Amy McKeown: Workplace health – how do employers get this right for employees?

Workplace health and wellbeing have become priorities for many organisations, but far too often, strategies in this area lack the depth and structure needed to make a meaningful impact. To make a real difference, organisations must go beyond these surface-level efforts.

Health and wellbeing strategies must be systemic, evidence-based, and embedded into the company’s culture and operations. They should be treated with the same level of rigour as business, marketing, or financial strategies.

Organisations need to write and implement long term, sustainable, end-to-end mental health and wellbeing strategies, and that these need to be taken as seriously as the business, marketing, HR, finance and other strategies created and implemented by the organisation. In other words, board level, measurable and systemic. Culture change.

This article outlines the critical steps employers need to take to design and implement an effective workplace health and wellbeing strategy—one that is sustainable, measurable, and genuinely impactful.

How to write a Workplace Health Strategy – that is actually a Strategy!

A strategy is not a list of activities. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a strategy is “a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim.” This means that any health and wellbeing initiative must start with a clear objective.

What I often see today is sporadic activity around health, wellbeing and mental health in businesses. The jigsaw pieces are there, but there isn’t any structure around them. The so-called ‘strategy’ is instead a tick list of all of the things the organisation is doing, divorced from other organisational systems, processes and policies. In other words, it’s just not a strategy at all…

A vague or overly ambitious vision leads to a strategy that lacks focus or measurable impact. Clarity and specificity are critical at this stage.

So here are some crucial tips on how to write a mental health strategy:

1. Be specific: Start by being brutally honest about what you are trying to achieve in your health, mental health and wellbeing strategy. Is it SMART (specific, measureable, achievable, relevant or time-bound)? If not, then it really needs to be. Starting with a fluffy or woolly intention leads to a fluffy or woolly strategy…
2. Get your facts straight: Next audit or review what you actually have within the organisation. Look at what, if any, health and wellbeing activities you are doing already, what health providers you have, how they work, who is using them and for what? Gather together as much data as you can: absence figures, retention, engagement scores, exit interviews…
3. Create a structure: Once you have a handle on where you are as an organisation and what you need, you can then piece together your strategy. There are a number of evidence-based structures and frameworks you can use. The point is to have some structure to begin from. You use this structure to create a plan which will enable you to achieve your SMART aim.
4. Spot the gaps: Start to map what you have already in place onto the structure you have chosen. Where do the health, mental health and wellbeing activities fit? Where are the gaps? Do you have the right health providers? Are you using them correctly? Are you doing the right activities? Are you measuring the right things? You can make a great start by doing the things you are already doing in a more structured way.
5. Plot a timeline: Write a plan of what you are going to do now, in the months to come and over the next few years.

The model that I use for strategies is an end-to-end health approach. I map all my activities and measurement around these:

• Education / literacy / prevention: how do you get people engaged and keep them healthy?
• Early stage: what support, policies and training need to be in place to help people who are in the early stage of an illness or problem?
• Ill: how do we look after people who are ill, ensuring they have the clinical and organisational support they need to manage their illness?

Where should Workplace Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing sit?

The key to success is to make sure that Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing sits in the right place. That the politics about ‘who owns it’ is circumvented. That it has the right owner and then appropriate support and challenge for it to be run effectively (bought in experts and health providers, stakeholders from across the organisation, engagement and challenge from different groups). That it is not run in a silo by one particular part of the organisation, even HR… That it is not run by an ‘enthusiastic amateur’ in other words, or someone who has added it to their current role.

Two other things that are also key are making sure that Wellbeing is successful are:

• Making sure that it has a Senior Champion or Board Level support. If you don’t have the senior guys (and gals) bought in then you will never have investment or scope to really make change.
• Listening to and understanding what your people actually want and need from your approach to health and wellbeing. I see too many strategies (policies and processes) written by people in HR or support functions who don’t have the same day to day challenges and needs as the people ‘on the shop floor’ or doing the actual work of the business. If you don’t know what people need then how are you going to support them?

So, in summary, before you give ‘Mental Health or Wellbeing’ to your People Function or HR team, Stop, think. Is this the best place for it? What are the pitfalls? Would it do better as a stand-alone function? Who needs to be involved? Will it become siloed? Thinking this through up front can save a lot of time, energy, politics and costs further down the line.

Key Principles for Effective Governance:

1. Senior Leadership Buy-In: A strategy needs board-level sponsorship to succeed. Without senior-level advocacy, it risks being underfunded or deprioritized.
2. Defined Ownership: Assign responsibility to a dedicated individual or team with expertise in health, mental health, and wellbeing.
3. Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Avoid operating in silos. A successful strategy engages stakeholders from across the organization, including HR, finance, and operations.

By embedding wellbeing into the organisation’s leadership and governance structures, you establish it as a core business priority. 

Money Money Money

Taking action on health, mental health and wellbeing requires money. It is an investment of budget, time and energy. An opportunity cost on doing other things. Businesses run on numbers, measurements, figures. Investments require detailed business cases. Outcomes are measured. Yet when it comes to health, mental health and wellbeing organisations are often prepared to overlook the scrutiny they would require for other business decisions and investments and make decisions using without any quantifiable data. Relying on the ethical and moral case alone.

I’m all for doing the right thing. But I think there is a real danger with not insisting on the same level of numerical scrutiny or outcome for health or mental health. It means that organisations can heavily invest in interventions or providers that don’t work, or that aren’t what their specific populations need most.

It also shows a lack of value in health, mental health or wellbeing in comparison to other investments an organisation makes. You wouldn’t buy a new factory or building or recruit a new team member without a clear business and financial case. Why be prepared to spend it on health or wellbeing?

The biggest problem though is that if you can’t show that the money and time you are spending is having a positive impact, when business performance drops and the red pens are out to cost cut, unproven spend will be the first to go. Your flashy health, mental health and wellbeing strategy will be quietly dropped in favour of other initiatives that can quantify their worth and ROI.

The biggest misconception I think there are about is about money, numbers and health and mental health is that ‘we have to find new budget to invest in health and wellbeing’. I have had this conversation in organisations of all sizes from FTSE 100s and the big 4, to places employing less than 10 people. It is wrong!

Every organisation everywhere is already spending money on health, mental health and wellbeing. The trouble is that they often don’t realise this or can’t quantify what this is. Every time an employee takes a sick day or an illness related absence is a cost. Every time someone leaves due to a health condition and a post needs replacing is a cost. Every health provider offered, app or EAP, mindfulness session or webinar is a cost.

As these costs are scattered across the organisation in terms of absence from specific teams, team training budgets, varying wellbeing budgets or employee resource groups, it can be hard to get a grip on exactly how much an organisation is spending on health, mental health and wellbeing. It can be eye watering.

Spending time going through the data and understanding where spend is allows budgets to be reallocated, cost to be redistributed and sometimes released. It’s a much easier conversation about new investment when you can show you are reallocating hidden costs or making savings, not just demanding more investment on something new.

Data and Return on Investment

An effective strategy is not static. It evolves based on measurable outcomes, shifting organizational priorities, and employee feedback.

Investment in health and wellbeing requires justification, especially during periods of economic uncertainty. By demonstrating ROI, organizations can protect these initiatives from budget cuts.

What I don’t often see is a workplace health, mental health or wellbeing strategy based on or driven by data and numbers. Using quantifiable measures to check that interventions work. Being able to establish clear ROI.

‘We don’t have any data’

Literally every organisation I have ever spoken to has told me they have no data. That they can’t measure things. That they don’t measure absence. But there is always somewhere you can start. Every organisation has something no matter how patchy or bad. Start there.

Look at absence numbers, turn over, cost of hire. Ask any health providers you have for reports on usage. Look at the numbers of people using any apps or EAPS you may provide. Look at and pull together whatever you can. Manual or automated, it doesn’t matter. No organisation has nothing.

Organisations run on numbers after all! It’s a question of cobbling together everything you can find. Baseline it and include in your strategy what you are going to measure and how, over time, you are going to measure more and quantify outcomes.

Set Clear KPIs:

• Reduction in absenteeism.
• Improvement in engagement scores.
• Increased uptake of wellbeing initiatives.

Tracking these metrics through a dashboard allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy and make data-driven adjustments.

Plan for the Long Term:

Health and wellbeing strategies should be designed for sustainability. This involves:

• A timeline of short-, medium-, and long-term goals.
• Regular reviews and adjustments based on outcomes.

Without this long-term perspective, strategies risk becoming reactive or inconsistent. Organisations that can show tangible benefits are better positioned to secure ongoing investment.

Conclusion

Workplace health and wellbeing are not optional extras; they are essential components of a thriving organisation. To succeed, businesses must approach these areas with the same rigour as any other strategic priority.

Failing to prioritise health and wellbeing has real consequences. Poorly executed strategies lead to wasted resources, disengaged employees, and reputational damage. Conversely, a thoughtful, evidence-based approach fosters a healthier, more productive workforce.

By leveraging data, listening to employees, choosing the right partners, and embedding wellbeing into the company’s culture, organisations can create strategies that deliver meaningful and measurable outcomes.

If your organisation is ready to transform its approach to health and wellbeing, the time to act is now. A strategic, thoughtful plan will set the foundation for long-term success.