Why Workplace Happiness Starts Outside the Office
Everyone knows happy employees are essential for business. They have better performance, stay with the company longer, and are much more innovative. Despite this, we tend to ignore who really makes happy employees possible. When we think about maintaining employee well-being at work through perks such as mindfulness training or meditation rooms, we tend to focus on the individual. It becomes the employee’s job to regulate their happiness, utilizing what is given. But something is missing in these conversations. A 2022 paper by Anna-Maria Mutrola and Neil Vallelly, published in Organization, suggests we have been looking at well-being through a narrow lens. They question: Who cares for wellbeing? Not in the “who loves it most” sense, but literally, who performs the work that enables workplace wellbeing? Their answer may surprise you, and it may change the way we think about creating happy workplaces altogether. Wellness Isn’t a Solo Project Let’s start from the beginning. Over the past decade, “corporate wellness” has become a trending topic in the industry. Companies are investing more than ever in the wellness of their employees. And that’s a great thing, we want initiatives that make people feel valued and supported at work. But what happens when the responsibility for well-being starts to feel a little bit like just another performance metric? Murtola and Vallelly point out that most wellness programs today are deeply individualised. You, the employee, are in charge of your own stress levels. It becomes your job to stay resilient, be mindful, eat right, and show up every day and perform to the best of your abilities. At first, it can seem somewhat empowering or comforting that the company supports your own wellness journey. However, after some time, it can feel a bit alienating. There are struggles employees have to face that are outside of their control. This can include work deadlines, poor management, or family care responsibilities. If you are not feeling well at work, the blame tends to shift to you. The Hidden Costs of Individual Responsibility Wellness initiatives are mostly built on good intentions. But when they treat well-being as a private problem, that can actually increase pressure. If you feel overwhelmed? You need more mindfulness. Feeling exhausted? You should try breathing exercises. These responses focus on the symptoms, not the causes. They look over deeper systemic issues, such as understaffing, gendered expectations around care work, or the rising cost of living. Corporate wellness can be used as a way to shift responsibility from the employer to the individual. But what if the real problem isn’t just that we individualise well-being? What if we are ignoring the bigger picture? The Social Side of Well-Being Employee well-being doesn’t begin at the office. It happens long before and far beyond the workplace. Murtola and Vallelly use social reproduction theory to explain this. The idea is simple: people need support systems in order to live and work well. That implies food on the table, care for their kids and parents, clean homes, transport to work, healthcare, emotional support, and so on. And guess what? Someone is doing all that work. Someone cleaned the office before you arrived. Someone is looking after your children so you could attend that early meeting. Someone cooked the meal you ate for lunch, and cleaned the cafeteria after you. These essential workers form the foundation for workplace well-being. Despite that, they are rarely discussed in conversations about wellness. Are Essential Workers Expendable? The COVID-19 pandemic helped make this invisible work visible. The people whose jobs are often overlooked, but whose contributions are quite literally life-sustaining, became the hot topic. When everything went into lockdown, office workers were able to continue working at home through Zoom. Essential workers, on the other hand, had to continue showing up in person, often without proper protection, pay, or recognition. The authors extend that any recognition they did have was purely symbolic. These workers are still underpaid and undervalued. So here’s the uncomfortable truth: the well-being of one group (corporate employees) often depends on the labour and sacrifice of another (essential workers). A Broader Definition of “Happy Workplaces” Happy workplaces change the world, but we also have to be honest. A part of that means recognising that happy workplaces don’t exist in a vacuum. They are built on networks of support, care, and fairness. That’s why the question “Who cares for wellbeing?” matters so much. It asks us to think beyond perks and personal responsibility. Systems of race, gender, class, and migration all shape who gets to be well and who gets left out. Happiness focuses on being supported in every aspect of your life, not just at the desk. So What Can Organizations Do? If we accept Murtola and Vallelly’s argument that well-being is socially produced, what does that mean for companies aiming to create genuinely happy workplaces? The article urges organisations to move beyond narrow, individualised wellness models and acknowledge the broader ecosystems of labour and care that support employee well-being. Here are five actions companies can take, inference from the paper’s insights: 1. Recognise Invisible Labour Start acknowledging the people behind the scenes. Cleaners, security staff, food service workers, and delivery drivers all contribute to the foundation of the workplace’s well-being. 2. Pay Attention to Structural Inequality Assess whether systemic inequalities are playing out in your own environment. Are some groups taking on more unpaid emotional labour or logistical care work? Are support roles under-resourced or staffed disproportionately by maginalised workers? 3. Go Beyond the Office Support your employees outside of work. Offering flexible scheduling for caregivers or providing child and elder care support are all actions that can improve well-being. A happy employee is someone who feels supported both in and out of work. 4. Move from Symbolic to Material Change Invest in people’s material needs, such as better wages, safer working conditions, or mental health services. Those in these support roles should receive proper funding and respect. 5. Include Essential Workers in the Conversation Bring essential workers into
Bringing (Real) Happiness Back to the Workplace
Considering that it is something they do for the majority of their life, people don’t enjoy their work as much as they should. You may have heard the phrase “quiet quitting,” which is when people do the bare minimum to maintain their jobs, or “loud quitting,” where they talk openly about how unhappy they are. To put things into a numerical perspective as to how bad things really are, 62% of employees are disengaged, and another 17% are actively unhappy and vocal about it, according to Gallup statistics. We lose $8.8 trillion each year in global productivity because of unhappiness at work. That’s 9% of the world’s GDP gone. But we don’t want to just talk about what is going wrong; we want to understand how happiness at work can be fixed in a way that benefits everyone. An Oxford research study found that happy workers are 13% more productive than unhappy employees. They tend to stay at the company longer, help their colleagues more, and bring better energy to the workplace. These employees have real reasons to care about what they are doing. McKinsey and the World Economic Forum estimate that improving employee health and well-being could unlock $11.7 trillion in global economic value. An article from Harvard Business Review in 2023 by Jennifer Moss outlines 3 steps to optimize happiness in organisations. 1. Availability of Flexibility Post-pandemic, the corporate industry changed entirely. Many people got used to working from home, giving them more time, more control, and less stress. Now, some companies are trying to revert to full in-person working conditions. But people do not want to commute for hours just to sit at a desk they already have at home. They experienced managing work from home, and they know they can do it. When people talk about flexibility and freedom over how they work, they aren’t just referring to working remotely. They also want various start and end times or different projects that have meaning to the company. A global survey by Cisco found that 82% of employees said working wherever they want to makes them happier. Gallup found that employees are most engaged when they work remotely 60% to 80% of the time. The ILO reported that flexibility, whether it is about location or hours, directly improves work-life balance and productivity. All these statistics found in a variety of studies back up our claim. If we narrow it down even more, we can see that flexibility isn’t distributed equally. During the pandemic, women were more likely to work from home. Even now, 41% of women are remote, whereas only 28% of men are. This may seem like progress, but it actually can backfire. If in-person employees start getting the promotions and all the visibility, we could risk pushing women into lower-paid and lower-growth roles. Adam Grant, a psychologist who studies working conditions, says that it is not just about where we work, but also about when, how much, and how. Being able to take a later or earlier lunch break or pick your own start time is what flexibility should include. Having this opportunity for both men and women equally would be the baseline for building a workplace where people can function and perform well. 2. Belongingness Matters Despite coworkers interacting with one another every day, only 3 in 10 employees say they have a best friend at work. This number matters because people with stronger social connections are more likely to recommend the company to others, stay with the organisation, and feel satisfied with their workplace. Culture plays a big role in these results. Belonging isn’t felt from forced fun or team-building activities without context. It requires trust, inclusion, and recognition of all employees at an organisation. Thoughtful praise or gratitude alone can improve productivity. Even small interactions, such as checking in with someone about how they prefer to work, can build relational cadence. When employees feel safe enough to be honest, make mistakes, and be human, engagement tends to rise. Oftentimes, employees need their leaders to model this behavior (leaving on time, admitting fault, taking real vacation) for them to feel comfortable doing the same. An example of companies offering benefits to support this is Airbnb, which offers a $2,000 annual travel stipend for employees to stay at any of their listings. While these are great perks, they are more effective because employees don’t feel burdened or ashamed about using them. We want people to restore connection and prevent burnout. 3. Help People Find a Purpose Not everyone finds purpose in their work, which is completely okay. But when all there is to working is to earn a living, support your family, or save for the future, people feel as though their time isn’t spent on something meaningful. This then leads to drops in motivation, which will inevitably affect performance. This link between purpose and performance has been studied for decades. Raj Sisodia’s research on conscious capitalism found that companies driven by values and not just profit saw returns of 1,646% over 15 years. In contrast, the S&P 500 averaged just 157% over the same period. However, Sisodia urges that purpose should not be used to boost profits and that companies need to commit to values because they believe it is the right thing to do. There is also a strong connection between purpose and mental health. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 76% of workers report experiencing at least one mental health symptom. 84% of respondents claim their workplace conditions contributed to at least one mental health challenge, and 81% said they would consider leaving their job for one that supports mental health better. Hilton Hotel is one example of what this kind of culture looks like. When COVID-19 closed down most of their businesses, they didn’t just lay off their employees. They kept recruiters on staff to help employees find roles in other industries. They also donated one million hotel nights to healthcare workers who needed a
Putting Employee Health at the Center of Work Can Save Up to $11.7 Trillion
The average working adult spends about 90,000 hours of their lives doing their jobs. They don’t just shape their career during that time, but also maintain their relationships and well-being. When work starts to harm health, you can see burnout, low productivity, and more missed days. However, when work supports health, the benefits extend far beyond just the office. The World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute published a report that focuses on this message by explaining how improving workforce well-being could create between $3.7 trillion and $11.7 trillion in global value, or roughly 17% to 55% of average annual pay. Now, this isn’t regarding employee perks or company missions. It’s about designing an office where people can be engaged and productive long-term. These numbers are estimated from fewer people leaving jobs, fewer missed days, and better productivity at work, but the largest share comes from reducing presenteeism. This is the act of working but not at your best capabilities due to stress, illness, or other health issues. Preventing presenteeism actually creates more value than cutting absenteeism and represents 54% to 77% of the total opportunity. There is also a macro effect. Healthier workforces could lift global GDP by 4% to 12%. High and middle-income economies each contribute about half of that total, and the number of workers who benefit is 2.5 billion in middle-income countries and 636 million in high-income economies. Who is most at risk? In a global survey of more than 30,000 employees across 30 countries, only 57% reported good overall health across mental, physical, social, and spiritual dimensions. Around 22% reported burnout symptoms. It also looks different depending on the industry. Human resources, education, and construction reported higher well-being. Accounting, retail, and media reported lower well-being and more burnout. The gaps across groups are statistically consistent. Women reported more exhaustion than men, even when overall health scores were close. Employees a part of the LGBTQI+ community reported lower well-being than those who aren’t. Neurodivergent employees reported much lower scores than neurotypical employees. Younger workers between the ages of 18 and 28 reported burnout at about three times the rate of workers of 60. Employees with unstable finances reported far worse outcomes than those who felt financially secure. Caregivers stated higher well-being on social and purpose measures, but also much higher burnout driven by exhaustion. All of these cases are common profiles found in most companies and workplaces. When leading a team, you need to plan for these differences. One policy will not benefit everyone. Creating targeted fixes that match people’s needs is what will effectively improve productivity. What effective programmes look like Several companies in the report show how this can work. Novo Nordisk runs a global stress and mental health survey with validated questions. In 2023, about 14% of its 64,000 employees reported stress symptoms. Managers of high-stress teams receive support from organisational psychologists and targeted tools. Stronger interventions typically reduce the share of reported stress by 20% to 30% within one to two years. On, a sportswear company, offered a programme with coaching sessions, a self-care library, and workshops. Roughly half of the employees enrolled. The company reports an annual return of 11.6 times the programme’s cost, or about $2.9 million a year. $1.3 million is from productivity gains from a 5% improvement in presenteeism-related loss, $1.1 million is from a 30% drop in voluntary attrition, and $500,000 is from reduced HR case-handling time. Swiss Re launched a metabolic health pilot in the United Kingdom. Employees completed a risk survey and received plans on nutrition, sleep, movement, and stress. 40 people received one-on-one planning, and five completed a seven-day residential programme with a year of virtual follow-up. These examples share the same pattern: use data to target action. They address both individual support and the structure of work. They track a handful of outcomes leaders already watch and stick with the programme long enough to see results instead of hopping between trends. How to get started in your organisation The report gives six simple steps to build your plan. 😊 First, measure your starting point so you know what to fix and where the value sits. Track productivity with simple outcomes like tasks completed on time, sales per person, or service quality. Track absenteeism as days missed due to illness. Estimate presenteeism using short self-reports on how many health issues limited work that day. Track retention by looking at unwanted turnover and average tenure. Track attraction by watching application per opening and offer acceptance rates. 😊 Second, choose a few initiatives that match your risks and strategy, not just a generic template. 😊 Third, pilot these initiatives with a defined group and a clear time frame. Then, decide to scale, adjust, or stop. 😊 Fourth, track three to five metrics that connect health to outputs and share results with managers and employees. 😊 Fifth, make senior leaders accountable by tying outcomes to goals and reviews. 😊 Lastly, embed health into how you run the organisation. This includes job design, scheduling, performance management, and leadership training. If you manage people, you can make work healthier with small moves. Hold shorter, focused meetings and protect blocks for deep work. Set clear priorities and stop low-value tasks. Give teams more control over how they sequence work. Review roles to remove ambiguity. Check in on the workload, not just the results. When you see warning signs from employees, ask what is getting in the way of good work and try to remove it. If you are an employee, ask for what you need to do your job well. That might include clearer priorities, shift swaps, referral to counseling, or even just a better chair. Explain how the change will improve your focus, quality, or reliability. Managers are more likely to say yes when the request is linked to an outcome. Japan’s Stress Check Programme requires workplaces with more than 50 employees to offer an annual stress survey and provide physician consultations for high-stress workers. Chile introduced
