The Unhealthy Obsession with Corporate Wellness

If perceived as expectations, and not as options, well-being initiatives may create more stress to employees than they actually alleviate.

In today’s rich tapestry of diverse employee benefits, few perks enjoy as much popularity as corporate wellness initiatives. Once a rarity or even a taboo, employee wellbeing and mental health services have quickly grown to become a billion-dollar industry. Some surveys are estimating that over 50% of US-based companies offer some form of corporate wellness programs to their workers, while forecasts expect the global corporate wellness market to double by 2033.

From on-site gyms and wellness centres complete with saunas and massage rooms, to in-office access to therapists and resilience workshops, you will find many organisations boasting about their forward-thinking human resource departments and the caring benefits they offer to employees. 

It seems like a no-brainer win-win situation, doesn’t it? After all, such initiatives are designed to make individuals happier, healthier in mind and body, more productive and more likely to stay and thrive in an organisation.

Well, as it turns out, the data paints a slightly different picture.

A recent comprehensive study by William J. Fleming, a research fellow at Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, surveyed 46,336 workers across 233 UK workplaces and made global headlines due to its astonishing results. The study examined 90 different wellness initiatives—ranging from mindfulness classes and free massages to mental health coaching and sleep-support apps. It found that despite ample resources poured into them, there was almost no correlation between these programs and improvements in mental health, reductions in psychological distress, or enhancements in workplace collaboration and belonging.

In some cases, such as with trainings on resilience and stress management, employees even reported that the initiatives had a negative effect on their well-being.

The surprising data raises an important question for the somewhat overhyped corporate wellness initiatives: why is it that, even though on paper they seem like a great idea, they often fail to deliver meaningful results? And with companies doubling down on well-being and mental health services, is there such a thing as an unhealthy obsession with corporate wellness?

Whether it is because of bad design, wrong messaging, or superficial implementation, let’s explore some of the most common reasons why these initiatives, despite good intentions, frequently miss the mark - and sometimes risk backfiring, making employees feel even more unwell.

❤️‍🩹Nothing Healthier Than a Healthy Culture

There is no doubt that a common axiom, that is true for most benefits, definitely applies to well-being initiatives as well: corporate wellness starts and ends with company culture. No matter how many perks or well-being facilities a company offers, if the underlying corporate culture is toxic they are unlikely to make a meaningful impact to employees.

Take the word of a US-based tech consultant, who shared her thoughts with REBORRN about why she was particularly dissatisfied with her previous gig at a Big 4 consultancy.

“With people being undervalued, burned out, and often left to their own devices by leadership, which offered no support, the last thing our company needed was a new state-of-the-art gym and relaxation room”, she says. “When management revealed to us their plan for their new facilities, many employees like me, who had raised some valid culture concerns, rolled their eyes”.

The employee’s testimonial sheds light on a wider issue: in environments with structural and deeper employee engagement problems, wellness programs can actually backfire. Your employees will simply view them as misguided efforts to cover up the real pain points. And as we already examined in our previous article around shiny perks instead of making people feel cared for, these initiatives can come across as tone-deaf, further alienating the workforce.

The moral of the story is simple: wellness initiatives shouldn’t be seen as panacea. They are by no means replacements of fundamental employee needs, but rather supplements that can enable more options. So before you proudly announce a new set of free tai chi workshops, perhaps it would be a good idea to measure your people’s needs and expectations in terms of workload, job design, leadership practices, and organisational values. After all, there is nothing healthier than a healthy company culture.

🚴The “Cult of Wellness”

The biggest buzzword behind the abundance of corporate wellness initiatives is work-life balance, and for a good reason. Research and surveys alike have pointed out the increasing demand of employees for the time and flexibility to combine their work with their hobbies, habits, and rituals that allow them to feel healthy and well. 

This is precisely why many companies focus on offering benefits and facilities in their own workspaces, to minimise travel for employees and enable them to integrate them more seamlessly into their daily life.

But there is also a fine line between enabling work-life balance, and creating the impression that all habits and activities should be centred around the office. In fact, if not introduced or presented properly, well-being and wellness facilities can make people feel like their organisation is trying to trap them in the office for endless hours - or even worse actually expects them to use them as part of their work routines. 

The idea of corporate wellness initiatives creating an unhealthy expectation from employees was explored in depth by André Spicer, a professor at Cass Business School at City University London, in the book “The Wellness Syndrome”, that he co-authored with Stockholm University’s Carl Cederström.

“What I didn’t expect was that many programs seemed to have the opposite of their intended effect. They were creating guilt and anxiety in employees” he explains in a Harvard Business Review interview about the research that went into his book. “One big wellness program we looked at led previously happy employees in a stable job environment to become anxious about losing their jobs”, he adds. Turns out, employees started stressing about whether they’d be evaluated on their wellness, and whether engaging in an unhealthy lifestyle could affect their employability. 

There are also other dangers in the way companies introduce and integrate well-being initiatives. In some cases, mental health interventions may send the message that “if you do these programs and you’re still feeling stressed, it must be you,” as Tony D. LaMontagne, a professor of work, health and well-being at Deakin University points out.

In both instances, internal communications surrounding these benefits is crucial in how employees will react to them. Without the correct messaging, which emphasises optionality and flexibility, organisations may undermine the very benefits these programs are supposed to provide, turning them into another expectation or demand in an already high-pressure environment.

🛋️Do we really need therapists in the office?

Few people will deny that mental health awareness is crucial, and thankfully the pandemic shattered the stigma around discussing mental well-being outside of our therapists’ sealed doors. But, in some instances, talking about mental health has already gone too far in the corporate world.

We’re increasingly seeing managers incorporate so-called “therapy-speak” into daily office interactions and companies bringing mental health professionals directly into the workplace, for consultations or team workshops. While the intent is undeniably noble, the execution often misses the mark - perhaps because the office is not necessarily the place where such conversations can be meaningfully hosted.

George, a 27-year-old data engineer, shared his discomfort with this approach that very often is used to lure Gen-Z employees like him. 

“It’s awesome that companies are recognising the importance of mental health. But I’m definitely not at all comfortable visiting a therapist in the office or participating in mental health workshops” he told us candidly. “I need ample time to decompress before therapy and to process it afterwards. It would truly terrify me to go through all this process in the context of my work. I would simply shut down. I’d much rather have the flexibility to see someone outside of work, when I need it, something which thankfully my company encourages”.

This sentiment may be more common than companies might realise. While providing access to mental health resources is important, it’s equally important to offer these services in a way that respects personal boundaries. Not every employee is comfortable with openly discussing their mental health in the workplace, either to a specialist or through a well-being team workshop. And once again, imposing this expectation on employees might end up creating more stress than it actually alleviates.

In an interesting article, New York Times-bestselling author Amanda Montell explored another problem: the inclusion of therapy terminology in office language, from conversations between employees and managers to the names of corporate initiatives. “As with all specialised lingo, once the jargon moves out of an in-group and becomes recontextualized, the risk of misunderstanding increases”, she argues. “Wielding mental health jargon in other environments can make room for both intentional and unintentional manipulation".

😓Sweating about sweating it out

If you believe your company has avoided these common pitfalls when introducing wellbeing initiatives, but are still wondering why your office’s cutting-edge gym remains rather empty, there may be an additional reason. Turns out there are a lot of employees, including many active gym freaks, who are simply not so keen on exercising in office spaces.

For many workers, the idea of sweating it out next to their colleagues—or worse, their managers—is far from appealing. Some consider mindfulness or exercise as practices that require isolation, others want to pursue them really early in their day, and there will also be those who simply prefer continuing their sessions with their existing personal trainer.

Of course, leadership participation can help normalise these activities, but encouragement will not work on everyone. For many, the discomfort of exercising or using wellness facilities in a work environment may remain a dealbreaker, and as we already established you want to avoid overpressuring. After all, the purpose of those benefits and perks is not filling the gym with employees every morning, but granting the option and flexibility to those who would like to use it.

🎽Wellness is all about choice

Don’t get us wrong: there is absolutely no question that companies should care about their employees’ well-being. Wellness initiatives could be a step in the right direction, but they are definitely not a cure-all. When they are introduced in a vacuum, or when companies overemphasise them as the only frameworks to achieve work-life balance, their value could soon fade away.

On the flip-side, the most successful well-being benefit programs are those that offer autonomy and flexibility, allowing employees to engage with wellness on their own terms, whether inside or outside the workplace. In a very surprising exception to the rule, the Oxford study found that the only initiatives clearly correlated with improved well-being were programs that gave employees the opportunity to do charity or volunteer work - as the policy pursued by Paypal demonstrates.

So an important lesson to remember when putting together a benefits strategy is that wellness is all about choice. Beyond top-notch facilities, pilates workshops, or company subsidised meditation sessions, which all sound splendid, what employees seem to value the most is the freedom to manage their well-being in ways that work best for them - and surprisingly, in ways that also uplift others.

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Thank you for reading Uncensored this week, as we conclude our Unorthodox Benefits series discussing company perks. In case you missed them, check out our previous articles where we explored unlimited vacation policies, and looked at whether shiny perks like pool tables maintain their relevance.