The effects of COVID-19, as well as the social justice movements sparked by the many tragedies that occurred in 2020, reignited the passion we already had for our core values. Specifically, we followed through on our dedication to Community and Inclusion by providing the resources our community participants and team members needed during these difficult times, and re-committed ourselves to diversity in all areas of the company, from the conditions we serve to the people we hire to the local charities we support.

In doing so, Health Union continued to provide and maintain a culture that puts people first. We know that modeling our culture throughout this pandemic for the people we serve in our communities and our partners begins and ends with acknowledging and addressing how the events of 2020 have impacted our team members.

Throughout the year, we encouraged our people to take time off when they needed it, even if that meant staying in their homes and not looking at their computers for a day. We started our summer Fridays, well, in the spring, to give our team members – many of whom, like me, are parents who have helped their kids navigate online schooling – time to balance their work and home lives.

And our dedication to our mission and our culture has allowed us the ability to adapt to such a difficult time period and set of circumstances. Health Union has adapted in many of the same ways as a lot of other companies. Everybody is working remotely, in-person meetings are now done via video and Slack conversations, and social events are now virtual and BYOB. 

That ability to adapt can be difficult to maintain as a company grows the way Health Union has over the past few years and is made even harder during a global pandemic that has impacted all of our audiences in some way.

But we continue to thrive. Throughout 2020, Health Union continued to hire people to fill important roles (and look forward to hopefully being together with them in-person at some point this year). And we maintained our plan to launch five new online health communities, bringing our total portfolio to 30 by the end of the year.

We even identified a need during this time, to provide information and support to specific rare condition communities, and began executing a plan to further address the needs of people living with those conditions throughout and beyond 2021.

To be clear, none of these things are easy, and they take a lot of hard work. And some companies – due to a mixture of bad luck, the industries they’re in and other extenuating circumstances – may have been impacted negatively or been forced to shut down despite adhering to a lot of the same principles. Many will continue to face untenable constraints going forward.

But the events of the past year have shown that the substance of a company that has worked hard to develop and maintain a strong mission, culture and dedication to people can go a long way in not just making it through – but succeeding during – a global pandemic.