CFO buy-in is essential to success and growth of workplace wellness benefits

Matt Ellis, CFO of the telecommunication giant Verizon, understands the symbiotic relationship between workplace wellness and his company’s performance.

Even though the investment in attracting and cultivating talent is hugely expensive for the 135,000-employee behemoth, it produces a great return. “When we set our employees up for personal and professional success, they set our business up for long-term success,” Ellis says.   

Ellis’ perspective, and that of all CFOs, is critical for workplace wellness. Workplace well-being has become a movement, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. As it gains importance, and as wellness departments expand, an inexorable evolution becomes increasingly likely to run up against an immovable force: Budgets.

Ultimately, financial decision-makers with organization-wide responsibility have to sign off on benefits and spending initiatives. Their task is to assess the ROI value of healthy and productive employees. But the c-suite’s mindset has shifted. It recognizes that wellness benefits, once seen as fringe offerings, are the new normal. Importantly, this extends to the c-suite’s financial representatives, the CFOs.