Stop Splitting Donuts: 3 Ways to Make Workplace Wellness More Inclusive
Wellness. The word might fill you with joy, or it might make you shudder. Perhaps you have seen the disastrous Office episode where employees are encouraged to lose weight, or have yourself been a victim of a bad workplace wellness program.
Or, perhaps, you might not even know how to define wellness, which has been co-opted by essential oils grifters and yogis alike. The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as “the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.” Merriam-Webster defines wellness as “the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal.”
So what is wellness? Is it an action, or a state of being, or a skill?
I would like to offer that wellness is all of the above. It is a state of being, made up of actions, which are made up of learned skills. You learn what your body and mind need, take actions to meet those needs, and then achieve a state of being well.
This sounds like a nice thing for companies to want to scaffold for their employees. So why, then, are workplace wellness programs so unsuccessful?
While wellness is important, and employees who feel mentally and physically well are more likely to be productive and stick around, company wellness initiatives fail because they do not have a safe and inclusive idea of what wellness looks like for each employee.
Take, for example, a program that incentivizes steps taken on a Fitbit. For a disabled employee or a wheelchair user, this program is not designed for maintaining individualized and accessible wellness. Or, perhaps, a program that encourages calorie tracking in an app. Employees with a history of disordered eating might be triggered into relapse by the pressure to participate.
Successful inclusive wellness programs are created with the unique needs of each employee in mind, with an understanding that everyone comes to wellness in a different body, a different mind, and different circumstances. So how can workplaces promote wellness in a healthy, inclusive way?
3 Ways to Make Workplace Wellness More Inclusive
1. Say goodbye to weight loss-oriented programs
Toxic diet culture has long infiltrated the workplace. From splitting donuts in fourths to discussing the newest trends in weight loss, diet talk at work has made employees uncomfortable for decades. It doesn’t help that many companies, two-thirds of them in fact, try to incentivize employees to lose weight through so-called “wellness” programs.
Workplaces that implement weight-loss programs are under the impression that these programs might lower healthcare costs for employees, and keep employees “healthier” which might, in turn, make them happier.
However, research has shown that workplace weight-loss programs do more harm than good. There is little evidence that supports the idea that weight loss might lower healthcare costs. This is because weight itself is not directly linked to health. In the US, antiquated measures such as the BMI (body mass index) scale do not appropriately measure risk or comorbidity, and many slapped with a high BMI label are actually perfectly healthy. A focus on weight loss in the workplace, however, is extremely unsafe for fat* employees. Fat employees face a much higher level of biased behavior, and receive lower pay than their thin coworkers. Weight loss programs only highlight and encourage these needless biases.
Weight loss programs at work also are disastrous for employees with a history of disordered eating. With weight loss programs and incentives comes constant diet talk, calorie tracking, discussing which foods are “good” and “bad,” and employees in competition with one another to see who can lose the most weight. For someone with an eating disorder, this environment is extremely triggering and unsafe.
More than this, workplace weight loss vendors might actually be compromising employees’ health data. Many vendors use tracking apps, forms, and other information that employees can log into their devices. Many vendors are also unregulated, so their medical advice and standards of “health” may not actually be aligned with the standards used by medical professionals. This may cause some employees to be put on a weight loss program when it might be unsafe for them to do so.
All in all, weight loss programs cause more physical and emotional damage than positive change, and encourage unsustainable wellness practices that may cause more damage down the line.
Companies who use weight-loss vendors and programs should take a good hard look at their bottom line. Who are these programs serving? Who are they targeting and hurting?
One of the best things a company can do to promote wellness is to allow employees to take control of their own wellness journey.
Julia Anas, Chief People Officer at Qualtrics, recently told me about the quarterly wellness stipend her team implemented at the company.
Qualtrics offers a $300 quarterly wellness stipend, up to $1,200 a year, that employees can use for gym memberships, yoga equipment, fitness classes, home gym props, massages, subscriptions, and more.
“What we saw in 2022 is 87% of our employees leveraged the benefit, and 95% of those employees leveraged the entire benefit,” Anas reported.
“With the benefit, we talk about wellness more openly. Our leadership team has been open about their own use of the benefit and it helps them to lead with empathy. Our employees can see that their leaders are human, too.”
A wellness stipend, which can be quarterly or annual, is one of the best ways to offer robust benefits that are inclusive and accessible to all employees. With a wellness stipend, companies can expect improved employee wellbeing and satisfaction, improved retention rates, and greater attraction for potential candidates.
Instead of offering wellness programs that focus on one goal, like steps or weight loss, or discounts to particular gyms, which may not be inclusive for all employees, wellness stipends encourage wellness on each employee’s own terms. The wide-reaching benefit allows disabled employees more agency in how they approach their wellness needs. It also allows each employee to focus on what kind of wellness they want to work toward, be it financial, physical, or mental. Most importantly, a wellness benefit allows for change as employees’ wellness needs change over time. Perhaps an employee uses the wellness benefit one quarter for a gym membership, and the next quarter, they use it to go on a retreat. Either way, they have control over their own wellness journey.
Wellness needs change as our lives and environments change. It is important that companies can offer flexibility in their programs and benefits.
If one employee is struggling with mental health, and another is struggling to manage their finances, implementing a company-wide physical fitness challenge is not going to do anything to address each employee’s needs at the time.
Beyond a wellness benefit, companies can offer an optional visiting wellness series for employees, where external experts are brought in to discuss mental wellness, physical wellness, financial wellness, and more. By creating a wellness series that addresses all kinds of wellness, employees can opt in or out to the programs they are most interested in.
Companies can also encourage office-wide stretch and meditation breaks, more robust in-and-out-of-network care, and enhanced PTO and vacation policies so employees can take a physical or mental break when they need it.
There is so much more to wellness than physical appearance and weight, than avoiding “bad food” and feeling guilt over eating the cookies in the break room.
Companies that offer agency and choice in each employee’s wellness journey are companies that get inclusive wellness right.
Let’s stop harmful wellness myths and programs in their tracks, and start thinking bigger about how we address wellness at work.
Want to learn more about self-care and wellness? Join our Book Club now! This month, we’re discussing Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included) by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin. Not a CCWomen member? Join now to get involved and get reading.
*EDITOR’S NOTE: CCWomen is committed to dismantling biases and judgment in the customer contact space, and this includes supporting body neutrality and body positivity in the workplace. The word “fat” carries a multitude of meanings which we at CCWomen are well aware of, and would not seek to use to discredit or devalue any person. Ultimately we understand “fat” as used in this piece as a term used to describe—not demean—others as we continue to identify and unlearn harmful workplace practices.
Informed reading resources:
https://www.self.com/story/fat-isnt-bad-word
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/ask-a-fat-girl-its-ok-to-say-the-word-fat
https://www.dictionary.com/e/how-should-we-use-the-word-fat/
