On Jan. 15, 2009, U.S. Airways flight 1549 struck a flock of birds over the skies of New York City and lost engine power. The pilots made an emergency landing on the Hudson River in front of midtown Manhattan, and saved all 155 passengers on board. Dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson,” the averted disaster made headlines for weeks across the U.S., and inspired one company to create a unique employee benefit: an emergency task force specifically for employees.
Several Bank of America workers were aboard that flight, and the business created an impromptu support team to assist them, supplying clean clothes, hotel rooms, and services to reconnect with their families after the crash. But what started off as a sudden emergency effort sparked the idea of creating a full-fledged program. In 2014, Bank of America established its Life Event Services (LES) team to aid workers with significant life events.
“The Miracle on the Hudson was one of the impetuses of, ‘Wow, this has been really helpful for teammates. How can we continue to provide the support?’” Ava Mehta, head of the Life Event Services team for Bank of America, tells Fortune. “That was a really big event that garnered a lot of attention. But there are so many small events that happen every single day that our teammates need help with as well.”
In 2014, the bank hired 50 full-time employees for the “front-line” team to provide personalized resources to employees suffering from events including domestic violence, natural disasters, terminal illness, retirement, and losing a loved one. The Life Event Services workers come from a broad range of professional backgrounds—like social work, 911 assistance, medical care, and police enforcement—to support employees with empathy and emergency expertise. That team has since grown to 150 full-time employees, and operates six domestic and four international locations to support a workforce of 213,000.
“Our job is really to support our employees in the moments that matter and really think about their true life events,” Mehta says. “It could be at mass scale with unfortunate acts like shootings or hurricanes. Or it could be smaller events that are very impactful, like house fires and domestic violence.”
The Life Event Services team has handled more than 600,000 cases since 2014. In 2023, it provided support to more than 3,800 Bank of America employees. The team has assisted workers and their families who experienced the wildfires in Hawai'i, a shooting in Maine, flooding in Vermont and Libya, violence in Israel and Gaza, Hurricane Otis in Mexico, and the earthquake in Morocco. When a Bank of America employee is going through a serious life event, they can email the team for assistance.
LES responds to worker requests 24 hours a day 365 days a year, connecting them with internal and external resources to handle the situation. For example, if an employee’s house burned down, the support workers will start by helping them take time off work, finding them a new place to stay, and connecting them with counseling services.
“We help them throughout that journey, in order to get them back on their feet, back to being productive, and into the workplace,” says Mehta.
Most issues brought up to the Life Events Services team don’t typically revolve around catastrophic situations like natural disasters and violence—Mehta says that the most common requests are about mental health. When Bank of America employees are struggling emotionally, they reach out to LES to get connected with the right resources.
“Coming out of the pandemic we’ve seen mental health [issues], whether it be our own employees or their family members, ramp up. We connect in our benefits partners and think about what services we as a company can provide,” she says.
While it may seem like a huge company expense to staff 150 emergency professionals to answer requests at the drop of a dime, Meha says it’s a smart business choice. She’s seen the benefits from the way employees show up to their jobs and stay loyal.
“Our perspective is, if our teammates are being taken care of, they're going to be more productive. That’s kind of the secret sauce of our company,” she says. “It's really important for longevity, for retention, for really making sure that people are comfortable going to work. There's so much going on in the world, and really trying to help them.”
