Wealth Through Health: The Benefits of a Stronger Well-Being Program

If their workplace step challenge hasn’t seen any newcomers in a few years and the healthy snack options in the office vending machine are going stale, employers may sour on offering well-being programs.

But with worker stress continuing to increase and healthcare costs persistently rising, well-being programs can pay significant dividends both for employee health and the employer bottom line … when they are leveraged and communicated effectively. There are plenty of well-being trends to help you get there in 2025.

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“As you’re thinking about your business priorities with your workforce, you don’t necessarily have to say, ‘Do I want to focus on retention, engagement or well-being?’ because they’re so interconnected,” said Laine Thomas Conway, the vice president for engagement services strategy and enablement at benefit services provider Alight.

When total rewards professionals take steps to ensure well-being programs don’t miss the mark — by using data to pinpoint employee needs, soliciting worker input and offering personalized, technology-backed choices — those programs can be a powerful tool in the benefits package.

“Keeping someone healthy and thriving and well at work helps meet the bottom line in all business objectives,” said Courtney Schroeder, the U.S. practice leader for well-being consulting at Gallagher.

What Well-Being Programs Bring to the Table

The average return on investment (ROI) for employee wellness programs is 6:1, with 72% of employers seeing reduced healthcare costs after implementing such a program, according to Zippia, a provider of career development solutions.

Organizations with wellness programs, on average, reduced their absenteeism between 14% and 19%, Zippia found. Some achieve much higher reductions — such as General Electric, where absenteeism dropped 45% after enhanced well-being programs were put into place.

The bottom-line benefit of wellness programs is not a new phenomenon: Johnson & Johnson estimated well-being programs saved the company $250 million in healthcare costs over a 10-year span from 2000 to 2010.

And when it comes to employee satisfaction and loyalty, well-being programs can help seal the deal — 61% of workers with access to well-being programs say they rarely think about leaving to work elsewhere, compared to 46% of those without access to those programs, according to Alight.

The Time Is Right for Well-Being Improvement

So, how can you strengthen your offering? Well-being programs promoting physical health are a top focus for employers, perhaps in response to continued healthcare cost increases, Gallagher found.

The need is clear. Consider: 85% of healthcare spending is related to diet-related chronic diseases. And, U.S. employers lose more than $44 billion each year because poor sleep is affecting their employees’ ability to function properly at work.

The bulk of employees prioritize these programs, signaling a timely call for employer focus:

87% of employees want more resources to support their physical health, according to Gallagher.
85% of workers in the U.S. say well-being is as important to them as their salary, corporate wellness platform Wellhub found.
79% of U.S. employees would consider leaving a company not focused on well-being, according to Wellhub.

Employers should ensure their well-being programs are holistic, Schroeder said.

“If physical well-being programs are in a silo, that’s where you’re going to struggle,” she said. “These programs should be wrapped into a more thoughtful strategy that includes emotional and financial well-being.”

Consider ROI, But Also ‘Value on Investment’

In addition to the ROI on well-being programs, many employers are also taking into account the “value on investment,” which encompasses broader factors beyond cost savings, such as employee satisfaction, increased productivity and higher retention.

In fact, 69% of employers surveyed by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans for a 2022 study cited improved overall worker health and well-being, as opposed to reduced health-related costs, as their key motivator for offering wellness initiatives.

“While ROI metrics are important, there are many aspects of wellness programs that can’t be captured in spreadsheets,” said Lívia Martini, chief people officer at Wellhub, citing factors such as mental resilience, stress management skills, relationship building and improved collaboration. “These intangible benefits are increasingly recognized as mission-critical rather than just nice-to-have perks, as organizations realize that true competitive advantage comes through comprehensively supporting employee well-being.”

Still, health costs can’t be ignored, said Scott Roloff, the president at healthcare analytics company IntegerHealth Technologies. Measuring ROI is key in understanding the success of well-being programs and gauging how to adjust them.

Gallagher found one-third of employers don’t measure or aren’t sure of the impact of their well-being programs. But when organizations do start digging into their well-being program ROI, they sometimes find they’re getting much less value out of the programs than anticipated or promised. In some cases, they’re actually losing money, Roloff said.

“Just throwing a program out there without getting the right employees to join that program isn’t going to do you any good,” he said. “The employees that are more conscientious about their health, they’re going to join anyway, but you’re not going to move the needle with their costs because they’re already doing everything they can. It’s the people that don’t join that you have to work on. You have to identify folks who would benefit most from the program and get them to join to boost your return.”

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