# Workplace Surgery: The wellness program backlash - **Episode:** [166](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/166.md) (2025-01-28) - **Type:** workplace-surgery - **Tags:** workplace-surgery, wellness-program, backlash - **Time:** 48:12–54:08 (start 2892s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/166?t=2892](https://truthliesandwork.com/166?t=2892) --- [48:12] Al Elliott: Lovely, lovely. Good luck with that. Um, question number 3: my team thinks our new wellness program is just corporate BS. How do I prove we actually care? I launched our company's new wellness initiative back in October 2024 with things like lunch break walking clubs and monthly wellbeing workshops. But instead of enthusiasm, I'm getting eye rolls and people accusing me of corporate BS. The irony is this program came from our engagement survey. Oh, another engagement survey. Good. Where people said they wanted more support for mental health and work-life balance. We've invested significantly, but the attendance is low, and some team members have directly said it feels forced and patronizing. How do I make this work without it coming across as some kind of tick box exercise? Lee, this is quite a common one, this, isn't it? I think, I think you're going to pick up 2 or 3 things that I've seen here that you're going to be picking apart. Carry on [49:04] Leanne Elliott: No, you please, you pick apart first [49:07] Al Elliott: Well, first of all, I think that, uh, the actual— people have asked for support with mental health, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you go ahead and go, right, well, I've created 3 things. We're going to do a lunchtime walking club, uh, we're gonna do, uh, we're gonna do a well-being workshop, and we're gonna do something else. What did he say? And I'm just like, that just seems like it's a sticking plaster. And also, who wants to go to a workshop that says basically I'm struggling? Because then you're going to signal to the management that you're not happy, and you're also going to be, you know, some of the co-workers might be like, where's he gone? Oh, he's off to the, uh, he's off to the SAD workshop which goes on on a Monday afternoon. That's my thoughts. Let's hear from the proper psychologist [49:44] Leanne Elliott: Um, yeah, I think you've missed a step. Your people have said that they want help with their mental health and work-life balance. Did you then ask them how? And I can't imagine any of them go, do you know what would really fix my work-life balance? A walking session at lunchtime. That'll do it. That'll totally do it. Um, yeah, you've missed a step here. And also, I think There's such a misunderstanding around wellbeing that it has to be these types of interventions, these individual-based interventions. 80% of your wellbeing strategy should be the same as your operations strategy. How are people, how are they recruited? What do their roles look like? What gives meaningful work within that role? How does it contribute to the reason of the organization, that mission delivery? How are they recognized? How are they compensated? How are they helped in terms of their resilience to set healthy work-life boundaries? What are the policies around managers contacting people after work? Holiday pay, are we making sure that we have good holiday pay, we have good holiday allowance, and people are actually taking them? There's so many things that are actually operational in terms of what will actually support our employees with their mental health, their wellbeing, their resilience, their work-life balance. It is not workplace Lunching, walkabouts. The exception might actually be kind of coaching sessions while walking can be really good, but that's more for development. Yeah, I think you've just gone into that usual trap of going, oh, they want help with wellbeing, cool, let's just Google wellbeing interventions and the first 10 providers that come up, we'll order the 3 cheapest. So yeah, that's not really what wellbeing is. Understandably, your people are calling BS. They're saying it is wellness washing. Because that's exactly what it is. What you've implemented is not what they need. And I think to undo this quickly, you're actually going to have to go, what is it that you need support with in terms of your wellbeing and work-life balance? And I'm confident that nothing they say will be solved by the solutions you've recently implemented. I'm sorry [51:48] Al Elliott: Sounds like we've been really harsh on you for writing in. And obviously, I'm not going to say your name. be really harsh. If you— when you're listening to this, please don't take that as like we're just crapping on you from a great height. We're not. I think what Leanne's saying is that— and correct me please if I've got this wrong— but what Leanne's saying is you're like, you're 80% there. You've asked them how they feel, you've asked them what they want help with. It's just that last bit. You've got— you've gone into sort of manager mode, or potentially— it doesn't say whether you're the business owner or not— potentially entrepreneur mode, where you go, I see a problem, let's go fix it [52:16] Leanne Elliott: And you want to fix it quickly, and asking follow-up questions might seem like a lot of time and effort, but as you can see, if you don't, you can fall into the trap of putting in a solution that actually causes more resentment. Also, you're really not to blame. The wellbeing industry is full of nonsense. It's full of lots of people that aren't qualified. It's full of lots of poor products that make businesses billions of pounds a year. Go back to— [52:43] Al Elliott: Hi, Bob [52:43] Leanne Elliott: Amy McCurran was talking about exactly this, that wellbeing needs to burn to the ground and hopefully we can rebuild it again, because it's screwing over people like you who are trying to do the right thing through false information and lack of science. So it really isn't your fault. And the harsh words more come from a frustration from our perspective that you've been put in this situation because of wellbeing as an industry being where it is. So yeah, it's really not your fault. I'm sorry you've lost that money and probably some level of engagement from your team, but you can absolutely fix it. Hold a listening event, get back to your engagement survey results saying, you said this, this is what the data showed us, what do you mean? Can you give us some examples of things that would be helpful? And I'm sure that actually 80% of the things they tell you will be free of cost. It'll be in your gift as a manager or as a business leader to impact and to change your policies, probably operational, I'd imagine most of them. So yeah, not all is lost. And sorry to be harsh, but It's not— we're not frustrated at you, we're frustrated at the people out there that have put you in this position where you've wasted your money, um, and, and yeah, made a worse experience for your people [53:50] Al Elliott: We're not angry at you, we're just disappointed, as my mother used to say. Uh, actually, that's not true, my mother used to be angry and disappointed. Anyway, hi, Pat, if you're listening. God, I hope she's not. Anyway, uh, I think one last thing while Leanne Just coughs their guts up. You're not allergic to dogs, are you, Leanne? [54:08] Leanne Elliott: Maybe [54:08] Al Elliott: It's a bit too late to, uh, to find out. Anyway, so just a last— one last thing on that is potentially, if you, if you feel like you're able to, to stand up there to your team and go, look, we did some things, we put them in place, you called BS on them, clearly I've not done this right. So tell me, what can we do right? Because take, take the positive away from this, you're getting some reaction. What's it— what's it they say? The opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. The opposite. So you're getting people who are actually willing to step up and go, what you've done is rubbish. So they care enough to tell you. In theory, they might actually hate you. I'm sure they don't, but they care enough to tell you. So you've got a huge opportunity to go, okay, fair enough, this might be rubbish. So how are we going to do it properly? Don't go, what would you do? But just mainly go, all right, fair enough. I see what you're saying. What would you do? How would you change this to make it better? Yeah. it right. I think you're onto something really, really special there. Um, I think it's great. Lee, anything to add before we say our goodbyes?