Making Well-being a Shared Responsibility

For far too long, employee well-being has rested squarely on the shoulders of the HR department.

It has historically been thought that the well-being of employees largely concerned personal matters that did not spill over into work. Therefore, human resources was tasked with improving employee well-being through programs that were designed for individuals to take the action they felt they needed.

Many HR leaders went beyond this, however. They became aware of the interconnectedness of employee well-being and workplace success, seeing the effect of struggling employees on their teams, their work, and the culture at large. Forward-thinking leaders began working hard to address the whole employee, intentionally building relationships with them and finding ways to speak about total well-being in many areas. The work is rewarding, but very time-consuming and difficult to execute within even a small organization.

The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few. Many HR teams confess to having more priorities than time and are responsible for dozens of functions beyond the well-being of employees. Their teams can only do so much to build strong well-being within their culture before they become burnt out and in need of assistance themselves.

Why top organizations are shifting their strategy

Increasingly, employers are making well-being a priority.

A 2024 survey found that 46% of leaders plan to make well-being a central component of their human capital strategy over the next three years. To effectively do this, organizations have begun thinking about two things: the quality of their programming and the scale at which they can offer it.

The traditional way of running well-being programs has been easy to scale because of its emphasis on the individual and their personal needs. It has prioritized offering a wide range of benefits and education that employees could self-select from depending on their needs. We’re quickly finding out that this way of doing well-being may not be the most effective.

The same 2024 survey also found that two-thirds of employees continue to experience moderate to major problems with their well-being. Why hasn’t the traditional way of doing well-being worked?

The focus on the individual largely ignores their circumstances, background, and what they do daily. Programming could theoretically be the same across dozens of industries, job types, and regions. Top organizations are recognizing this presents a challenge. Every organization is different, with a unique culture, diverse teams, and nuanced external factors. These must be considered and integrated into well-being strategies in order for organizations to see real progress.

When these nuanced external factors are considered, the burden on a small team of HR leaders grows exponentially. How can a small group of people, no matter how talented, deliver programming that is integrated into a unique corporate culture and optimized for the many variances that exist in daily life?

This challenge is prompting a shift into the way well-being is structured.

Instead of it belonging to a small group to exclusively influence from the top down, it must become a responsibility of all employees. A collective approach to well-being does not ignore the need for strategic, top-down planning. Rather, it extends the accountability and responsibility for carrying out a well-being strategy to all employees. Collective responsibility for well-being not only becomes more effective, it becomes more sustainable.

What collective well-being practically looks like

The progressive organizations that implement collective well-being do so at two specific levels. First, they elevate the responsibilities of leaders to watch over and promote the well-being of their employees.

Top organizations are tying key performance indicators and annual objectives to employee well-being. Quantitative and qualitative data is gathered to assess the state of well-being within different segments of the employee population and managers are evaluated on their results. Some organizations are actually tying bonuses to these numbers to motivate ownership and incentivize the prioritization of well-being.

Second, organizations are increasing the value of peer level relationships and providing unique opportunities for employees to influence each other’s well-being. Well-being champions programs, employee resource groups, and social ambassadors are developing new ways to share the collective responsibility of improving organization-wide well-being. Employee success stories are heavily promoted and social proof is rewarded. Employees who are passionate about a specific area of well-being are being given opportunities to step up and lead their colleagues.

Leading employers are finding that this model more sustainable as it does not depend on a handful of people, but on all employees. This shift is allowing greater investment into well-being programming and resources with more confidence of its effectiveness and longevity.

Personnel can change, but well-being that has become the responsibility of the collective and engrained into the culture will stand. The future of well-being depends not on a few, but on the many.

If you want to see what other organizations are doing and why they’re leaving traditional well-being program design, download our free eBook: The Shift to Culture-focused Well-being.

Inside This FREE Guide, You'll Discover:

The “Intention-Action Gap”: The psychological tripwire that dooms 99% of traditional wellness initiatives before they even start… and how to finally overcome it.

The “Inside Out” Strategy: The secret to building a program that is 100% sustainable and doesn’t collapse the moment a key leader leaves the company.

Stop Paying for “Shelf-Ware”: How to ditch the patchwork of expensive, unused apps and build a single, comprehensive strategy that actually saves you money and administrative headaches.

The Power of the Collective: How to harness your existing company culture to create an unstoppable extrinsic motivator for change—making healthy habits contagious.

The 3-Step “SWITCH” Method: The exact framework employers are using right now to build a resonant, culture-focused program that feels like it was tailor-made for their unique team.

Download it here.

Implications for the well-being administrator:

• The traditional model of placing employee well-being solely on HR is being replaced by a collective approach where responsibility is shared across the entire organization.

• Organizations should consider hold managers directly accountable for their teams' well-being by tying it to performance metrics and financial incentives.

• Making well-being a core component of how people interact and empowering champions to be key representatives turn a solo responsibility into one shared by the collective.

If you like this content, share it with other well-being administrators.

We’re committed to discussing challenges common to well-being leaders and presenting practical solutions that increase the wisdom of all well-being professionals.