Workplace Wellness Programs Have Little Benefit, Study Finds 86
An Oxford researcher measured the effect of popular workplace mental health interventions, and discovered little to none. From a report: Employee mental health services have become a billion-dollar industry. New hires, once they have found the restrooms and enrolled in 401(k) plans, are presented with a panoply of digital wellness solutions, mindfulness seminars, massage classes, resilience workshops, coaching sessions and sleep apps. These programs are a point of pride for forward-thinking human resource departments, evidence that employers care about their workers. But a British researcher who analyzed survey responses from 46,336 workers at companies that offered such programs found that people who participated in them were no better off than colleagues who did not.
The study, published this month in Industrial Relations Journal, considered the outcomes of 90 different interventions and found a single notable exception: Workers who were given the opportunity to do charity or volunteer work did seem to have improved well-being. Across the study's large population, none of the other offerings -- apps, coaching, relaxation classes, courses in time management or financial health -- had any positive effect. Trainings on resilience and stress management actually appeared to have a negative effect.
The study, published this month in Industrial Relations Journal, considered the outcomes of 90 different interventions and found a single notable exception: Workers who were given the opportunity to do charity or volunteer work did seem to have improved well-being. Across the study's large population, none of the other offerings -- apps, coaching, relaxation classes, courses in time management or financial health -- had any positive effect. Trainings on resilience and stress management actually appeared to have a negative effect.
Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I could see the massage helping some people (or chiropractic!), but the others are cheap checkboxes for companies to pretend they're doing something...while creating the problems via over worked underpaid employees.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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China may be on to something...
Tech startups in China are hiring women to socialize with male programmers and give them massages
https://www.businessinsider.in... [businessinsider.in]
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
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Wow, that's dark
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Have a look at the privacy policy. I did, and it essentially said nothing. I chased, and was told they follow HIPAA. Well, HIPAA doesn't stop transfers from 3rd parties or not explicitly medical stuff, so large holes there.
TL/DR: Don't.
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When the workplace itself is the cause of mental health problems, no amount of wellness programs is going to undo what should be solved at the root cause.
100% this.
If your workplace is toxic, no amount of feel good claptrap from a manager you only ever see on one-way zoom meetings isn't going to do shit.
A workplace that actually has a culture of caring about workers does wonders for your state of mental health. This has to be a culture, not just a bunch of HR mandated seminars, box ticking and wishy-washy meetings which just waste time.
I've been unfortunate enough to be in two jobs that I'd describe as toxic, the first didn't last that long and I'm
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Work culture...I hear this term from time to time and just don't get it.
What is "work culture"?
I mean, you work, you leave....where's the culture?
Even if you still go in an office....again, you got to the office, you work, you leave and go back into the real world where
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Aha....sounds reasonable...
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Work culture...I hear this term from time to time and just don't get it.
What is "work culture"?
I mean, you work, you leave....where's the culture?
Even if you still go in an office....again, you got to the office, you work, you leave and go back into the real world where your family and friends are....what's the work culture in all this?
Culture is about how an employer treats an employee, the conventions and guidelines about how employees treat each other, the expectations the employee has of the employer and vice versa. A good work culture is the idea that the boss won't mind if I need to go to a doctors appointment or to view a house I'm considering moving into during work hours because he trusts that I'll still get all my work done or leave him hanging on a deadline. Mutual respect and understanding, I know it's a strange concept to som
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Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
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incompatible with delivering any kind of meaningful results.
Maybe the stability is the intended result.
Thought experiment: Would you like a job where there were frequent, drastic changes based on the whims of your friendly, local HR rep?
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incompatible with delivering any kind of meaningful results.
Maybe the stability is the intended result.
It may be intended, but it does not result. HR does not produce stability, not in tech. They are at best parasitic drag and at worst agents of chaos. More so, most of them subscribe to pseudo-scientific quackery like personality and aptitude tests. Maybe HR works better in other fields, but at least in tech nothing short of very expensive and specialized talent hunters even bother to understand what techies do.
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Most of the things that come from HR department, be it assessing new hires, performance improvement initiatives, DEI, or wellness are pure bullshit. Think about this, these are the same people that year over year fail to deliver a fun office party. This is because working in HR requires non-thinking conformity combined with CYB indecisiveness that is incompatible with delivering any kind of meaningful results.
HR departments tend to be filled with people that want to recreate childhood for adults. I know our company easter egg hunts and costume parties and color contests wouldn't be around if our HR department didn't want to "make everything fun like school was." Blech. This place would probably be alright if HR would just do what HR is supposed to do, take care of payroll, try to help rather than harm the hiring process, and facilitate personnel moves in the company. Instead, they consider themselves the spiritu
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Yeah, I enrolled in one of the wellness programs (Omada) for the step credit ($25/month). It was an extra $300 cash at the end of the year for doing what I was already doing (21 or more 10k step days per month).
However, the credit has since gone away and I am just left with a program that I can't seem to unenroll from.
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Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Informative)
(or chiropractic!)
Nope, that's snake oil, too. [nih.gov]
The core concepts of chiropractic, subluxation and spinal manipulation, are not based on sound science.
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Most people go to a chiropractor who listens to them bitch and gives them a massage, which makes them feel good. Some go to an actual chiropractor who practices actual chiropractic and have a stroke.
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"digital wellness solutions, mindfulness seminars, massage classes, resilience workshops, coaching sessions and sleep apps" I could see the massage helping some people (or chiropractic!), but the others are cheap checkboxes for companies to pretend they're doing something...while creating the problems via over worked underpaid employees.
I've found the general them of the wellness programs to be a way to blame the employees for their health problems.
But this massage thing, are there happy endings? That could make work less stressful, people would probably take less time off as well.
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I agree, I always thought a massage is really only worthwhile if it's being given by a naked woman.
Re: Hmmm (Score:1)
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Are you a programmer, perhaps, working in China possibly?
Do you not enjoy massages from nekkid wimminfolk? 8^) Or men, depending on your preferences - this is a judgement free zone.
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"digital wellness solutions, mindfulness seminars, massage classes, resilience workshops, coaching sessions and sleep apps" I could see the massage helping some people (or chiropractic!), but the others are cheap checkboxes for companies to pretend they're doing something...while creating the problems via over worked underpaid employees.
When 90% of your mental health issues are work related, and work "provides" a therapist free of cost to you directly, are you really gonna open up to that therapist about what's going down? Hell to the fuckin' no. Those bastards are gathering info like a bot. They may not disclose directly individual opinions, but you can be sure they're aggregating that info and reporting it back to HR to look for trends among departments. Problem department? "Sir, I believe we've found the next department to be redundaciz
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smartwatch marketing (Score:2)
My work started on such activities basically the day that smartwatches became fashionable.
It's an oxymoron (Score:2)
For most people.
workers comp should be the only health thing from (Score:1)
workers comp should be the only health thing from jobs
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It should, but here in the USA your general healthcare is most likely tied to your employment. These employee wellness schemes came about because health insurers offered businesses a discount if they offered them. The idea being that healthier people would result in less insurance claims. At the end of the day, it's just the for-profit healthcare industry attempting to maximize their profits.
Re: workers comp should be the only health thing f (Score:2)
Free fruit (Score:3)
It kind of depends on the program. Yoga retreats and meditation; that's a very personal like-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. But a wellness program that provides free fruit all day? I'm 100% behind this over salty snacks or fatty stuff all the time.
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Try working in a public health department where inter-departmental brawls erupt over a stolen salt shaker or people burn themselves on a thrift store toaster that someone brought in years ago and has basically become a Cornballer (a useless appliance that only exists to cause pain and suffering).
My wife regales me with these stories and I thank my lucky stars that I never went into any kind of public (thankless) service.
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I'd go into the office more if they had fresh baked bread...
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Added sugars are sugar concentrate from natural sources. It digests very quickly, and can pump your metabolism very high and then crash very quickly.
There is an enormous difference between natural sugars and added sugars [ucsd.edu], they are not at all equivalent. You could easily eat 10X as much sugar from fruit as in pr
It's been that way for years (Score:5, Insightful)
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I remember reading years ago that wellness programs have no benefit. Companies would do better to drop the wellness programs and give their employees raises.
In our case, the wellness program is the health wellness program. All you have to do is get your finger pricked once a year and have a rapid test done on the spot to look at your cholesterol (hdl and ldl) and sugar, get weighed, blood pressure, and check your height. For that you get a discount on your health insurance and you don't have to do anything with the results of the tests. You can be as fat and artery blocked as you want.
In a round about way it is a pay raise since you're not paying as much for
You don't need your workplace to let you volunteer (Score:2)
"Workers who were given the opportunity to do charity or volunteer work"
Guess what, all workers have that because they can do it while they're not at work.
I don't get why people want their job to structure their non-job lives.
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It can serve as motivation, the proverbial kick in the butt to get up and start doing it rather than just talking about it. If the company organizes it, provides transport, maybe even pays for the day, that's much easier to go along with than having to plan it all out yourself on a day off where you really just wanna crash on the couch and not move.
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Yes, but these employees work at a company that is not 100% obsessed with money nor with keeping their employees butts in seats.
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I like that idea. Donate a day's pay to a worthy charity. Better than putzing around in some corporate soup kitchen for the brownie points.
Garbage In Garbage Out (Score:2)
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It's almost impossible to run a large company without an HR department. That said, they are a huge money pit. When it comes to staffing an HR department, I firmly believe that less is more. If they aren't working 12 hour shifts during a hiring frenzy, then your HR department is way too big. Because during a hiring freeze they are going to have less than a full day of work to do, unless they invent new and unnecessary things to do.
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Get in and get out (Score:2)
My goal each day is to get into work, get things done, and get home. Ideally getting things done in a way where my boss doesn't have any new work to deal with. So if there are bugs, I try to deal with them before they are escalated. If people on different teams need to meet to solve an engineering problem, I set up the meeting. I send out minutes and action items after the meeting so that the managers know that we have it in hand. Then I go home to my wife instead of hanging around work for a massage or bee
Re: Get in and get out (Score:2)
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Absolutely. That's why senior individual contributors should be able to set up cross functional meetings and get people in a room that can solve the big problems.
Wellness (Score:5, Interesting)
The most effective wellness program my company has ever instituted was the work from home program. Morale skyrocketed, we retained our best employees, employee sickness was all but eliminated, and productivity went way up.
Benefit for whom? (Score:2)
I'm sure it helps with the "we tried" defense against work-stress related suicide claims.
Treating the symptoms, not the problem (Score:2)
Not surprising, since all those "wellness" programs are aimed at managing the symptoms rather than doing anything about the problems that are at the root of it.
Not even an observation effect? (Score:2)
False equivalency (Score:2)
In other news: People with large salary are just as unhappy as poor people. This is thinking, we spent all this money, you have to be better. They probably are, but it doesn't mean they're better than you.
Happiness depends on socio-economic, environment and lifestyle, genetic and personality factors. Obviously, people in the same town in the same company are facing the same limitations to happiness.
Days off (Score:3)
If you want folks to be healthier, keep their workloads reasonable, make it part of your culture to take your vacation days off and take time off when sick.
Instead we mostly have few days off to start, you get side-eye for taking it, and if you take time off work just piles up for when you return. Worrying about falling behind in particular makes it hard to actually relax when you take days off.
All that costs money, at least short term money, so it will not happen. Wellness programs are cheap per employee while creating the perception that the company cares, even if they do nothing.
Human Resources (Score:2)
We have an economy where people are 'human resources' to exploited as profitably as possible, just like any other resources. Any such economy will never be good for mental health, and 'workplace wellness' stuff is just a sticking plaster, if anything.
Different definitions of wellness at my employer (Score:2)
digital wellness solutions, mindfulness seminars, massage classes, resilience workshops, coaching sessions and sleep apps
At my company, I do not think those are available under our wellness programs. There is mental wellness like counseling and therapy available. Other forms of wellness include physical wellness like nutritional counseling as well as incentives for employees to get physicals every year. Vision and hearing checks are encouraged. I think those have benefits to the company.
Reminds me of Lumon Industries' Wellness Program (Score:2)
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I want to give you mod points, but instead I want to acknowledge your post. I had no idea there was a Lumon website. Now I pine for season 2.
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And what's your point? (Score:2)
... evidence that employers care about their workers
I'm sure they do - just as farmers care about their livestock.
It's psychology (Score:1)
But standup desk (Score:2)
Just get your standup desk and you'll be twice as healthy. Oh, wait, one of those chairs you kneel in until your kneecaps fall off. Who needs kneecaps anyway. Pro tip: just knock over your cube wall and lie on it, staring at the ceiling. Will add minutes to your life.
Sorry for responding late... (Score:2)
Wellness My Data (Score:2)
The part of wellness programs that made me avoid them: Onerous requirements to share my data.
I loathe the idea that for a tiny little benefit, even a cash deposit, I would have to give up data on my steps, workouts, diet, and other out of office habits. Some programs also came with an app on my personal phone. Most came with more email, which I didn't want to read, and advertisements for even more programs/ books /classes that I did not have time for. The wellness programs reduced my wellness by increasing
or maybe...? (Score:2)
Maybe massive corporations paying like shit and just generally treating their employees like disposable, worthless cogs can't be off set by colorful backgrounds and aromatherapy?
I'm fortunate; having been in the job force for 30+ years I'm in a better place. But I look at the dehumanizing crap like video job interviews and pittance pay with absolutely zero effort from companies to show any loyalty or respect for their staff...yeah, I'm not surprised that superficial amelioratives aren't offsetting much mor
Does that even mean anything? (Score:2)
The workers surveyed all had the chance to participate, and some took it and others didn't. My guess would be that those who did saw a benefit in it, and those who didn't did not. So why should those who saw no benefit to begin with be worse off than those who did? If there is no difference, it may be because of the wellness programmes. Or maybe not. Who can possibly say? And if those who participate are doing worse, that may be why they are participating. Who knows? We need a control group.
Unless I
Anecdotes are not data, but here goes (Score:2)
I'm aware of two Microsoft programs that fall in this bubble. The first, Perks+ (formerly Stayfit) provides an annual reimbursement for a laundry list of athletic equipment, gym memberships, financial counseling services, etc. Over the last several years I've taken advantage of this for smartwatches, an exercise bike, a used outside bike, a used canoe, and hunting/fishing licenses. The program is use-it-or-lose-it, and the cheap bastard in me can't stomach leaving it on the table. Similarly, my midweste
Another level of indirection (Score:2)