Approach

We offer a suite of programs and benefits intended to support employees in both their personal and professional lives, to help enable them and their families to safeguard their physical, financial and emotional health and bring their best selves to work. PepsiCo’s employee well-being program is based on three pillars:

• Be Well: Programs to promote physical health to help participants get moving, eat healthy and be safe.
• Find Balance: Programs to support mental and emotional health to help participants manage stress, build resilience and improve financial well-being and work/life quality.
• Get Involved: Programs to foster community involvement and family and social connections, a critical component to well-being.

Employee well-being programs are available in all countries where PepsiCo operates.

PepsiCo’s Total Rewards team manages these programs and continually explores new ways to meet employee needs, drive cost efficiencies and improve outcomes for all members of the PepsiCo community. We offer well-being programs designed to meet the needs of local markets, recognizing that employees in different areas can face different challenges. Our Total Rewards teams across the globe run local events and programs to address their employees’ needs, like biometric screenings, nutrition support, fitness platforms, mindfulness sessions, financial well-being programs, awareness campaigns and many more. 

Being well

Fitness and nutrition programs are among our most popular offerings and support the Be Well pillar:

Fitness programs

A number of locations with a large employee base provide onsite fitness centers. In many markets, we provide a fitness allowance, through discounted gym memberships, vouchers and/or incentives for employees who join a gym. Globally, we offer virtual on-demand fitness classes taught by our PepsiCo fitness center instructors.

Nutrition programs

All locations provide employees with nutrition education and seminars or online platforms, and track programming participation. In many of our larger markets, worksites provide healthy food options in cafeterias.

Well-being education

We offer webinars featuring health and well-being topics designed to provide education and support. Webinars are hosted by expert partners, and topics are tied to the three Healthy Living pillars and promote our programs where available. Recordings of webinars are also available, extending access to a broader range of employees. 

Finding balance

Supporting the mental health and emotional well-being of our employees during times of stress, both personal and professional, is a key business issue. We offer a number of programs to support the Find Balance pillar:

Building resilience program

All PepsiCo employees have access to a stress management app designed to help them and their family members discover simple techniques to build their resilience and shift their response to stressful thoughts and situations. This programming is intended to provide resources to help employees build empathy, ignite purpose and positivity and manage burnout.

Mental health support

In the U.S., all employees have access to real-time virtual mental and behavioral health services, in addition to the in-person mental health care services available through our U.S. medical plans. Outside the U.S., all of our employees as well as their family members have access to high quality therapists and mental health support through our global employee assistance program, the Well-Being Support Line.

We run promotional campaigns throughout the year to educate employees on the programs and resources available to support their mental health and emotional well-being. We dedicate a week of programming each year to mark World Mental Health Day on October 10, including global webinars with experts in the field. By highlighting these support systems throughout the year, we aim to reduce the stigma around seeking support for mental health.

Financial well-being program

We know financial stress impacts both the physical and emotional well-being of our employees. Healthy Money, our financial well-being program, addresses this stress by building financial literacy for our employees, their families and the communities where we operate. Healthy Money provides support for a variety of financial situations, including managing day-to-day finances (budgeting, debt management and savings), establishing good money habits for family finances and preparing for retirement.

Starting in 2023 we launched a new digital platform to expand the Healthy Money program to new markets, with plans to roll out to all markets by 2025. The new platform offers more personalized, impartial financial education and information to our employees. In addition, in most of our largest markets, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., Australia and South Africa, our employees and their dependents have free, confidential access to education and guidance with qualified financial coaches to help them manage their money today and plan for a more secure financial future.

Support for caregivers

PepsiCo operations in many countries offer daycare allowances, discounts with nearby care facilities or access to onsite or near-site childcare. Additionally, in certain locations, we also provide facilities for nursing mothers, including dedicated parents’ rooms and wellness rooms. We aim to expand our nursing room footprint globally over the coming years.

Getting involved

By encouraging employees across the company to get involved, we hope to provide a way for all our employees to feel more engaged, have a sense of pride and establish a stronger connection with their local colleagues and community.

Move for Good

Move for Good is our global well-being challenge. Sponsored by the Total Rewards and PepsiCo Foundation teams, this program gives employees an opportunity to get healthier while giving back. Employees around the world record their daily physical activity and steps over a six-week period. At the end of the challenge, the PepsiCo Foundation converts tracked steps into a donation to the selected charitable organizations to help feed those in need.

Employee resource groups (ERGs)

ERGs are volunteer-based groups that serve as a support system for identity groups within PepsiCo. ERGs, open to all associates, help to embed a culture of inclusion and engagement. Our ERGs regularly sponsor well-being programming throughout the year, including general topics as well as curated content to address specific needs of the membership. We look to ERGs to speak fearlessly with truth and candor about how the organization can step up its efforts to better support our workforce, including how we can all be better allies.

One Smile at a Time

Our global volunteering program, One Smile at a Time, connects employees with local volunteer opportunities that fit their passions and their schedule. When it comes to volunteering, we are united in our desire to help those around us. Volunteering can also be a positive step toward improving health by reducing stress and boosting happiness.

U.S.-specific programming

In the U.S., our national self-funded medical plans offer a robust set of benefits to our eligible employees and their families, including highly competitive employer-sponsored medical benefits, comprehensive reproductive health benefits, travel reimbursement for regionally unavailable medical services, paid vacation, paid sick leave, paid time off for new parents as well as in-person and virtual support for mental health, physical therapy, exercise and nutrition. We employ a number of strategies to ensure that our employees and their family members enrolled in our self-funded medical plans have access to high quality health care, including:

• Care advocacy: we provide our employees and their family members with access to a confidential health advocacy team that helps employees navigate their health benefits.
• Virtual care: in recent years, PepsiCo has added telehealth and virtual care to complement the in-person care offered by our national medical carriers. Virtual care has been provided in areas such as telehealth, virtual advanced primary care offered at the wellness centers in our larger offices and plants and virtual support for mental health, physical therapy, exercise and nutrition. Virtual care also improves access to care for employees who live in locations with limited high quality providers near their home.
• Travel: as part of our commitment to high quality and inclusive benefits, PepsiCo supports our employees and their enrolled dependents in accessing critical health care regardless of where they live across the U.S., including travel expense assistance where access to care is unavailable in an employee’s home geographic region.

We also offer a number of additional programs to U.S. employees and spouses/partners covered under the PepsiCo medical plan, including:

• A virtual physical therapy program;
• Care management and support programs for chronic conditions (like diabetes); and
• Preventive care coverage, including support, cancer screenings and treatment, at best-in-class facilities for certain conditions.

PepsiCo provides a minimum 16 weeks of pregnancy leave in the U.S. to allow the parent giving birth time to bond with their child. The short-term disability plan covers 10 full weeks and the final 6 weeks are paid under the parental leave policy. The 6-week parental leave is available to new parents of all genders, including adoptive parents. We offer onsite child care at our Purchase, New York headquarters and near-site childcare for employees at our PepsiCo Foods North America headquarters in Plano, Texas. Care at these centers is provided by highly-trained and reputable third party providers. Back-up child and elder care services are available through third party providers when a regular care provider is unavailable for all benefits-eligible employees in the U.S.

Progress

In 2023, we made progress in these key areas to support employee well-being:

• Cancer care and support. We were among the founding signatories of the Working with Cancer Pledge. By signing the pledge, we reinforced our commitment to creating a supportive workplace for anyone who is working and living with cancer. The pledge asks companies to proactively share benefits and resources available to employees living with cancer, review their global benefits and policies and create an open conversation to reduce the stigma of working with cancer.
• Mental health support network. We developed a network of mental health champions throughout the Company through our Healthy Mind Allies program. Healthy Mind Allies are typically managers, wellness champions, or HR business partners who attend a six-week training program to build the basic skills needed to identify employees at risk. They also have an increased understanding of the mental health benefits available, can connect employees to resources in times of crisis, and are trained to help at-risk employees.
• Women’s health and family-friendly benefits. We enhanced family-friendly benefits in the U.S., including adding a family planning concierge service, creating a manager toolkit to improve support for new parents and adding an innovative new benefit to help ship breast-milk for nursing mothers who need to travel. We launched a global menopause education campaign, along with new benefits to support women in perimenopause and menopause. We are also expanding family building resources outside the U.S. (e.g., education, fertility, surrogacy and adoption support).

Through PepsiCo’s Wellness Certification Program, we evaluate the maturity of our health and well-being initiatives in all countries where we operate. This annual evaluation program was developed and is managed by an external, third-party global human resources consulting firm. It assesses factors such as eligibility, engagement rates, communication channels and the ability to measure impact and behavioral changes over time. Based on the 2023 wellness certification process, the vast majority of our operations currently offer market-leading wellness programming.

PepsiCo’s health and well-being programs have received numerous awards recognizing the comprehensive and innovative program design as well as the effective communication and branding of PepsiCo’s benefits programs, including the Business Group on Health’s 2023 Best Employers: Excellence in Health & Well-being award.

What's next?

We will continue to review our offerings in an effort to ensure we are supporting employees’ physical, emotional and financial well-being. In the near future, we will continue to promote the many programs available to support our employees, with a focus on mental health and building resiliency.