The Surprising Truth About Why Your Boss Really Wants You Healthy—And What It Means for You.
Schawbel: The stressed out workforce has given rise to the wellbeing/wellness industry and corporate sponsored programs. What is your take on this trend and the effectiveness of those programs?
Pfeffer: Corporate wellness programs and the wellbeing industry are extensive, and costly. But the evidence on the effectiveness of such interventions is mixed, at best. And that’s because these interventions are, in my view, focused on the wrong things. We know, from extensive research summarized in Dying for a Paycheck, that individual behaviors such as overeating, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and drug abuse are related to the stress, including workplace induced stress, that individuals experience. So instead of trying to get people to engage in healthier individual behaviors, workplace wellbeing initiatives would be more effective if they focused on preventing the stress-inducing aspects of work environments that cause the unhealthy individual behaviors in the first place.
Simply put, companies need to build cultures of health—and that begins by creating work environments that help people thrive both physically and psychologically. Not on trying to remediate the harm that toxic workplaces inflict through limited-intervention “programs.”
