Are employers measuring the wrong side of workplace wellbeing? 

Workplace wellbeing is entering an uncomfortable phase. For more than a decade, organisations have invested in benefits, platforms and initiatives designed to support employees, building an entire ecosystem around access, engagement and provision. That model has delivered progress, but it has also shaped how wellbeing is understood: as something organisations offer, rather than something employees experience through the design of work itself. 

What is now emerging is a more nuanced, and potentially more challenging, reality. The outcomes employers are trying to influence, productivity, retention, long-term workforce health, are not being driven primarily by what sits around work, but by what happens within it. Day-to-day relationships, management quality, workload and a sense of connection are beginning to look less like secondary factors and more like the core drivers of performance. 

It is within this context that happiness is moving from a soft concept to a serious business consideration. Analysis from the Happiness Dividend report from Reward Gateway | Edenred, and The London School of Economics, suggests that employees who are happy at work are between 10 and 12 per cent more productive, with that uplift translating into a potential 20 per cent increase in firm value. At a national level, the impact is even more striking, with happiness-led approaches estimated to contribute up to £334bn to the UK economy each year. And yet, despite that potential, only a minority of organisations are measuring happiness directly. 

That disconnect is telling. It suggests that while organisations are investing in wellbeing, they may not always be investing in the elements that have the greatest influence on outcomes. 

As Chris Britton, Director of People Experience at Reward Gateway | Edenred, explains, the issue is not one of misdirection, but of omission, where established drivers still matter and evolving needs are not being fully accounted for. 

“Businesses are not necessarily investing in the wrong drivers of workplace wellbeing but are perhaps overlooking others – such as happiness,” Britton says “Traditional drivers of wellbeing – whether that’s factors such as salary, flexibility of progression – still carry weight, but as employee needs evolve, some are being overlooked. For example, in today’s cost-of-living environment, a salary is only the start; on top of this, employees are heavily impacted by financial wellbeing and many businesses do not currently provide support to bolster this. 

“If there’s one thing organisations need to stop doing, it’s adopting a ‘set and forget’ approach to wellbeing, where businesses rely on their benefits package without ever addressing employee concerns or needs on a regular basis.” 

Seen through this lens, the current model of workplace wellbeing begins to feel incomplete rather than ineffective. Benefits, platforms and engagement tools remain important, but they operate as enablers, not outcomes in themselves. Without a clearer understanding of what they are designed to influence, and how that influence is measured, there is a risk that organisations continue to optimise for access rather than impact. 

That is why the conversation is shifting towards evolution rather than reset. The foundations of the sector are not being replaced, but they are being extended, as expectations move beyond provision and towards measurable, organisation-wide outcomes. 

Britton adds: “Benefits, engagement and platforms are still fundamental underlying enablers of wellbeing. An industry reset isn’t necessarily the case; but more of an evolution to build on the effective elements we already know. Instead, the industry needs to innovate and adapt to cater for changing employee needs, building on tried and tested bases to include new metrics and approaches to address wellbeing across the board. While providers can enable this, the onus largely falls on businesses to review their policies, structures and offerings to ensure they are maximising their impact on employee wellbeing.” 

What this evolution brings into focus is a shift in accountability. If wellbeing is shaped less by what is offered and more by how work is experienced, then responsibility inevitably moves closer to leadership, management and organisational design. It becomes embedded in everyday decisions, in how teams are led, how workloads are managed and how people feel within the system they are part of. 

Within that system, happiness starts to function less as an abstract concept and more as a signal, an indicator of whether an organisation is operating in a way that enables sustainable performance or quietly undermines it. 

Britton adds: “Happiness should now be much higher up the agenda, given the potential – and frequently overlooked – impact it can have on a business. Notably, organisations that score highly in employee happiness see a significant 12% uplift in productivity, which translates into a 20% increase in overall firm value. If we assume that productivity gains translate directly into Gross Value Added (GVA), we can also determine a seismic economic impact, meaning happiness-driven practices could theoretically add up to £334 billion to the UK economy every year. 

“Crucially it remains a heavily underutilised metric for the majority of businesses. Given that only half (51%) of UK employees are frequently happy at work, this shines a light on how happiness is not currently measured by many as a priority, despite the fact that it could hold the key to unlocking value growth and significantly boosting ROI.” 

Nowhere is the complexity of that shift more visible than in the role of middle managers, who sit at the intersection between strategy and lived experience. They are expected to translate organisational intent into daily reality, often carrying the responsibility for wellbeing outcomes without always having the resources or training required to deliver them effectively. 

“Middle managers bear a significant burden given their relationships and day-to-day interactions with other employees,” Britton says. Many are often responsible for addressing issues, implementing policies and dealing with issues despite not necessarily having the required level of formal training to do so. They are often the ‘front line’ of tackling wellbeing challenges, and thus are heavily relied on. This is having a knock-on effect to progression – our Bridging the ROI Gap report found that 44% of employees want to progress their careers without becoming a manager. Businesses need to make sure their HR middle managers have relevant training, as well as the required support to effectively implement measuring tools and prove ROI without being overtasked and piled with unfair expectations. Effective measurement and wellbeing support requires a multi-pronged, collaborative approach up and down organisations.” 

At the same time, HR teams are being asked to deliver measurable wellbeing outcomes across systems they do not fully control, creating a tension between responsibility and influence that risks stretching already pressured functions even further. 

“We are at risk of overloading HR managers if the adoption and implementation of new metrics is not done with due care and consideration for the impact on workloads and the burden of responsibility. Instead, leaders need to treat happiness as a high-yield investment and focus on employee engagement, while equipping HR managers with the tools and resources necessary to support colleagues and conduct measurement without being overloaded,” Britton explains.  

As organisations look ahead, this tension is only likely to intensify, particularly as AI becomes more embedded in how work is designed and managed. While much of the focus remains on efficiency and automation, the more profound impact may lie in how AI reshapes the experience of work itself, influencing everything from decision-making to human connection. 

Talking of this, Britton says: “AI should be viewed as a tool, not a replacement for human connections. Using it as an enabler for measurement alongside an overall approach to happiness and wellbeing will be effective, but the organisations that essentially shift the burden to AI and expect it to replace the human factors will be the ones who risk it having a detrimental impact on their employees and bottom lines.” 

Taken together, these shifts point towards a future in which workplace wellbeing is no longer defined by what organisations provide, but by what their systems produce. In that future, wellbeing is less likely to sit as a standalone strategy and more likely to be embedded into how organisations understand performance, risk and value creation itself.