Meeting Employees Where They Are: A Workforce-Centered Approach to Wellness at LAZ Parking

With approximately 20,000 employees working across varied locations, schedules, and roles, LAZ Parking faces a challenge shared by many employers: how to build a wellness strategy that is relevant, accessible, and effective for everyone. For LAZ Parking, wellness is not simply about offering more programs. It is about removing barriers and creating meaningful access for a diverse workforce. As Cathy Carney, senior manager, total rewards, explains, “Wellness shouldn’t be about asking everyone to do the same thing. It should be about giving people meaningful ways to improve their well-being from wherever they are starting.”

TotalYOU—A Comprehensive Approach to Wellness

LAZ’s comprehensive approach to employee wellness, TotalYOU, represents a shift from traditional wellness initiatives to a more integrated health and well-being strategy. Built around a practical understanding of LAZ’s diverse workforce, the strategy focuses on three priorities:

• Relevance across different roles and work environments
• Accessibility for employees with varied schedules and locations
• Flexibility so individuals can engage in ways that fit their needs.

TotalYOU includes a focus on physical, emotional, social, and financial wellness, as well as prevention and chronic condition management. It brings resources together under one clear framework, helping employees see wellness as part of a broader employee experience rather than a collection of separate programs. The name TotalYOU reinforces that message: Wellness at LAZ is not one-dimensional. It is designed to support the whole person and meet employees where they are. At its core, the program gives employees the tools, resources, access, and support they need to define what “healthy” means for themselves and make informed decisions about their own well-being.

Prevention as the Foundation

Prevention sits at the center of LAZ Parking’s wellness strategy. As Cathy explains, “We want to move beyond a health care model that primarily responds when someone becomes sick.” To support that shift, LAZ focuses on helping employees access care earlier, understand their health risks, and take practical steps toward better health. Specifically, their strategy highlights the following:

• Incentivizing annual preventive care
• Encouraging screenings and early detection
• Providing educational resources that improve health literacy
• Helping employees identify health risks before they become larger issues
• Supporting employees in taking manageable steps to improve their health.

Using Data to Measure What Matters

Data also guides LAZ’s overall strategy. Rather than relying only on participation rates, LAZ looks at health outcomes to understand whether its initiatives are making a meaningful difference and where additional support may be needed. They consider:

• Health care claims data
• Preventive care metrics
• Utilization data
• Employee feedback
• Vendor partner outcomes.

LAZ continually uses these insights to ask practical questions about access, prevention, and impact, including:

• Are more employees receiving preventive care?
• Are health conditions being identified earlier?
• Are employees managing chronic conditions more effectively?
• Are barriers to care being removed?
• Are health care resources being used appropriately?

Reaching a Diverse Workforce

LAZ has learned that effective benefits communication requires more than a single email. Because many employees do not work at a computer, messages need to reach people through multiple touchpoints and at moments when the information is most relevant.

For LAZ, communication is just as important as the benefit itself. When introducing a new offering, the team focuses on a coordinated approach that includes:

• Sharing information through internal communications first
• Partnering with vendors to send mailers directly to eligible employees’ homes
• Focusing on one benefit offering at a time to avoid overwhelming employees
• Ensuring HR teams and leaders are fully informed so they can reinforce key messages
• Targeting and personalizing communications as part of a broader 12-month strategy.

LAZ also continues to test new ways to support decision-making. This year, for example, the organization is trying a decision tree tool for open enrollment to help employees navigate their options more easily.

Leadership Support and Organizational Commitment

Leadership support has been critical to the success of LAZ’s wellness strategy. At LAZ, meaningful wellness requires investment, but it also requires organizational commitment.

LAZ has been fortunate to have leaders who understand that employee well-being and business performance are not competing priorities. When employees have better access to care, can identify health issues earlier, and have resources to manage their health, the impact extends beyond the individual. It benefits employees, their families, and ultimately the organization. That support is also strengthened by how wellness recommendations are framed. Rather than positioning wellness as “another program,” LAZ connects recommendations to:

• Workforce needs
• Health data and outcomes
• Access and prevention gaps
• Employee experience
• Broader business strategy.
  

Cathy describes how this approach has changed the conversation. Instead of asking, “Should we offer another wellness program?” the organization now asks, “What health challenges are our employees facing, and what can we meaningfully do to support them?”

Advice for Other Organizations

For organizations looking to start or improve their workplace wellness strategy, LAZ Parking’s advice is to begin by listening to employees and looking closely at the data. It can be easy to focus on what is new or popular in wellness, but the strongest strategies are built around the real needs of the workforce.

That means taking time to:

• Understand your employee population
• Identify the biggest health and access challenges
• Listen to employee feedback
• Establish a few meaningful goals
• Choose initiatives that directly support those goals
• Measure whether those initiatives are making a difference.

Communication is just as important. As Cathy states, “You can build an extraordinary benefits and wellness ecosystem, but employees can’t benefit from something they don’t know exists or don’t understand how to use.” Wellness works best when employees know what resources are available, understand how to use them, and receive information in a way that meets them where they are.

LAZ Parking is a 2025 Platinum Well Workplace Award recipient. Click here to review a complete list of award winners.

Interested in applying for a Well Workplace Award? Learn more about the Well Workplace Award application process here.

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  Ashton Sholund

  Associate Director, Wellness Education and Content

  Wellness Alliance

  As a Wellness Content and Information Specialist at the Wellness Alliance, Ashton is passionate about supporting employee well-being and advancing workplace wellness initiatives. With over 12 years of experience as a certified health coach, Ashton has worked extensively in the worksite wellness sector, empowering individuals and organizations to prioritize health and create sustainable wellness strategies. Outside of work, she enjoys group exercise classes and participating in a monthly book club to nurture both her physical and mental well-being.