The guide to connecting well-being to business metrics

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.

So what do CFOs think when it comes to investing in wellness benefits? An October 2020 survey by the Integrated Benefits Institute found 88% of CFOs believe cost control is one of their top five priorities. But 34% tied health benefits to strategic goals, including improving productivity, keeping hiring costs down, and improving employee engagement.

The concept of “employee well-being” was once mostly about lowering insurance premiums.