How Charlie Health streamlined leave management for employees in all 50 states

Charlie Health is a virtual intensive outpatient program serving teens and adults. On a mission to connect the world to life-saving behavioral health treatment, Charlie Health uses personalized, evidence-based care to improve mental health, substance use, and eating disorder issues.

Once Charlie Health clients are paired with a Primary Therapist and group cohort, they’re given a custom treatment plan. Thanks to flexible scheduling and virtual access, Charlie Health clients get care when they need it, as soon as they need it.

Compassionate, on-demand care combined with behavioral health expertise leads to impressive client outcomes. More than 91% of Charlie Health clients see improvements in their severe mental health symptoms at discharge.

Paving the way for that progress are over 1,800 dedicated employees spread throughout the United States.

High-quality care for Charlie Health’s caretakers and care facilitators

Charlie Health puts people first. As a company founded on principles of care and connection, they’re committed to nurturing not only their clients, but the employees who serve them.

“Our ultimate goal is to support our employees who are providing exceptional care to our clients,” said Megan Bertoline, People Operations Manager at Charlie Health.

“We try to think holistically about benefits, and offer resources and programs that are applicable to everyone,” Bertoline explained.

“Sparrow’s administrative support is absolutely incredible. Sparrow streamlines leave process not just for me but for everyone I work with.”

To cover all of their bases—tending to employees’ emotional, mental, physical, financial, and professional well-being—Charlie Health offers a wide range of benefits.

Along with comprehensive health, vision, and dental coverage, the company provides employees with a One Medical membership, Headspace subscription, and $1,200 annual wellness stipend. Employees can also take advantage of employer 401(k) matching, fertility and adoption support through Carrot, generous paid time off, parental coaching through Cleo, and 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

Despite generous paid time off, Bertoline said she knows how stressful leaves of absence can be. “We want all of our employees to feel fully supported throughout their leave—which is a big reason we sought Sparrow’s help,” she explained.

“Keeping managers in the loop about leaves used to be a major pain point, but now my team and all our HRBPs can easily reference Sparrow to view active or upcoming leaves. The dashboard’s organic and intuitive interface has been a huge time and stress-saver.”

The challenge: Managing a high volume of leaves in-house

Before Charlie Health teamed up with Sparrow, the company managed employee leaves internally. “The process was painstaking,” Bertoline said.

“Filing for short-term disability, completing all the paperwork ourselves, working with states for any applicable state disability or leave available—we did everything.”

With employees in all 50 states, compliance was a key concern. “There’s a lot of nuance from state to state with leave laws,” explained Bertoline. “Leave compliance is incredibly important to us. It’s not an area we want to take chances on, so we’re always aiming to minimize our risk.”

At the time, Charlie Health was also growing quickly. “We didn’t have the internal bandwidth to continue to manage leaves ourselves,” she added. Bertoline and her team especially didn’t want the employee leave experience to suffer because of their limited capacity.

Fortunately, Bertoline had worked with Sparrow through her former employer, so she was well-versed in Sparrow’s high-touch offerings. “I had nothing but great experiences with Sparrow, so when the solution was presented as an idea, it was an immediate yes,” she said.

The solution: Using Sparrow to ensure compliance and support employees

When Charlie Health needed a more efficient way to maintain leave compliance while guiding their employees through the filing process, Sparrow was the obvious choice. “Our two biggest draws for using Sparrow were compliance and employee experience,” said Bertoline.

Now, instead of navigating leave laws and filing paperwork themselves, Charlie Health’s People Ops Team relies solely on Sparrow. “Working with Sparrow is seamless,” Bertoline added. “It takes me just a minute or two to initiate a leave, then Sparrow handles every step from there.”

That includes filling out and submitting employer paperwork for Charlie Health, setting up automatic payroll calculations, and working directly with employees taking leave.

“Sparrow’s administrative support is absolutely incredible,” Bertoline said. “Sparrow streamlines leave process not just for me but for everyone I work with.”

“Sparrow continues to evolve in their support and administrative capabilities, constantly adding features and tech that make our jobs even easier. And the team is always open to iterating on the process and making tweaks or adjustments that we need.”

She especially appreciates the Manager Dashboard and HR Business Partners Dashboard, which give Charlie Health managers and HRBPs respectively access to information about their direct reports’ leave dates.

“Keeping our managers in the loop around leaves and notifying them of changes used to be a major pain point of ours,” Bertoline explained. With 20–30 people on leave at any given time, keeping managers up to date required a lot of back-and-forth correspondence.

“But now my team, as well as all of our HRBPs, can easily reference Sparrow to view active or upcoming leaves. And the dashboard’s user interface is so organic and intuitive,” she added. “That’s been a huge time- and stress-saver for us.”

Charlie Health’s payroll team also outsourced payroll calculation to Sparrow. “Sparrow calculating payroll for our active leaves is a huge lift, and their custom reporting is excellent,” said Bertoline.

Sparrow’s expertise and diligence with leave management has been invaluable to Bertoline and her team. “When it comes to leave,” she said, “ensuring all of your Is are dotted and your Ts are crossed is critical, from both a risk mitigation and employee experience standpoint.”

“Our employees say working with Sparrow is incredibly smooth. They have full trust in their Leave Specialists.”

Supporting employees through leave

Sparrow doesn’t just manage leave from the administrative angle; they also hold employees’ hands through the process of filing for benefits, getting paid, and returning to work. Each Charlie Health employee taking leave gets assigned a Sparrow Leave Specialist.

On their introductory one-on-one calls, Sparrow Leave Specialists explain which benefits employees are entitled to, walk them through the steps of paperwork and filing, then answer questions.

Sparrow then files state paperwork on employees’ behalf, and coordinates with state agency representatives and insurance providers if they need additional information.

“Our employees say working with Sparrow is incredibly smooth,” Bertoline said. “They have full trust in their Leave Specialists.”

And so does Bertoline. “All of our Leave Specialists are incredibly kind and thoughtful,” she shared. “Nothing ever feels transactional with Sparrow. The people are excellent at what they do—and they also care deeply about their work.”

Bertoline’s favorite part about working with Sparrow is the collaborative, dynamic partnership they’ve built.

“Sparrow continues to evolve in their support and administrative capabilities, constantly adding features and tech that make our jobs even easier,” she added. “And the team is always open to iterating on the process and making tweaks or adjustments that we need.”

“Sparrow calculating payroll for our active leaves is a huge lift, and their custom reporting is excellent."

The result: Astounding growth with no end in sight

Partnering with Sparrow has improved Charlie Health’s leave management experience from start to finish. With administrative automations, hands-on leave guidance for employees, and compliance expertise, Sparrow has saved Bertoline and her team an enormous amount of time and stress.

As a result, the People Ops Team has had more flexibility to foster the company’s rapid growth. Since partnering with Sparrow in 2023, Charlie Health has quadrupled their employee headcount.

“Continuing to support our employees means everything to us,” added Bertoline. “They make what we do possible, and we want them to feel cared for and uplifted in every stage of life, and on every type of leave.”

Maintaining that support requires strategizing for the future as well. “Benefits are always top of mind for our company and our employees,” said Bertoline. “We’re constantly trying to evolve and be as competitive as possible, and Sparrow gives us the leg up to do that.”

Sparrow transforms employee leave management from every angle. See what we offer or book a demo to get started today..