By Olivier Chateau
CEO and co-founder, Health Union
May 18, 2018

With Health Union growing at such a rapid pace, Tim Armand and I are acutely aware of the things that have been critically important in the company’s success to this point. As such, we have made a concerted effort to give our team members a chance to spend time reflecting on where we’ve been and where we are going.

As part of this commitment, we gather our entire team, twice a year in our Philadelphia offices for a company-wide Summit. This two-day event ends with what has become a traditional “Ask Me Anything” session where team members and colleagues can ask any questions they’d like – either openly or anonymously – about Health Union. Of all of the questions that were asked at this year’s Summit, there was one that really caused Tim and me to take pause and reflect on Health Union and its rapid business growth. The question was “What has been your proudest moment at Health Union?”

Looking out at the 100 faces in the crowd staring back at me in anticipation of a response, made it simple to answer. In the past 12 months, Health Union has doubled in size and in the process of growing so quickly, we have not compromised the quality of our talent or the content and approach within our communities. As part of our belief that bigger has to mean better, we are committed to growing our teams and our communities with only the highest quality talent — people who are passionate about our purpose and who believe in the vision.

As we reflect on what it takes to continue to our business growth successfully, we believe it’s critically important to:

Present a clearly defined purpose that allows everyone to see the value and their contribution to our business growth.

Since the first day we started Health Union, the mission has never changed — let’s do what is right for people. People are the most important ingredient into our business success in building, growing and sustaining Health Union’s communities. Our obsession starts with ‘meeting people where they are’, when they need it most, in our communities, in our company and with our partners. We have seen that only good things come from doing the right thing and we leverage our culture and core values of community, inclusion, transparency and excellence to bring that to life and keep everyone enthusiastic, engaged and accountable for their contributions. To that end, we are always looking for talented people to join our growing family (you can check our job openings).

Share/Own your vision, successes and failures.

We believe that the services we offer will continue to drive tremendous value for our communities, current partners and future partners. The vision; however, is secondary to our mission and values. When running a business that is growing so rapidly, and having so many ideas for growth, it is sometimes easy to get caught up in the ‘new shiny object’ and lose sight of the goal. For that reason, we have made a habit of sharing business successes and failures broadly across the organization, and have surrounded ourselves with teams of smart people who are committed to the mission and who keep each other honest and focused, including us.

By staying true to our mission, we are both humbled and amazed at what the team has been able to accomplish, and how quickly. Health Union’s annual Connexion conference recognizing the ongoing commitment and wonderful work of our advocates and recent awards including winning the #1 Top Workplace in Philly (small business) are powerful reminders of how focus on people and clarity of vision will propel a company forward.

While there are many proud moments, it is easy to say that the people are what makes us most proud. I view everyone at Health Union as an extension of my family and believe that passionate people and well-defined culture are the driving forces to business success.