In the fast-paced world of F&B, taking care of your customers might be your top priority, but what’s even more important is taking care of your employees. People working in the F&B industry work long hours, face high-pressure environments, and serve the customers with a smile. Ensuring their well-being through health benefits isn’t just a good practice— it’s essential for running a smooth and successful business.
“Healthcare should be this easy for the regular Filipino,” says Mikee Villareal, CEO and co-founder of Dot. We share our conversation with her on how Hive Health has helped her not only encourage her team to fully utilize their HMO benefits, but how it has helped her in her own journey in balancing health and building a business with impact.
Can you introduce yourself and your company?
I’m Mikee, I am one of the co-founders of Dot, previously Dot Coffee. Dot is the go-to beverage and lifestyle brand for young working professionals that appreciate good coffee. We really believe that anyone and everyone deserves a good beverage drink, and that premium coffee should be highly accessible to everyone.
Can you walk us through the importance of HMO benefits when you started building the team?
We work in F&B, and a lot of the heart and soul of F&B are really the people in operations. We come up with the products, and we want to sell our customers the best of everything – whether that’s donuts or brownies – but none of those things would actually exist if we don’t have the people in operations.
You make food with soul. And when you’re making food with soul, sometimes just like how life is, people just get sick, people get into accidents. And I never, ever want to have anyone who is putting soul into the food to actually be anxious about [missing out on work, or having to take care of family because they’re not doing well].
And I just thought that I’ve been working in F&B for so long, but I have never used my HMO before. I would just pay directly because HMOs before were super slow. But Hive Health is super quick and efficient. And to be honest, it was so easy, not just for me, to use it. But even our operations team. Taking care of the entire team is always the top priority of all business owners.
Why did you choose Hive Health for your team?
It was the ease of use and convenience for my entire team. There are always these questions like, if I get sick, I’m not going to get paid and everything. People always wonder, “How can I even make use of my HMO or insurance?” And no one ever knows where to go, truly. There’s also this thinking, especially for Filipinos, that we can spend X amount on food or celebrations, but we always seem to scrimp on health. But Hive Health particularly does that: they increase awareness on how easy it is to take care of yourself while you’re working for a company, which I think no other HMO can do at the moment.
Because you mentioned how Dot is very people-centric, can you talk about any benefits or features of Hive Health that make an impact on your team’s productivity?
For one, I find that my People Operations team finds it so easy to explain it to a line cook, a janitor, a warehouse man, or anyone how to use insurance. So for example, if a motorcycle rider gets into an accident, they start to freak out [about having to go to the hospital and paying out of pocket]. If the organization understands how to provide that benefit to their employees, all the more the employees will feel safe that they can work in this company and continue to build the vision.
One of the features of Hive Health that I love the most is the dashboard. It’s so easy to see everything. I’m quite a sickly person, so I personally have used it so many times. But also how quick it is to file for reimbursements, how quick the customer service is. The regular Filipino will always be worried about how to get healthy without paying so much for it, and that should never be something that people should be worried about.
Since you mentioned that prior to using Hive Health, you wouldn’t normally use your HMO. What difference did you experience with Hive Health?
In my past employment, I knew I had HMO, but no one ever told me how I could use it or how to claim my benefits. It was also never explained well by past HR departments how I could even avail, or maybe I just didn’t fully understand, so I gave up. But now, I’ve never used this much of my healthcare benefits in my life.
With Hive Health, when an employee is onboarded into the company, they are immediately included in the onboarding process of Hive Health. And so far, considering how much of my team uses their health insurance, they understand the wonderful benefits and how to use Hive Health. And it’s amazing to know that our people not only care for the company, but also for their health.
You mentioned that you personally use the dashboard a lot. Only if you feel comfortable to do so, can you share your experience and what features have helped you most?
So I actually got diagnosed awhile back with a rare autoimmune disease. That’s just how life goes. I’m also a really hard-working person, I’m obsessed with my work. So of course, that came with the fear.
Just like for most Filipinos, they don’t think necessarily about how heavy the disease could be on them or how it could potentially impact their lives. The first thing they thought of was how much is this going to cost. When I thought of that insight while I was using Hive Health, I started to think that healthcare in general should be this easy for the regular Filipino. That’s why I truly believe that it’s something I want to keep for my team, especially because I even avail for myself. It reduced the amount of anxiety I felt paying for it out of pocket, versus the fact that I should focus on getting healthy instead. There’s a need to shift that perspective.
Hive Health is this modern way of making Filipinos understand that health should be number one, and that health should be the first thing provided to us so that we can continue doing a good job.
Thank you for sharing your story with us. Can you tell us about your experience with availing care?
Hive Health encompasses everything. When I got diagnosed, it affected my health overall. I’d have to book my autoimmune disease doctor, that’s one. But because they’re all interconnected, I need to book all the other doctors because they’re all correlated to my main disease. Hive Health has this seamless dashboard where I could just book my teleconsults, LOAs for all my doctor appointments, in just a few clicks. It made me realize that I can just focus on getting healthy in under one hour, and then go back to work, instead of working on it for 10 hours in the hospital. So imagine that.
Would you recommend Hive Health to other businesses?
I would recommend Hive Health 100% to all businesses in the Philippines. Business owners should shift their mindset. If you think about it, you’re investing in the health of your employees so that their productivity also increases. Moreso, they get to enjoy their jobs and not have to worry about spending money at the hospital. Business owners build businesses because they want to create impact. And to create impact, you need a productive and healthy team.
I like to point out the fact that being unhealthy causes some sort of anxiety. Hive Health is definitely the tool to get to a healthy mindset, 360º because they also provide mental health care. I find that the mission and vision of Hive Health is something very important to business owners, for people working in those businesses, and everyone in the Philippines.
To learn more about how Hive Health can help your team take care of your employees, book a call today.
