Beyond the Paycheck · 2026-05-07 · 22 min
Summary Melissa Zaino runs global benefits at Zayo Group, a fiber company competing with Google and Verizon. Her team serves 2,600 employees - half of them field technicians. She's also someone who once got underwater with credit cards and entered a consumer credit counseling program, an experience that still shapes how she thinks about financial stress at work. In this conversation, she explains why benefits teams are losing the plot: companies buy surgical point solutions for cancer, fertility, and weight management, then wonder why nobody uses them. The problem isn't the programs - it's the communication. Melissa's team stopped leading with vendor names and started leading with what the benefit actually does. She also shares why employee surveys matter more than ROI spreadsheets, and why AI might finally help demystify leave policies without violating PII.
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