Wellbeing on any budget
Photo is AI generated
Co-authored by Zsófia Belovai and Réka Deák
Recently, the wellbeing manager of a fast growing 10k+ employee company came up with a surprising offer when we talked about joining my podcast as a guest: "If you want someone to talk about how to do anything as a wellbeing leader with almost no budget, I'm your person." The company has literally no wellbeing budget—apart from financing a mental health first aider course. They are not the only ones in such situation. Still, there is great determination and energy around the topic in the organisation.
Focusing on employee wellbeing has become increasingly important and expensive. HR and Wellbeing Managers constantly fight to allocate budgets for wellbeing initiatives and are under pressure to deliver return on investment.
But do we really need costly wellbeing apps and programs to create impactful changes and support employees?
In the past two decades, the most progressive companies have been offering wellbeing programs and initiatives to respond to the uptick in workplace stress, longer working hours, and lifestyle-related health issues. According to Gallup, 62% of US workers consider work-life balance and better personal wellbeing as essential factors in making decisions about moving to a new organization.
The COVID-19 pandemic further enhanced this trend, prompting even more companies to spend on such programs. Despite the investment, something seems to be missing. According to research by Deloitte in 2024, 90% of executives believe that working for their company has a positive effect on worker well-being, skills development, career advancement, inclusion and belonging, and their sense of purpose and meaning. However, just 60% (or fewer) of workers agree.
Low wellbeing is already expensive with an annual $1,685 per employee loss on stress-related absenteeism, and investing in ineffective employee assistance programmes can ramp this up even further. However, there are decades of research on simple, budget-friendly strategies that can make a big impact without breaking the bank and yielding a high return on investment.
Earlier this year, a study from Oxford University looking at 46,000 employees found that wellbeing interventions such as mindfulness apps or relaxation classes had no impact on wellbeing. The authors concluded that many initiatives fail to address the root causes for high stress and low wellbeing: heavy workloads, toxic work cultures, and inflexible ways of working.
What if employees are so busy and overloaded that they don’t have time to participate in the wellbeing initiatives designed to support them?
What if someone has a toxic boss or work environment, and even if they attend a wellbeing initiative, it fails to create a long-term impact on their wellbeing at their current workplace?
We are behavioural scientists and consultants with decades of experience, and in our work, we have found that equipping teams with tools they can implement at the time of need can have a significant positive impact on wellbeing. Rather than relying on bringing in external tools, we want to shift the attention to ensuring that managers recognise when those around them need support, have access to the appropriate tools, and that they can use them successfully. In this article, we will demonstrate this through our own research and provide advice for organizational leaders on how they can create a better wellbeing strategy on any budget.
Application
Many companies have been offering various webinars on different areas of wellbeing or running global wellbeing programs for some time. They usually report high engagement scores, indicating that they manage to attract many participants to these sessions, however, they often struggle to translate this engagement into tangible impact.
The primary reason is that employees are not given the space or empowerment to change their ways of working.
Despite the valuable insights gained during wellbeing sessions, old processes and a lack of empowerment prevent employees from putting what they learned into practice.
One methodology that we find impactful and low cost is called the Wellbeing Palette. After analysing the biggest challenges faced by teams that affect their wellbeing, we develop a set of tailored wellbeing practices - like a palette - that directly address these challenges. This approach provides a structured and safe space for employees to practise and support each other, enabling them to make meaningful changes in their work habits. As a result, employees who had previously struggled to apply what they learned in webinars were finally able to do so, leading to positive impacts on their wellbeing and work performance.
Moreover, the Wellbeing Palette can be co-created with a selected group of employees, ensuring that the practices are not only relevant but also resonate deeply with the team’s specific needs and preferences. This collaborative approach fosters a sense of ownership and commitment among employees, further enhancing the effectiveness of the wellbeing initiatives.
Some of the popular practices chosen by employees include:
Starting Meetings with Check-In Questions: This practice helps build trust, which in turn boosts speaking up and sharing innovative ideas.
Blocking Time in Calendars for Offline Focus Time: This challenges the always-online culture of the company, allowing employees to use the time for deep work, walk-and-talks, or even non-work-related activities.
The results were impressive. The Wellbeing Palette not only boosted individual wellbeing but also created more engaged and productive teams.
Research
Testing an approach similar to the Wellbeing Palette, at Nationwide Building Society we worked on reducing time-pressure-induced stress by creating shared accountability within teams. The project was inspired by employees reporting too many meetings both for themselves and their managers, leaving little space for priority tasks and 1-to-1 time with leaders. This conflict wasn’t just problematic for goal attainment but also because of the negative consequences of time poverty, as research shows that time poverty-induced stress is connected to lower productivity, well-being, and physical health. To counter this, we came up with a simple manager-led intervention, called The Reset. We asked managers to introduce three simple steps over 6 weeks:
The Reset Session: one hour for the team and their leader to reconsider priorities and re-distribute work accordingly
Focus time: pre-block time within Microsoft Outlook to focus on those priorities
Check-in: pre-book 30mins on a Friday or Monday to evaluate last week’s progress and plan for the following week.
We randomly allocated 50 teams with 300 employees into a treatment and a control group to test the impact of the above intervention. Using Microsoft Viva and survey data, we found that teams who took part in The Reset spent less time working outside their core working hours in comparison to our control group. In addition, treatment group employees reported +6.2% perceived productivity, +12.6% perceived achievement of goals, and +16% perceived work progress compared to the control group.
Takeaways
Based on our experience, wellbeing doesn’t have to cost your company’s total annual budget. You’ll need some internal or external resources to explore what are the main issues that are impacting your teams, but investing in the right initiatives equals investing in your own people for a secure long-term return. Here are three steps we recommend leaders take to get started on their road to wellbeing on any budget.
1. Nurture co-creation
One of the most effective ways to create impactful and sustainable wellbeing initiatives is by involving employees in the design process, just as we demonstrated through the Wellbeing Palette and Nationwide examples.
When employees are given agency over their own wellbeing, the practices are more likely to be relevant, tailored, and meaningful to their team's specific needs.
This not only increases the likelihood of engagement but also fosters a sense of ownership, commitment, and accountability.
2. Support bottom-up change
Often, employees have the best insight into the day-to-day obstacles that hinder their productivity and morale. Similar to co-creation, encouraging them to identify these challenges and propose solutions not only taps into their expertise but also builds a culture of trust.
Leaders should create opportunities for employees to implement and experiment with new ways of working that align with their wellbeing goals, ensuring that these changes are not just theoretical but practical and actionable.
When bottom-up initiatives are supported from the top-down, lasting change is possible without investing in external providers and hoping for the best.
3. Encourage peer support
In our previous work with Novartis, we have found that openness about wellbeing between employees can have a significant positive impact on ensuring that people reach out for help.
Building a culture of peer support can amplify the effect of wellbeing initiatives by creating a network of mutual encouragement and accountability.
When employees are encouraged to support one another, whether through formal programs like accountability buddies or informal check-ins, it fosters a sense of community and shared responsibility.
Conclusions
Investing in wellbeing is essential, it’s rarely something organisations can get around if they want to retain and attract talent. And while the initial hunch might be to look for external suppliers, wellbeing does not have to be expensive or complicated. Based on our research, we find that co-creation, supporting bottom-up change, and encouraging peer support, companies can develop effective and sustainable strategies that truly resonate with teams. These approaches empower employees to take ownership of their wellbeing and create meaningful changes in their work environment, leading to a healthier, more engaged, and productive workforce without the need for excessive spending.
About the author:
Reka Deak is the founder of Wellbeing Designers.
Zsófi Belovai is a Behavioural Science Lead at MoreThanNow, heading up the Organisational Performance practice. Her work focuses on improving workplace culture through running randomised controlled trials with the world’s largest organisations. Zsófi’s work has been published in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review.
Co-authored by Zsófia Belovai, Behavioural Science Lead and Réka Deák, Founder of Wellbeing Designers
