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As more workplaces ramp up efforts to support employee wellbeing, one expert is sounding the alarm that these initiatives – while well-intentioned – may be missing the mark or, worse, causing unintended harm.
Speaking with HR Leader, Roxanne Calder, career adviser, founder and managing director of EST10 and author of Earning Power, candidly reflected on corporate wellbeing programs, warning that some initiatives may be straying too far from their intended purpose.
Calder cautioned that when wellbeing becomes “theatre”, it risks losing its impact entirely.
“When wellbeing becomes theatre, something to be observed rather than experienced, that is the clear sign you’ve gone too far. Compulsive monitoring, free yoga class, bean bags, days off or dogs at work won’t fix overwhelmed and overworked teams,” she said.
While such initiatives might sound appealing on the surface, Calder emphasised that these perks often mask deeper organisational problems, failing to address the root causes of workplace stress.
“Initiatives, no matter how well-intentioned, become suspect when they’re layered on top of broken or toxic systems rather than replacing or fixing what was wrong in the first place,” she said.
“Continued disengagement is an indicator not that your employees are ungrateful, but perhaps that the wellbeing offer is a distraction from the real issues. If a wellness program exists without any adjustment to workload, boundaries, or decision-making culture, it’s likely performative.”
So, what’s the risk of going too far?
Calder emphasised that when wellness initiatives become overly prescriptive through “mandatory gratitude journaling or emotional surveillance, disguised as check-ins”, they can cross the line into coercion – a shift that risks “infantilising adults and undermining trust”.
“The message becomes: perform your emotions, signal your buy-in, or you’re not part of the culture. In this environment, employees may become guarded, cynical, or feel they’re failing at self-care on top of everything else,” she said.
“But the deeper harm is existential: when institutions attempt to manufacture meaning or resilience.”
To effectively address this within a business, Calder emphasised the need for a fundamental shift in perspective towards the meaning behind such initiatives and offerings.
“They should start by shifting the question from ‘What do we offer?’ to ‘What are we fixing?’” she said.
“The most powerful wellbeing move an organisation can make isn’t hosting a mindfulness seminar, it’s addressing what impacts employee wellbeing. Is it workload, broken systems, or poor management/ leadership?”
She urges organisations to reflect on whether their internal dynamics may be contributing to the very issues they’re trying to solve.
“Meaningful efforts address structural causes, not just individual symptoms. We should also ask, ‘Are we overloading high performers while coddling poor ones? We’re in a cultural moment where self-care and corporate care are colliding,” she said.
“The danger isn’t that we care too much, it’s that we confuse care with control. While we all need to feel psychological safety at work, we can’t treat it as our home space. Workplaces don’t need to parent people.”
Ultimately, Calder argued, the future of workplace wellbeing lies in candour, not comfort.
“They do need to stop gaslighting them with wellness optics while ignoring the harm of their systems. What we need now is not another wellness app, it’s adult-to-adult honesty about the limits, responsibilities, and possibilities of work,” she said.
