How culture, mental health work are driving wins at Cardinal Health

In the healthcare space, the power of organizational culture can’t be overstated.

Ola Snow has seen that firsthand during her 25 years with Cardinal Health, an integrated healthcare services and products company. She says she “grew up” in the organization during that time while also witnessing its cultural evolution.

“My team and I have really helped shape the culture,” says Snow, CHRO of Cardinal Health and a recent inductee to the National Academy of Human Resources.

Healthcare organizations are built on a mission of bettering people’s lives and successful cultures make that a reality for employees. At Cardinal Health, that has meant a focus on building a culture where employees can bring their best, most authentic selves so the organization can be a “trusted partner” for all of its stakeholders.

“We focus on results,” she says of her HR team, “but we understand how important culture is to get those results.”

Core to strengthening Cardinal Health’s culture, Snow says, has been an investment in mental health.

The organization started taking a “360 view” of mental health back in 2018, well before the pandemic spurred worldwide action among employers on the issue. Since that time, the company has launched mental health training across the organization, as well as for customers, alongside “foundational” programs that seek to lessen the stigma of talking about mental health in the workplace. And they’re tying real accountability to the work: For instance, frontline managers don’t get their yearly bonus if they don’t complete their annual mental health training.

COVID was a key catalyst for mental health conversations. Half of Cardinal Health employees still had to come to work every day—manufacturing and shipping lifesaving drugs, gloves and masks, for instance—while dealing with kids home from school and rampant anxiety. Cardinal Health hired social workers and therapists, produced a weekly podcast about stress and mental health, and gave employees every Wednesday afternoon off.

“Like many organizations, we doubled down talking about this,” Snow says.

In the last few years, employee wellbeing scores have improved, the organization has seen a 40% hike in EAP utilization, as employees start to consider mental health treatment from a more preventative lens, and the company’s foundation has contributed significantly to mental health causes.

“We’ve focused on mental health as an entire organization, from both the customer and employee standpoint,” Snow says.

In turn, that has meaningfully reshaped culture fueled by critical efforts from leaders. While Snow was already the executive sponsor of the mental health movement, she says the pandemic forced her to lean more into vulnerability.

“I said, ‘OK, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, Ola.”

Snow started speaking openly across the organization about the personal impacts COVID had on her—how the sudden new HR responsibilities, like contact tracing, alongside the loss of employees, worries about her own college-aged kids and her husband’s health were dragging down her own mental health, leading to disrupted sleep and anxiety. Leaders throughout the organization have taken the same approach—the president often speaks about the mental health benefits of his daily walks—which accelerated and normalized conversations about mental health in the workplace.

This work will be increasingly critical in the current environment, Snow predicts.

Waves of massive layoffs, skyrocketing burnout, geopolitical crises—all are colliding to make mental health a necessary cornerstone of HR’s work.

“We need honest and supportive communication, we need to understand how people across the organization are doing—it’s more important than ever to make sure they’re supported,” she says.

HR’s new work in the age of AI

This support is especially necessary in light of the ongoing influence of AI.

HR is being challenged, Snow says, to lean into change management in new ways—from considering employee acceptance and adoption of AI to evaluating the impact of the tech on skill and capability needs.

Simply buying more tech won’t solve the human challenges of AI integration, she emphasizes. Understand the business objectives, how HR can support them and use data and a deep understanding of the workforce to maximize HR’s role, Snow advises.

Among the AI use cases in effect within Cardinal Health’s HR function are translation services. The company operates in 30 countries and now, communication across those borders has been significantly simplified—and sped up—by AI, she says.

The company is also considering AI’s coaching capabilities, including bolstering manager training and mental health conversations.

“You can put AI anywhere,” she notes, “but if it doesn’t match the business and functional strategy, it’s not going to make sense.”

Changes afoot

Largely thanks to AI, 2025 was a “year of change” for HR, and Snow predicts the same for this year.

Apart from staying laser-focused on HR’s ability to drive business objectives in that environment, she says HR must prioritize the human element as well.

“What is our role to drive business decisions forward? But also, how will it impact our workforce?” she asks. “How are we thinking about our workforce of today but also the workforce of the future?”

It’s a mandate that she describes as both “challenging and exciting,” particularly for an organization like Cardinal Health that is in growth mode. Snow and her team have been critical in navigating M&A activity as well as onboarding new members of the executive team, including the new CEO, who joined as CFO in 2020 and became the chief executive two years later. Since that time, the company’s stock price has tripled.

Snow says the top-level recognition of the power of the company’s culture—and its enduring effect on the workforce—has been essential to that success.

“The new CEO talked a lot about what needed to change, but said that our culture will not change. The importance of our people will not change. Our values will not change,” Snow says. “And our job as CHROs is to bring all of that to life.”

Starting next month, that job will become someone else’s, as Snow is retiring. She announced the move last year and has participated in the development and onboarding of her successor—an internal candidate with more than two decades at Cardinal Health—using the same succession playbook she looked to for the CEO role.

“HR owns a lot of the discussion around development and succession,” Snow says, “so I’m so pleased we have a fabulous internal person who is stepping into these shoes and who I know will take the function and the business to an even higher level.”