Despite increased engagement in mental health and workplace wellness programs, dissatisfaction, burnout, and stress-related issues are at an all-time high1. Companies are pouring money into initiatives designed to improve employee well-being, yet workers remain overwhelmed, disengaged, and, in many cases, worse off than before.
Recent research highlights this troubling paradox. The Business Group on Health’s 2024 Large Employer Health Care Strategy Survey found that 77% of employers reported an increase in mental health concerns among employees, even as organizations expand their wellness offerings. Meanwhile, an in-depth analysis from Harvard Business Review reveals that most workplace well-being programs fail to achieve meaningful results, often because they focus on superficial solutions that can at times work for very temporary problems, instead of addressing the true issues; long term chronic stress and pressure on the entire worker experience.
A 2024 study of 46,336 workers across 233 organizations found no significant difference in well-being between employees who engaged in wellness programs and those who didn’t. Similarly, a randomized controlled trial of 30,000 workers found no measurable impact on clinical health outcomes. In other words—despite the millions of dollars spent on workplace well-being, there’s little evidence that it’s actually working.
So, what are employers doing wrong? And more importantly—how do we fix it?
The Problem With Traditional Workplace Wellness Programs
While the intent behind workplace wellness programs is positive, the execution is deeply flawed. Especially in professions where stress is more chronic and inherent to the job itself. Here are the speculations as to why the current program trends fail:
1. “Carewashing” Backfires
Companies are quick to implement initiatives like meditation apps, yoga classes, and "mental health days," but these efforts often fail to address employees' core issues. In fact, superficial well-being efforts—sometimes called "carewashing"—can make employees feel less valued, not more. A classic example? Exhausted nurses being given pizza parties instead of meaningful long-term ways to manage inevitable stressors. When employees see these superficial gestures as performative rather than impactful, engagement drops, and cynicism rises. Meaningful investments need to be put into helping employees view stressors differently and develop skills to improve the ability to advocate for their long-term needs. Meanwhile leadership needs to also invest in better relationships and developing and fostering psychological safety with line level staff.
2. Self-Care Advocacy is Misguided
Employees struggling with overwhelming workloads don’t need another corporate reminder to "prioritize self-care." In fact, being told to manage stress better with vague statements regarding “self-care”—without teaching employees how to think about their stressors differently for long-term meaningful change—often leads to frustration, guilt, and burnout, not relief. True well-being isn’t about placing more responsibility on already stressed individuals; it’s about teaching employees how to think about the stressors that are inevitable in the job itself so they have less long-term impact.
3. Low Participation Rates & Lack of Perceived Need
Even when mental health resources are available, many employees—especially in high-stress professions like healthcare and law enforcement—don’t engage with them. A study of New York first responders found that 78% did not seek help, not due to stigma, but because they didn’t believe they needed it. The focus of many initiatives in workplace mental health has been on “breaking the stigma”, but it turns out that the stigma itself isn’t the most common reason for not engaging. It’s low insight on their own need for it. So, instead, we are likely to get the best impact if we just assume all employees need exposure for how to think about stressful experiences and embed those approaches throughout the agency culture.
The Solution: Building Resilient, Anti-Fragile Employees
If traditional wellness programs aren’t delivering results, what’s the alternative? The answer lies in shifting from reactive wellness efforts to proactive, systemic resilience-building strategies— that are embedded and consistent throughout the work environment. No more single-hit classes. If we want long-term meaningful change in the ability for employees to continue to produce good quality work product no matter the industry, we are going to have to develop a cultural norm about how to think about stress. We can’t truly stop stressful events from occurring. There are just too many variables in what causes people to experience “stress” or “burnout”. Instead we have to work foundationally and teach people HOW to think about these experiences if we are to ever get meaningful and sustainable change.
1. Long-Term Cultural Change Over One-Off Initiatives
Organizations need to move beyond token gestures and create a culture that helps their members to learn how to think about stressful moments. prioritizes stress management and resilience-building at every level. This means integrating mental fitness and anti-fragility thinking into leadership training, improving the individual so they can contribute to better team dynamics, and encouraging and reinforcing people for staying mentally and emotionally agile through inevitable work challenges.
2. Bottom-Up Approach to Stress Management
Rather than relying on top-down wellness mandates, companies should empower employees at all levels to identify their own areas for improvement in how they think about stress and then give them actionable skill sets to use. A "grassroots" approach to teaching employees how to think about stressful events ensures solutions are tailored to the individual experiencing them rather than imposed from above. This also leads to better flexibility of the wellness system- if you teach people how to identify the problems, then they can more independently choose solutions.
3. Better Training for First-Line Supervisors
First-Line Supervisors play a crucial role in shaping workplace culture. Research shows that enhancing a frontline supervisor’s people management skills can reduce turnover by up to 60% (nber.org). Yet, many leaders lack the tools to support their teams effectively. Training supervisors in how to teach others how to think about stress, and improving their ability to communicate through conflict, can have a direct, measurable impact on employee well-being.
4. Reframing Resilience
Instead of reacting to stress once employees are already burned out, we need to raise our baseline tolerance for stress.
Consider how fire safety improved in the U.S.: between 1980 and 2022, structure fires decreased by 55%, not because firefighters got better at putting out fires… but because building codes changed (nfpa.org). A systemic fortification in the core materials used to build properties changed.
This is comparable to needing to systemically fortify our employee’s capacity to “handle the heat”. And if and when things do still (less frequently) catch on “fire” we also stay capable of managing that as well.
5. Investing in Programs That Actually Work
The best well-being initiatives aren’t about adding more perks or surface-level support; it’s about equipping your teams with the mindset and tools to not only withstand challenges but to adapt, recover, and grow stronger under pressure. Unfortunately, at this time we have very little to no data that supports what we are doing so far actually is actually producing meaningful outcomes that improve the workplace. We need to start setting our Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and then measuring those outcomes.
The Future of Workplace Well-Being
The traditional approach to workplace wellness isn’t working. More mental health initiatives haven’t resulted in better mental health—in fact, they often lead to greater dissatisfaction and disillusionment. Instead of relying on band-aid solutions, organizations need to rethink mental strength from the ground up.
We need to start providing more than just coping strategies- we must build anti-fragility, teaching individuals and teams how to adapt, recover, and perform under stress. We must start investing in practical techniques and exercises designed to prevent or significantly reduce the impact of stress and trauma before the incident occurs.
Because it’s not about if bad things will happen; it’s about when, and if you’re mentally prepared to face and transcend them.
It’s time to address the system- not just the symptoms.
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