Workplace wellbeing is a complete waste of time

Don't bother with it, don't invest in it, don't throw any resource at it.

So obviously I don’t actually believe this, and I hope as one of the nearly 3,000 subscribers to this newsletter, you don't either. But this kind of rhetoric has been doing the rounds this week because of an article posted in The Guardian about a new Oxford study showing that workplace wellbeing initiatives don’t make much of a difference.

Now, we’ve been here many times before – there are a few, fairly large studies that suggest workplace wellbeing doesn’t work. But as is the case in many of them (including this most recent study), they are pitching workplace wellbeing initiatives against things like workload being too high, ambiguous roles, poor leadership etc., to suggest that most workplace wellbeing initiatives are actually an attempt to cover up the mistakes of the company and place the onus on the employee to fix those mistakes. While clearly this kind of “wellbeing washing” exists, I genuinely don’t believe in most cases this is actually true (and the evidence backs this up, two thirds of companies aren't wellbeing washing).

?"We aren’t pitching wellbeing apps that help you sleep against quality leadership – both are an important part of wellbeing".?

I'd be the first person to tell you that being well at work and in life does not depend on you improving one single facet of, but rather a balance of things.

For example, if you were going to the gym 5 days a week and following a strict exercise regime set out by a personal trainer, but you were still eating a McDonalds most days, not getting enough sleep, and drinking hardly any water, your wellbeing improvements would be minimal. Your health and wellbeing requires a careful balance of lots of things. You could get yourself a six pack, lose a ton of weight and be in the best shape of your life, but loneliness, a lack of social connection, a lack of purpose and few reasons to be happy about life would decimate your overall wellbeing.

When we talk about workplace wellbeing, we are doing a similar thing. We aren’t pitching apps that help you sleep against quality leadership – both are an important part of employee wellbeing. When you develop a great culture, when you give your employees autonomy and manageable workloads and then you give them wellbeing support too, you aren't trying to fix them, you're actually trying to optimise them. When we function at our optimal level of wellbeing, we are happier, more energised, more resilient and happier.

The fact is the world is in a mental health crisis. By the latest federal estimates in the USA for example, about one in eight U.S. adults now takes an antidepressant and one in five has recently received some kind of mental-health care , an increase of almost 15 million people in treatment since 2002. Even more recently (2019 to 2022), the use of mental health services jumped by almost 40% among millions of U.S. adults with commercial insurance. Why? Because the world is becoming a tougher place to live and work in. Pandemics, several financial crises, are all significant contributors to our poor wellbeing. And Governments around the world aren't helping enough. Mental health is widely underfunded, overused and this contributes to more people needing help. But employers are helping when there is little help elsewhere.

As I stand and type this newsletter, if I needed help with stress, if I was anxious and needed to calm down or speak to someone, I would be waiting for a long time - typically about 3 months for various mental health support on the NHS in the UK. But within minutes, because of the decisions my employer has made, I can read content written by psychologists, watch videos created by personal trainers and nutritionists, speak to a doc on zoom or chat with a mental health nurse. I can also do a home blood test for free, speak to a counsellor in seconds, take a clinical behavioural survey or improve my health literacy. In 2024, your workplace has more of an influence on your wellbeing than your doctor has. So those who support the latest Oxford study, I would ask you one simple question:

"If the workplace isn't going to support your wellbeing, who is?"

Workplace wellbeing interventions are not designed to replace the core organisational changes that need to be made

Oxford University produced a similar study to the one mentioned above last year. That study showed just the opposite to this latest study. It’s true we can gather evidence to prove whatever point we are trying to make and a headline grabbing “you’re wasting your time” is very clickable content (you’re reading this aren’t you?).

The real message here I think is that workplace wellbeing interventions are not designed to replace the core organisational changes that need to be made (like workload, autonomy, appreciation etc) but rather to complement them. They aren’t designed to fix the problems that might exist in the workplace. Workplace wellbeing initiatives should be designed to optimise employees and are not a plaster to stick over wounds caused by work. Readers of my book will know that I have never claimed wellbeing initiatives at work are a silver bullet.

I got into this industry initially because of the sheer volume of evidence that showed the more employers invest in employee wellbeing, the better off they and their people are. When I did the research for my first book on the Employee Experience in 2016, I came to the conclusion in that book that wellbeing was one of the most important parts of that experience. By 2022 I’d written another book referencing 600+ studies that show just how effective and important it is to invest in employee wellbeing. I didn’t get into this industry because it seemed cool, I did it because it was effective.

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The challenge with this article posted in The Guardian this week (and some others like it) is they seem to suggest we can all work and live stress free. In the best jobs with the most progressive employers, people get sick, customers get angry, days can be long, weeks can be busy, people fall into debt, fall out of love, argue with friends, and get overwhelmed by life.

It’s unrealistic to believe we can live and work stress free

I work for an employer (Benefex ) who I think genuinely cares about my wellbeing and does ALL of the right things. But I still don’t sleep as well as I should, I still put pressure on myself, and I still get stressed. My stressors in life at the moment are not to do with work at all. But the workplace has shown to me that although it can’t stop many of the stressors in my life, it can soften the blow of them. The decisions my employer has made and the tools they have provided me, are enabling me to operate with a slightly less full cup - which is preventing me from being overcome by the stress in my life. They are helping me to work in an effective way, as close to my optimal level as possible, and that is benefiting me and them.

Public health policy is designed to change people’s behaviour and I think employee wellbeing strategy should be the same.

Employees (and indeed all people) have demonstrated that we can’t improve our wellbeing on our own. If we could, there wouldn’t be a mental health crisis and there wouldn’t be so much obesity. Public health policy is designed to change people’s behaviour and I think employee wellbeing strategy should be the same.

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Just this week we have been able to demonstrate how this works. Removing large wine options from pubs leads people to drink around 10% less . The biggest example of an institution encouraging us to be healthier and that working is smoking. In the UK it is now illegal to smoke indoors. Following the smoking ban in 2007, a year later there were 1,200 fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks as a direct result of the ban. In 2006 22% of UK adults smoked. By 2015 this was 18%. In 2023 that figure dropped to 12%. Interventions designed to improve our wellbeing have many examples of working, in the workplace and out of it.

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For those of you responsible for, or who champion workplace wellbeing, don’t let these singular studies sway you from the huge opportunity to make a difference to people and society. Making just a small impact on the UK’s “Sick note economy ” will save your company a lot of money and help a lot of people.

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Please encourage others to subscribe to this newsletter and ensure a balance of opinions is out there. We must find ways to better support the lives of people and the workplace has a unique and dare I say, more impactful way of doing this at the moment than relying on the state.

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