HealthLink KC

09/03/2026

**Teacher Appreciation GIVEAWAY!!

🙌Help us spoil 3 deserving teachers this Labor Day! 💗

🥺Did you know more than 94% of teachers will spend an average of $851 out of their own pocket EVERY year to provide basic stationary, hygiene and comfort supplies, and support their learning environment?

Honestly, we think that’s a lot to ask of people… so we decided to do something about it and asked our friends to help, too!

👫These amazing people showed up and jumped at the opportunity to help US help support our community.💗

Here are an incomplete list of the prizes we’ve compiled together:

One Grand Prize Winner will receive:
1. a $250 Amazon Gift Card to support their lifestyle, wellness, and everyday classroom essentials.
2. a pack of classroom essentials
3. HOLIDAY LIGHTS!!!!
4. a personalized tumbler
5. 2 HOURS of Decluttering and Organizing
And MORE!!!👀👀👀👀

One First Prize Winner will receive:
1. a $100 Amazon Gift Card to support their lifestyle and everyday classroom essentials
2. a pack of classroom essentials
3. 2 HOURS of Decluttering and Organizing
4. a 2 pack class pass to Body20
And MORE!!!👀👀👀👀

One Second Prize Winner will receive:
1. a $50 Amazon Gift Card to support their everyday classroom essentials
2. a pack of classroom essentials
3. 2 HOURS of Decluttering and Organizing
4. a personalized tumbler
AND MORE!!!👀👀👀👀

👉And honestly, we feel like every teacher who is nominated is a winner. 🙏

🥰Take a minute and let our community know WHO MAKES A DIFFERENCE, who you’re thankful for, who you want to see honored.
Here’s how to nominate your favorite teacher:
👍Like this post

🎯Follow the accounts in our pinned comment!

⭐️Tag an amazing teacher in the comments to nominate them!⭐️
(If you’re a local business owner who wants to add to our baskets, send me a DM to collaborate with us!)

Open to KS teacher residents in the following counties: Wyandotte, Johnson, and Leavenworth. Giveaway ends on September 7th, 2026 at 11:59 AM PST

09/02/2026

Here it is! Let’s do something special for our amazing teachers!

**Teacher Appreciation GIVEAWAY!!

🙌Help us spoil 3 deserving teachers this Labor Day! 💗

🥺Did you know more than 94% of teachers will spend an average of $851 out of their own pocket EVERY year to provide basic stationary, hygiene and comfort supplies, and support their learning environment?

Honestly, we think that’s a lot to ask of people… so we decided to do something about it and asked our friends to help, too!

👫These amazing people showed up and jumped at the opportunity to help US help support our community.💗

Here are an incomplete list of the prizes we’ve compiled together:

One Grand Prize Winner will receive:
1. a $250 Amazon Gift Card to support their lifestyle, wellness, and everyday classroom essentials.
2. a pack of classroom essentials
3. HOLIDAY LIGHTS!!!!
4. a personalized tumbler
5. 2 HOURS of Decluttering and Organizing
And MORE!!!👀👀👀👀

One First Prize Winner will receive:
1. a $100 Amazon Gift Card to support their lifestyle and everyday classroom essentials
2. a pack of classroom essentials
3. 2 HOURS of Decluttering and Organizing
4. a 2 pack class pass to Body20
And MORE!!!👀👀👀👀

One Second Prize Winner will receive:
1. a $50 Amazon Gift Card to support their everyday classroom essentials
2. a pack of classroom essentials
3. 2 HOURS of Decluttering and Organizing
4. a personalized tumbler
AND MORE!!!👀👀👀👀

👉And honestly, we feel like every teacher who is nominated is a winner. 🙏

🥰Take a minute and let our community know WHO MAKES A DIFFERENCE, who you’re thankful for, who you want to see honored.
Here’s how to nominate your favorite teacher:
👍Like this post

🎯Follow the accounts listed in our pinned comment

⭐️Tag an amazing teacher in the comments to nominate them!⭐️

(If you’re a local business owner who wants to add to our baskets, send me a DM to collaborate with us!)

Open to KS teacher residents in the following counties: Wyandotte, Johnson, and Leavenworth. Giveaway ends on September 7th, 2026 at 11:59 AM PST

09/02/2026

🍎 Help us spoil some amazing Kansas teachers! 🍎
One of the things I love most about being part of a local business community is seeing people come together to support the people who make a difference every day.
I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Jo Feagans and Nicholas Feagans of Restoration 1 of Leavenworth, and they are truly some of the most generous people I know. They’re always looking for ways to give back to our community.
I’ve partnered with them and several other awesome local small business owners to do something special for those near and dear to my heart—our teachers! ❤️
Together, we’re putting together three prize baskets to spoil three deserving Kansas teachers.
Keep an eye out for posts coming this week to find out how you can nominate your favorite Kansas teacher, or even yourself! 🎉
We love our teachers and are excited to show them a little appreciation for all they do!

09/01/2026

September is Life Insurance Awareness Month. It’s a good reminder that life insurance isn’t just about what happens when you’re gone, it’s about protecting the people and plans you care about most. If it’s been a while since you reviewed your coverage, September is a great time to take another look.

www.healthlinkkc.com

08/28/2026

The open enrollment mistake that costs employers more than they realize.

It's not picking the wrong carrier. It's not underfunding the plan. It's treating open enrollment like a once-a-year administrative task instead of the single biggest opportunity all year to actually communicate value to employees.

Here's what usually happens instead. A generic email goes out. A deadline gets attached. Employees click through the same options they picked last year without really understanding what's changed, what's improved, or what they're leaving on the table by not paying attention. The whole process becomes something to get through, not something that actually informs anyone.

The cost of that isn't obvious right away. It shows up later, in employees who don't realize what they're covered for and avoid using benefits they're already paying into. In turnover that gets blamed on "culture" or "compensation" when part of it was really about employees never fully understanding what they had. In HR fielding the same confused questions every single year because nothing about how the information gets delivered ever actually changes.

Open enrollment done well isn't just a compliance window. It's a chance to remind employees, clearly and specifically, why staying is worth it.

If your employees were quizzed on their own benefits today, would most of them pass?

08/27/2026

Start the benefits review in August. Your team notices by October.

It doesn't take a big announcement or a company-wide rollout. It just takes starting earlier than usual. Real conversations with your team about what they actually use, what they don't understand, what feels outdated compared to what else is out there.

By the time open enrollment opens, a team that's already had those conversations isn't scrambling to decode a benefits packet under deadline pressure. They already understand their options. They've already asked their questions weeks earlier, when there was actually time for real answers instead of a rushed line buried in an FAQ nobody reads.

The difference tends to show up in small ways first. Fewer confused messages to HR. Higher engagement with benefits that have been underused for years simply because nobody explained them clearly. Then it shows up in a bigger way.

Fewer retention conversations in October, because the disengagement that usually builds quietly through a rushed enrollment season never gets the chance to take root.

It's not complicated. It just requires moving the conversation earlier and making sure it's a real one.

What would starting this conversation six weeks earlier look like for your team?

08/27/2026

What happens when employees don't understand their benefits before open enrollment.

They default. To last year's selections, to whatever their coworker picked, to whichever option seems easiest to understand on a page full of terms nobody explained clearly. Not because they don't care about their coverage. Because they've never actually been given a real reason or real opportunity to understand it.

That default has consequences that show up well after enrollment closes. Employees end up under-covered for their actual life stage, then get surprised by out-of-pocket costs later and quietly blame the company for it. High-value benefits go unused simply because nobody realized they existed. HR spends the following eleven months fielding the same basic questions that could have been answered once, clearly, before decisions were locked in.

And underneath all of it, there's a quieter cost. Employees who don't understand their benefits tend to undervalue them completely. A genuinely strong benefits package can end up feeling invisible, simply because nobody ever took the time to make it understandable.

Enrollment isn't really about employees clicking through options. It's about whether they walk away actually knowing what they have and why it matters.

Do your employees understand their benefits, or do they just complete the form each year?

08/25/2026

The company that lost three people in September because of what they offered in August.

It's not a hypothetical. It's a pattern I've seen play out more than once. August rolls around, benefits enrollment gets treated like a compliance task instead of a retention strategy, and communication about it goes out as a generic email nobody reads closely. Enrollment closes. Nothing changes. Life goes on.

Then September hits. A few employees quietly start interviewing elsewhere. Not because the compensation was wrong. Because somewhere in the back of their mind, benefits season became one more data point in a running tally of whether this job actually supports the life they're building. Nobody explained the plan changes clearly. Nobody made it easy to understand what they actually had access to. So they assumed the worst, or just assumed nobody was paying attention to them at all.

By the time an exit interview happens, "benefits" rarely gets named as the reason. It's usually something vaguer. Fit. Timing. Opportunity. But if you trace it back far enough, August is often where the disengagement quietly started.

Benefits communication isn't just an HR checkbox. It's one of the clearest signals employees get, every single year, about whether a company is actually paying attention to them.

If your team can't clearly explain what they're covered for right now, that's worth a closer look before enrollment closes, not after your next round of exits.

What's your organization doing to make benefits enrollment feel like more than a formality this year?

08/24/2026

The back to school season has a business version, and most employers miss it.

For families, August means resets. New routines, new schedules, a fresh start energy that shows up whether anyone plans for it or not. There's a business version of that same reset happening inside every organization right now, and it's easy to overlook if you're not paying attention.

Employees are naturally reassessing this time of year. Whether the current schedule still works. Whether the job still fits the life they're building. Whether next year looks like more of the same or something different. That reassessment is happening quietly, independent of whatever's on the company calendar, and it's happening whether leadership engages with it or not.

Most employers treat fall as a normal operational stretch, business as usual, same priorities as August. Meanwhile employees are experiencing it as a genuine inflection point, the same kind of "what's next" energy that shows up every September, just aimed at their career instead of a classroom.

Companies that recognize this and lean into it, through real conversations about growth, benefits, and what's ahead, tend to capture that reset energy. Companies that miss it often find out the hard way, through resignations that seem to come out of nowhere in October and November.

Is your organization tapping into that reset energy, or letting it pass by unaddressed?

08/22/2026

What's the first thing that always lands back on your calendar in August?

For some it's school events, back to open houses and picture day and everything in between. For others it's sports schedules taking over every evening of the week. Meal planning making a comeback after a summer of "we'll figure out dinner." Doctor and dentist appointments that got pushed all summer suddenly needing to happen now. Work travel picking back up.

For me it's resetting my schedule, adjusting to the boys’ new routines, and getting intentional about where I want to spend my time for the rest of the year. Every year, right on schedule.

What's back on yours? Drop it below. 👇