The retail bank’s playbook turned monthly manager calls, snackable content, and peer learning into measurable reductions in employee burnout and stress. Here’s what they built.
By Shakira MacLyons, VP of Customer Marketing, meQ
In a year when corporate messaging lands flatter than ever, and managers are running leaner teams than ever, the way a manager talks about a well-being program makes or breaks the whole thing.
Which is why a recent conversation with Kristin Chenevert, Health & Wellness Manager at Citizens, is insightful in this moment.
The retail bank has about 3,000 people managers. Through consistent focus over time, it’s built a manager activation strategy that works.
Manager activation at Citizens isn’t a launch event. It’s a system with 4 components.
Monthly manager calls. HR Communications hosts a monthly call for the bank’s people managers, with 30-50% average attendance. The topics aren’t operational. They’re about how managers take care of themselves so they can show up better for their teams.
“It’s all about how to take care of yourself, to then be able to in turn show up better for your teams,” Kristin told us. “Leading not just with your business head, but also your people heart.”
Embedded onboarding and leadership development. New managers are introduced to meQ as part of orientation. Leadership Quest, the bank’s elevated leadership program, incorporates meQ content. A dedicated manager hub on the intranet houses resources and content built for the role.
Snackable content distribution. Kristin’s team distributes meQ’s Cup of Calm — short videos and articles managers can read in 2-4 minutes. 43% of enrolled managers at Citizens are now sharing that content with others on their teams.
An informal Well-being Champion Network. A Microsoft Teams channel of self-selected managers and employees who want to help drive awareness. No formal structure. Just people who want in.
When we asked Kristin what she’d tell another HR leader trying to build something similar, three lessons surfaced.
Consistency over volume. “We tend to lead a lot of education sessions with a lot of information. What we’ve learned is more consistent, steady communications with smaller messages.” Less of a campaign feel. More of a drumbeat.
Personalization over topic labels. “We’re really trying to lean into ’explore for yourself.’ The more you engage with the platform, the more the content’s going to be relevant to you.” Instead of labeling content by topic, Citizens points managers to the assessment first.
Snackable, not comprehensive. “I love to call it snackable content. We lead with a lot of the 2, 3, 4 minute content that is just loaded with amazing nuggets and actionable things people can take away as soon as they read or listen to it.”
The common thread: respect for how busy managers actually are. Nothing in the strategy assumes a manager has 30 uninterrupted minutes. Everything assumes they have 3.
Citizens has about a quarter of its eligible managers actively engaged with meQ. Across meQ’s book of business, the average manager initiates about 10 sessions a month.
As a result, manager burnout at Citizens has dropped by 41%, compared to a 23% average across meQ customers. Stress management has improved by 30%. Empathy is up 27% across the book of business. Stress management improvement runs above 80%.
The downstream benefits show up in their teams. Employees with a manager who’s actively engaged with well-being are 58% less likely to be burned out, 50% less likely to be stressed about job security, and 78% less likely to be thinking about quitting.
The pattern is consistent. Activate the manager, and the team follows.
Kristin’s advice for HR leaders earlier in the journey is straightforward. Start with communication. Find the partners — HR Comms, L&D, ERG leads — who can help carry the message. Begin small.
“Any step is an awesome step,” she said. “Nobody’s nailing this perfectly. The world evolves fast enough that there’s always more work to do.”
What Citizens has built isn’t a finished product. It’s a practice. And it’s working.
Watch the full conversation: How Citizens turned their managers into program champions →
