Recent headlines may have led employers to believe that wellbeing interventions do not make a difference to employees’ physical and mental health. It is important to challenge sensationalism and look at the bigger picture, writes Karl Bennett.
“Bosses want you to be well – but they are making you ill,” proclaims the first line of a recent op-ed in The Guardian.
If it sounds sensationalist, that’s because it is. The piece states companies are doing ‘everything’ from supporting workers to stop smoking, offering diet plans, introducing yoga classes to installing bicycle-powered desks, all in an attempt to improve employee health, at great cost to themselves.
The article goes on to say that despite these interventions, organisations could be ‘undermining’ employee wellbeing and making their employees unwell.
Employee wellbeing initiatives
Why we need to shift away from individual-level wellbeing initiatives
The piece cites a study by Oxford University which looks at the effectiveness of various workplace wellbeing interventions and found that none of these had any significant impact on employee wellbeing.
My frustration, however, is not with the study, carried out by an extremely well-respected institution, but with how it has been subsequently reported: unbalanced and lacking in nuance.
Taking the article at face value, you’d be forgiven for thinking that wellbeing interventions were knee-jerk, fad-driven ideas put in place by well-meaning yet naïve employers.
If that were the case, I’d be inclined to agree. Yes, flower-arranging classes during the lunch break are unlikely to do much to support employees with depression or anxiety, while gym memberships offered in silo will do little for employees at risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders.
But it’s easy to use one-off examples out of context or because one organisation somewhere is doing X – just to illustrate a point. And to the best of my knowledge, bicycle-powered desks are not widely offered by businesses with a focus on keeping their employees well.
Saying fashions have changed because you see one person wearing a banana earring, for instance, does not mean everyone is doing it. Offering an argument which is based on a straw man with no substance is dangerous and completely misses the point.
Decisions never taken lightly
I know from my role as chair at Employee Assistance Programmes Association (EAPA) UK and my years of industry experience that no decision around wellbeing intervention is ever taken lightly. Indeed, wellbeing services are usually only implemented once two key things have been satisfied: there’s a genuine health need for such an intervention and there is good clinical evidence for such an intervention.
Wellbeing services are usually only implemented once two key things have been satisfied: there’s a genuine health need for such an intervention and there is good clinical evidence for such an intervention.”
That is not to say that some organisations haven’t become hoodwinked by what is classed as ‘wellbeing’. I believe we need to be careful that we don’t consider everything under the wellbeing umbrella, where flower-arranging classes become about healthy living.
The Guardian article’s mention of smoking cessation as a wellbeing intervention is an interesting one. With the decline in smoking nationally, smoking cessation schemes are no longer top of organisational agendas, partly because such interventions in the past have been successful, so there’s less of a need for them now. Far from ‘making employees ill’, it’s done the opposite.
Ignoring the vital services
It is also interesting that the article makes no mention of online GP services or access to specialist treatment – possibly because it doesn’t fit with the line of argument. But few could argue with the clinical and economic need for these vital health services, particularly at a time when, according to the British Medical Association, the NHS is currently experiencing some of the most severe pressures in its 75-year history.
As of November 2023, 3.18 million patients were waiting over 18 weeks for treatment, a median waiting time of 14.4 weeks – double pre-Covid median of 7.7 weeks in November 2019. There’s also what the NHS describes as a “growing hidden backlog”. And most, if not all, know the uphill struggle in getting GP appointments.
Online GP services through company wellness schemes offer fast-track access to specialist treatment, reducing the pressure on the NHS and reducing the time an employee has to take off work.
EAPs have also become a pillar of mental health provision in the UK for the same reason. In 2022, EAP providers offered counselling to 434,250 people, delivering 1.3 million actual sessions. But given the angle of the Guardian piece, are we really to believe that these therapies are of no value and are “making people ill”?
Lessons to be learned
As orators of employee wellbeing, we have a responsibility to be measured in the way we analyse and comment on the reports and studies we read.
So if there is a lesson to be learned from the Oxford University research – and I think there absolutely is – it should be about looking in-depth at the findings which suggest there is no difference between those who participate in individual-level wellbeing interventions and those who don’t. We need to be asking why is this the case? What’s going wrong? What is it that organisations need to be doing?
The focus also needs to be on the work employers can do in prioritising proactive, preventative elements of their wellbeing service, so employees don’t end up having to access crisis-led services.”
It’s important that employers understand the importance of good quality data in driving wellbeing provision. Highly accurate quantitative and qualitative data paints a clear health picture of the workforce. It can tell employers if a significant proportion of their people are suffering with musculoskeletal disorders, depression or work-related stress. And crucially, it can also highlight potentially toxic workplace environments: Have you got a high staff turnover? Is there an issue with absenteeism? Are there high levels of stress-related illnesses? Armed with this data, you know what work there is to do.
The focus also needs to be on the work employers can do in prioritising proactive, preventative elements of their wellbeing service, so employees don’t end up having to access crisis-led services.
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But simply saying “wellbeing interventions aren’t working – they’re making your people unwell” is not the way to go about the issue.
Let us not forget that there are people who have found – and will find – huge benefit from EAPs and other wellbeing services put in place by employers who genuinely care about their people’s health and wellbeing. Remove these interventions and you’re going to find a lot of very unwell people.
