Insights

Your wellness program may not be doing what you hope

What research involving more than 46,000 workers suggests trying instead

By Global Wellbeing Institute

Illustration: A single yoga mat rolled up and left in the corner of a bright, busy open-plan office, with a tall stack of unfinished work visible on the desks beside it

Picture a Tuesday afternoon. An invitation lands in your inbox: a free lunchtime session on resilience. Breathe. Stretch. Download the mindfulness app.

You look at your calendar. Back-to-back meetings. A deadline that moved up. A teammate who left in the spring and was never replaced.

You close the invitation and keep working.

(This is an imagined scene, but you probably recognize it.)

Companies spend enormous energy on moments like that one. They mean well. Many of the people who plan them care deeply. So here is the question that matters, and it is a hopeful one: what if the same care were pointed at something that works?

The biggest look yet

In 2024, an Oxford researcher, William Fleming, studied survey answers from 46,336 workers across 233 organisations in the United Kingdom. He compared people who had taken part in common wellbeing programs with colleagues who had not. The programs included resilience training, mindfulness and wellbeing apps.

The finding was striking. Across several measures of how people feel about their lives and their work, the participants appeared no better off.

This was not a small study: the workers came from 233 organisations, and the main finding was consistent across organisations and the social groups tested.

Two experiments say something similar

Cross-sectional comparisons can be distorted by who chooses to join. People who are struggling may sign up more often. So it helps to look at trials where chance decides who gets the program.

A large US trial. Researchers worked with 160 worksites of a big warehouse retailer: 32,974 employees in all. Twenty sites were randomly given a multi-part wellness program covering nutrition, exercise and stress. After 18 months, more employees there said they exercised regularly (69.8% versus 61.9%) and were managing their weight (69.2% versus 54.7%). That is real, and it is worth saying plainly.

But on ten clinical measures, including cholesterol and blood pressure, there was no statistically significant difference. Nor was there any difference in health-care spending, absenteeism, job tenure or job performance. The researchers said the findings may temper short-term expectations about financial return on investment.

A university trial. At the University of Illinois, 4,834 employees were randomly assigned, with a program that included paid time off and incentives to take part. After two years, there were no significant effects on measured health, diagnoses or use of medical care. There were two small gains: more people reported having a primary care doctor (92.2% versus 86.1%), and people's beliefs about their own health risks shifted a little.

What this does not say

It does not say care is wasted. It does not say a good lunchtime walk is bad.

These studies tested particular kinds of programs, in particular places. The Oxford study is a snapshot rather than a before-and-after, so it cannot prove cause. And the trials found a few real benefits, mostly in what people said they did and believed.

What the evidence suggests is narrower, and more useful. Programs that ask each person to become more resilient leave the conditions around that person untouched. The author of the Oxford study reads his results the same way: the interventions are not giving workers the extra resources that heavy job demands call for.

What to do instead

If the problem is partly the work, the answer is partly the work.

The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization said so in 2022. Their guidance for employers starts with the organization itself: tackle the risks built into the job, such as heavy workloads, and train managers, who shape the daily climate for everyone. WHO estimates that depression and anxiety cost the world about 12 billion working days a year, and around US$1 trillion in lost productivity.

The US Surgeon General's framework for workplace wellbeing (2022) points the same direction. It names five things every workplace can build:

  • Protection from harm. People feel safe, physically and psychologically.
  • Connection and community. People belong.
  • Work-life harmony. Schedules are as flexible and predictable as they can be.
  • Mattering at work. People receive a living wage and are recognized for what they do.
  • Opportunity for growth. People can learn and move forward.

Notice what these have in common. None of them is an app.

A better question

Illustration: Two doorways side by side in a cream wall, one narrow and crowded, one wide and open with warm light spilling through

You do not need to throw out your program tomorrow. You can start with three questions.

  1. What are we hoping will change? Say it as a number we could check, such as fewer people leaving, or more people saying they have time to do good work.
  2. Did it change? Compare with a group that did not get the program, even a simple one.
  3. What in the job itself could we change first? Start with one workload, one schedule, one manager.

The second question can feel hard. It does not have to be out of reach.

The world we are working toward

Illustration: A workshop bench in warm light with a few simple, well-made tools laid out in order, and a small brass level resting on top

Imagine a workplace where care is measured by what changes in people's days, not by how many invitations went out. Where a team can say honestly, "We tried this, here is what we learned, and here is what we changed."

Imagine that way of working reaching a clinic in a mountain town, a factory in Pune, a school in Guatemala City, not just the companies that can afford a consultant.

That is the world the Global Wellbeing Institute is building toward. Our Impact & Evaluation Lab, now in development, is planned as GIHEW's research and outcomes-measurement program.

Illustration: A village path at dusk leading toward a cluster of warm lit windows, each slightly different

If you lead a workplace, fund wellbeing programs, or just want to see this kind of honest measuring spread, we would love to hear from you. Come and build it with us.

Request our prospectusdirector@globalwellbeinginstitute.org

Sources

Global Wellbeing Institute is a new organization and its programs are in development. We do not report program results.