The research shows that employees don’t use most wellness programs. What do employees really want? Time.
Wellness has been top of mind for employers, and by 2026 companies will have spent an estimated $94.6 billion on workplace wellness programs, whether it’s healthy snacks, mindfulness workshops, gym memberships, flexible work schedules, mental health benefits and more.
Yet a systematic review of research shows that most of those efforts don’t work. Just 23% of employees are engaged and just 34% are thriving in their overall wellbeing, according to the 2024 Gallup State of the Global Workplace report. According to a May survey by the Society of Human Resources Management, as many as 44% of employees feel burned out at work, 45% felt emotionally drained, and 51% felt used up at the end of the workday.
“It’s really a case of time poverty, and we have zero time to engage in anything that’s self care or well being related,” says Jennifer Moss, a workplace author and author of the upcoming book, Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants. “How are we going to have time for yoga, for example, in self care, if I’m working 80 hours a week?”
Moss says she has interviewed exasperated employees who say their employers are pushing wellness apps and resilience training as well as return-to-office mandates, which add long commutes and do not necessarily improve performance.
People feel overworked and burned out, yet their employers are asking them to participate in all of these well-being initiatives. “They need their time back,” says Moss.
This is similar to what Jazz Croft, a digital health expert and senior science liaison at mental health firm Unmind, found in a recent Harvard Business Review study. Croft and Harvard associate professor Ashley Whillans and digital health executive Acacia Parks reviewed industry studies and found that companies tend to create superficial care initiatives that overlook root causes of an unwell workforce.
“This can result in ‘carewashing,’” they write. An employee who needs help with stress from a demanding workload is offered a company-sponsored mindful app and the chance to talk to an online therapist. Ultimately, people end up feeling more disengaged with worse mental health.
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A Mismatch Between Culture and Perks
Some employers also roll out perks that don’t match the culture or employees’ needs, says Tracy Brower, a Michigan author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work and a sociologist studying work life fulfillment, happiness and the future of work.
For instance, a company might have pet insurance, but no one really needs it at work. Or an employer might offer a wellbeing room, but if the cultural environment is not nurturing or supportive, it won’t work.
“Beyond superficial programs, it has to be a more holistic approach to the culture,” says Brower.
Much of what matters to people doesn’t come packaged in a program or a perk. It’s about the approach the organization takes: offering autonomy, fair pay or commensurate pay, acknowledging people and rewarding them for their efforts, and instilling a sense of fairness at work.
It’s about ensuring people feel mentally and physically safe at work and giving them feedback and opportunities and matching their passions or skills to their work. Community, or that sense of belonging and community inside an organization, is also crucial.
The workload may be the biggest factor for wellbeing, says Moss. People want their time back and they want the flexibility to work where and when they need.
Often, employers think of those things as perks, but employees increasingly see them as rights, Moss says. HR officials may simply go to a benefits provider and pick from a buffet of perks instead of making sure they have feedback from employees about what they really want and ensuring people have strategies around chronic stress and burnout prevention, she adds.
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Most people agree time is crucial. A Harvard Business Review study found that meetings are becoming longer and more frequent than ever. And as many as 62% of managers and 66% of employees agree that unlimited paid time off has a positive impact on workplace mental health, according to a September survey of 3,000 Americans by Checkr, which provides background checks. More than one-third of managers and employees believe that managers and bosses are the top cause of mental health issues in the workplace.
A Lingering Divide Over Mental Health
Mental health at work has gained prominence, and awareness has grown in the workplace. Yet there’s still a divide between managers and employees in how mental health is perceived, addressed, and supported, according to the 2024 State of the Workforce Mental Health Report from Lyra Health, which offers mental health benefits.
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At least one in five workers considered leaving their company last year due to their mental health’s impact on their ability to work, according to the report. Among those workers, 46% of them said they were less focused, 42% were less engaged and 36% reported lower productivity. Even more discouraging, a good chunk of managers don’t believe they can truly support an employee who is experiencing mental health challenges.
Even if offered by employers, mental health counseling generally is not widely used, according to Croft and her team. Engagement rates in mental health counseling through employee assistance programs (EAPs) have hovered around 5% to 10% since the 1980s, and a recent survey by Deloitte found that 68% of employees did not use them because accessing the programs was either too time-consuming, confusing or cumbersome.
Making Benefits Cohesive
Brower says one way to increase usage could be to integrate the programs so they’re not piecemeal. That could be linking them and making them accessible in a single intranet page or gateway. Or, perhaps a human coach could guide employees to what they need.
The one wellness perk that does in fact improve wellbeing? Volunteering and altruism. When there is volunteering, there is psychological safety and the kind of supportive environment where people are looking out for others versus themselves, says Moss. “That’s the only one that worked,” she says.
