vision and wellbeing logo.

Importantly, this was not a top‑down exercise. The committee worked collaboratively to define statements that:

  • Reflected Hydro‑Gear’s broader organizational mission
  • Resonated with employees across roles and locations
  • Established a shared definition of success for wellbeing

This process created early alignment and ownership, ensuring that wellbeing was positioned not as an isolated initiative, but as a core element of organizational performance and culture.

Starting with Insight: Onboarding Through Data

To ground the team’s work in evidence, they made decisions based on a comprehensive review of aggregate health and wellbeing data.

This included:

  • Aggregate claims data and condition trends across the health continuum
  • Engagement and participation metrics
  • Emerging risk areas across the population

By reviewing this data collectively, the team was able to:

  • Identify priority health risks and cost drivers
  • Understand variation across locations
  • Align on where interventions could have the greatest impact

From Data to Direction: Building a Strategic Plan

With a clear understanding of the organization’s needs, the team initiated a structured, multi‑year wellbeing strategy.

The plan included:

  • Clear priorities tied to identified risks and opportunities
  • Measurable goals and key performance indicators
  • A roadmap of initiatives aligned to both enterprise and site‑specific needs

Translating Strategy into Action

While the team helped to set direction, Hydro‑Gear was equally focused on ensuring that strategy translated into practical, visible action.

The team played an active role in enabling and guiding initiatives such as:

  • Testing vendor solutions
    Team members piloted vendors in a demo environment: calling, assessing, and piloting services to ensure offerings met employee needs before broader implementation.
  • Creating accessible physical activity opportunities
    Teams identified and mapped walking routes at all locations, making it easier for employees to incorporate physical activity into the workday and beyond.
  • Supporting site‑specific improvements
    Through collaboration with local teams, the team helped prioritize initiatives that made healthy choices more visible and accessible.

These efforts reinforced a key principle: enterprise health and wellbeing culture and strategy is more effective when it shows up locally in tangible ways.

Sustaining Momentum Through Governance

Today, Hydro‑Gear’s wellbeing team serves as an ongoing engine for progress, regularly reviewing data, refining priorities, and supporting implementation across the organization.

The shift has resulted in:

  • Greater alignment between wellbeing and business strategy
  • Increased leadership and management engagement
  • More consistent program execution across locations
  • Stronger employee engagement driven by relevant, accessible initiatives

Most importantly, Hydro‑Gear has moved from top-down managed programs to a system for managing workforce health and wellbeing at the local level.

“The Health Transformation Team has helped us to see our benefits programs from an employee perspective – and work true wellbeing into our business strategy.  We care for the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families.  Our mission is to create a culture of health and wellbeing to add years to people’s lives and quality life to those years.”

— Hydro‑Gear Leadership