On Thursday, Nov. 4 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Human Resources Department will host the Employee Benefit and Wellness Fair in the Union Ballroom.
All benefitted UW employees are provided with an hour of release time to attend the fair.
“It’s an information session that comes from the experts for all of the employees,” Kira Poulson, Human Resources team lead, said. “There will be drawings for prizes, which could be cookies from [residence] life and dining, basketball tickets, T-shirts, and gift cards.”
The fair will feature raffle prizes, give-away items and a variety of vendors that employees can speak to and access resources from.
Participating vendors include the Wyoming Retirement System, Ameriprise Financial Services, Wyoming Health Fairs, Employees’ Group Insurance, TIAA, Cigna, the UW Wellness Center, the UW Diversity Office and the UW Division of Communication Disorders.
“Employees can talk directly to the vendors with any questions they have or if there’s additional information that they wanted to talk about,” Cherise Laud, senior benefits and retirement specialist, said.
Paul Nash, marketing specialist at Wyoming Health Fairs, said that Wyoming Health Fairs will be promoting different screenings and resources that they offer at the benefit fair.
“State of Wyoming employees that are on the health insurance plan through Cigna, including UW employees, can get two free blood chemistry panels through us every year and a flu shot,” Nash said.
Poulson said that employees who attend will also be able to make any changes to their insurance and receive information regarding retirement and wellness.
The benefit fair will take place near open enrollment time, so employees will have access to more information in that area as well.
“We set the fair around open enrollment time for folks who might have questions about their benefits and if they need to change anything or add anything,” Laud said.
Laud continued on to speak on the role the university Wellness Center will play at the fair.
“The Wellness Center will be there to talk about wellness options that are available to UW employees and what they can engage in,” Laud said. “There are several things that are available that employees may not be aware of or are not familiar with, and they just need to talk to someone about it.”
Poulson said she is looking forward to the event returning after being canceled last year due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“I am definitely excited to have the fair back. It brings a sense of normalcy back to what we do,” Poulson said.
“I’m just glad that these types of events are happening again,” Nash said. “We’re able to offer so many tests for the participants at very little cost to them, and just getting the word out and having more people know about us is a huge benefit of events like these.”
