Driving a Culture of Care: A Conversation with WorkLife Partnership's Cindy Williams
- Origami Works Foundation
- Oct 31
- 11 min read
Cindy Williams
Executive Director
WorkLife Partnership
Cindy Williams is the Executive Director at WorkLife Partnership, an organization that partners with employers to provide proactive wraparound support services to their employees. Cindy is a leader with a profound understanding of the challenges facing today's workforce. WorkLife Partnership has developed a unique model that offers employees unlimited, long-term support for life’s challenges. Continue reading to learn how this innovative approach creates lasting cultural shifts within employer organizations.
What is your role at WorkLife Partnership, and can you describe your career progression to that position?
My career began in publishing, where I started on the creative side before discovering a passion for the business aspects of the industry. This led me to seek more impactful work in the nonprofit sector, a transition I made in 2017 when I joined WorkLife Partnership. After six years as Chief Operating Officer, overseeing data, impact, and communications, I stepped into my current role as Executive Director.
We hold a deep understanding that being a lower or moderate-income worker is difficult, and we are motivated by the knowledge that we are supporting these workers.
Who have been your primary mentors in progressing in your career?
While I didn't have one formal mentor, I was lucky to have many supportive colleagues and supervisors. They were always very encouraging and truly helped me progress by providing opportunities and supporting my contributions. I have been fortunate to have many people around me who have supported me along the way.
What is it like to work at WorkLife Partnership? What makes it special or unique?
The work we do is so unique yet so impactful, which is a key driving force for many people at the organization. We hold a deep
understanding that being a lower or moderate-income worker is difficult, and we are motivated by the knowledge that we are supporting these workers. We are all driven by the work of helping people stay employed, as that stability is a key component of achieving economic mobility.
I love what we do, and I believe it is truly important work that is needed in the world. The commitment of our team to our purpose and our mission is probably more motivating than anything else, and this is best exemplified by our Navigators. They are the heart of WorkLife Partnership, and through their work, we can see the real strengths and resilience of our clients.
What services does WorkLife Partnership offer, and what regions do you operate in?
WorkLife Partnership provides job stabilizing support for workers via its Resource Navigation service. The service—which is typically offered alongside an employer’s other employee benefits—provides individualized, confidential support to employees so they can overcome work and life challenges including access to basic need support, assistance setting and reaching goals, and overcoming financial emergencies.
We operate on a mostly virtual service delivery model. Employees can reach a navigator via text, phone, email, or online scheduling to set up a meeting, which is typically a phone call. The navigator then handles all follow-up communication through the employee's preferred method. We also conduct occasional on-site visits with our employer partners. This helps build awareness and familiarity, making employees less reluctant to reach out when they need help.
WorkLife Partnership was founded in Colorado, and we still have a significant concentration of business partnerships here. However, our virtual model allows us to serve partners across the entire United States. We have concentrations of clients in Colorado, Oklahoma, the Chicago area, and the Seattle region of Washington state.
At this wage, employees often don’t qualify for government benefits that they might have received at a lower income, making their financial situation an even harder struggle. We try to help employers realize that while the struggle isn't as bad as it could be, it is still very real.
What is WorkLife Partnership hoping to achieve in the next few years?
We have a few key goals that will guide our work over the next few years. We are focused on growing our employer network as we know that there is an immense need for our support, especially as the cost of living continues to rise faster than wages. We are also deeply committed to ensuring our employer partners have access to data and insights that can inform how they make decisions around their finite benefits budgets.
Our services provide a gateway to better insights around what's really happening to individuals in the workforce. By gathering anonymous data from within a company, we hope to inspire curiosity and action. Those actions may look like improving scheduling, improving pay, or introducing new types of programs.
We are also committed to improving and measuring the long-term economic mobility indicators for the people we serve. We know our services have a deep impact on individuals by reducing stress and increasing confidence, but our biggest challenge has been measuring the long-term effects. We are now working on understanding how we can use the trust we build with our clients to help them pursue different avenues for economic mobility, and we are developing a way to measure and influence that long-term success.
What kinds of employers do you tend to work with?
We primarily partner with employers who have a high percentage of frontline workers, generally those making $22 an hour or less. While we serve employees at all wage levels, the bulk of our work is focused on this population.
The sectors we work in most heavily are those with a large number of frontline workers, such as manufacturing, health care, retail, and hospitality. We have also found a strong alignment with workforce-centered nonprofits, such as organizations focused on the formerly incarcerated or individuals living with a disability. These organizations understand that the employees they serve may have a greater need for support, and they are willing to invest in solutions to help those individuals succeed.
We typically work with businesses that have between 200 and 10,000 employees although a critical factor in successful partnerships is mindset alignment. When business leaders understand the impact work and life challenges have on employee success and opportunity they’re quicker to engage and demonstrate a greater willingness to ensure employee awareness of the services.
What are some of the reasons why employers choose to work with WorkLife Partnership?
The reasons employers choose to work with us often vary based on their industry and company culture. For example, in healthcare, employers already have a general understanding that a patient's health is affected by outside social factors. They apply that same logic to the well-being of their own employees. Healthcare leaders often understand that when there are high turnover rates among staff, there may be outside social factors that are impacting the ability of an employee to stay stably employed. By providing robust support, they know their team is more likely to be productive, less distracted, and absent less frequently.
In manufacturing, however, we typically find a mix of mindset and business-driven reasons. Many privately or family-owned companies have a culture where they genuinely see their employees as family. Beyond that, these employers are often trying to solve very real business problems, such as high absenteeism, managers being distracted from their core duties, and high turnover as they struggle to compete with larger companies. Ultimately, these employers understand that investing in employee support is a strategic way to address both their culture of investing in their employees and their bottom-line business challenges.
What are the most common questions employers ask when they are first considering WorkLife Partnership?
Employers want to know how we are different from employee assistance programs (EAP). It's a fair comparison, but we're nothing like an EAP. While an EAP offers access to resources, it is typically for a finite group of benefits like mental health, legal, or childcare services. Our Navigators provide comprehensive support for anything that helps an individual resolve a problem, accomplish a goal, and feel like they have support around them. This can range from an urgent issue like an eviction notice to a long-term goal like setting up a college savings plan. Unlike most benefits that are designed for low utilization, our service is modeled to be used frequently. We proactively market our services with bi-monthly emails and texts to ensure employees are aware of their available support.
The other question we're asked is about the launch process. HR teams often have limited capacity, so they want to know how much work is involved. We have a streamlined, established launch process that makes it as easy as possible for them. We minimize the impact on an already busy HR team by handling the communication, outreach, and marketing for them, which is a key differentiator for us.
Our service is also completely unlimited, as we work with an individual until they no longer need help.
What are some common misconceptions you hear when starting with a new employer?
One common misconception is that employees earning $20 or $25 an hour don’t need our services. This belief shows a disconnect from the reality of what it takes to have economic stability. At that wage, employees are still almost guaranteed to be burdened by the cost of housing. While it's above minimum wage, it doesn't meet the Area Median Income in most communities, which is a figure that government agencies use to determine eligibility for support. At this wage, employees often don’t qualify for government benefits that they might have received at a lower income, making their financial situation an even harder struggle. We try to help employers realize that while the struggle isn't as bad as it could be, it is still very real.
We see this misconception also arise on the employee side. Many employees think that support services may be in place for people who are in a more dire situation, and not them. Our navigators work with employees individually to break down these barriers.
How is your employee engagement model unique?
We are a nonprofit motivated by impact. We proactively market our services to employees, ensuring they know who we are and how to reach us when a need arises. This is a fundamental shift from the passive approach of most benefits providers.
In addition to this, we prioritize an on-site presence. While our service is delivered virtually, we go on-site to employer partners for tabling events and other opportunities, which builds familiarity and rapport. We partner with the business to figure out how we can be embedded into their activities and culture. This helps employees get to know what services are available to them and who the navigator is, which can make employees less reluctant to reach out when they're facing a personal challenge.
Our service is also completely unlimited, as we work with an individual until they no longer need help. A key part of this is continuity; when an employee connects with a navigator, they can continue working with that same person, which fosters trust and encourages them to return. In fact, 90% of our clients report they are likely to return to their navigator if they need support again.
Finally, we work hard to train managers and supervisors, as they are our key referral sources. Managers are often the first to notice a change in employee behavior, such as increased absenteeism. When we’ve done our job of training them, they are more likely to refer that employee to us, which directly increases utilization and ensures employees get the help they need.
What data do you collect about the ROI of your services?
The average ROI across our business partners is 181%. We calculate this ROI based on the value of retaining employees and the supportive service funds we fundraise and distribute. Our model does not include direct funds provided by the employer, as the ROI is based on the value their employees receive from the services we provide. We use a conservative model, designed by the ROI Institute, which recognizes that an employee's continued employment is influenced by many variables. The core value of our service is to provide the support an employee needs to overcome a destabilizing event so they can continue to move forward with their work.
What do employer partners tell you about the impact of working with WorkLife Partnership?
Most often, we hear about the cultural impact of our services. While employers initially partner with us to solve problems like turnover, absenteeism, and distraction, what they find is a fundamental culture shift. Once we are fully embedded, employers experience a change where employees feel genuinely cared for because they have access to a navigator who helps them overcome personal challenges.
We have data showing that a very high percentage of employees are more likely to stay with their employer because of our program. As one client recently remarked, “Work life [sic] made it easier to balance life and work so I could keep going and be successful every day, not as a crutch, but knowing someone is there when you need them.”
Employers tell us our service helps them simplify their benefits package. Instead of managing multiple single-purpose benefits, like for financial counseling or legal services, they can rely on us to find the right resources for each employee's unique needs. This helps them streamline their offerings and avoid adding redundant services, which saves time and money.
Can you share a specific success story from your work?
A client came to us looking for information about a loan program from their employer. Through this interaction, our navigator went a step further than support with the loan. The Navigator asked if he would like to see what other resources were available so he could strategically use the loan money. His primary stress was paying for his oldest child's first semester of university, including funds for food, textbooks, and a laptop.
The navigator found several university resources to help, and also discovered that textbooks were now free as the cost was included in tuition. They also found information on low-cost or free laptops and, importantly, located a separate pocket of funding to help with a frustrating financial crisis he was facing. This is a perfect example of what we mean by digging into the layers. A client came to us for one reason, but by having a deeper conversation, we were able to address an underlying issue that was truly impacting their stability.
We don't just help clients with complex problems; sometimes the issues are simple or, occasionally, very unusual. One story that stands out is about a client who inherited a horse. She lived in an apartment and had no idea what to do. Our navigator was able to help her find a solution for this unexpected challenge.
While many see the value in retention, a culture of support inspires employees to develop stronger loyalty, pursue career advancement, and feel a deeper sense of belonging.
What is the typical timeline for a new partnership, from initial contact to launching services for employees?
Once a contract is in place, we can launch a new partnership in as little as 10 days. The timeline is typically driven by the employer, as they may need to align with their budget cycles, open enrollment, or other strategic initiatives. However, we can move very quickly when needed, and we ensure that the launch is a light lift for the employer.
If an employer is reading this interview, what is one thing that you would like them to walk away with?
The most important thing I'd want an employer to understand is that the culture shift created by supporting employees is far more valuable than most businesses realize. While many see the value in retention, a culture of support inspires employees to develop stronger loyalty, pursue career advancement, and feel a deeper sense of belonging. Our services can be as simple as helping with a car repair, which keeps someone from having to quit a job over a transportation issue. These acts of support lead to a feeling of being cared for, which builds a stronger business overall.
It's often said that if the cost of employee turnover were on a business's profit and loss statement, it would never be ignored at the level it is today. Turnover is a very real business expense, but because it doesn't show up as a line item, it's easy to dismiss. Ultimately, it's less about the hard numbers of retention and more about the culture you want to create. Prioritizing employee well-being is the most effective way to build that culture and drive long-term business success.
