From Fruit Bowls to Boardrooms: How Workplace Wellbeing Grew Up  

From boardroom discussions about workforce health and psychosocial risk to evidence linking employee wellbeing with productivity and retention, health is now a business issue, rather than simply a personal one. 

“People used to ask me, ‘What’s nutrition got to do with work?'”, says Angela Steel. Today, it’s a question that’s almost impossible to imagine hearing.  Yet when Angela Steel founded SuperWellness more than a decade ago, the landscape looked very different – and it was a question she was asked on a weekly, if not daily basis.  

When SuperWellness launched workplace wellbeing, as we understand it today, barely existed. In many organisations, the mere idea that employers had a role to play in supporting employee health was yet to gain widespread acceptance. Where activity did exist, it was often limited to individual health campaigns, awareness days or one-off initiatives rather than being considered part of wider organisational culture or strategy. 

Angela was among a relatively small number of practitioners beginning to work in this emerging space. Like much of the sector at the time, her work initially focused on individual wellbeing initiatives, driven by a desire to help employees improve their health. 

But as the market developed, so did her thinking. Through working with clients, it became increasingly clear that individual interventions could only go so far and that workplace wellbeing was influenced by a much wider set of organisational, cultural and behavioural factors. 

Angela was one of a small group of pioneering practitioners trying to change that. 

Starting out as a workplace nutritionist, she spent her early career delivering workshops and one-to-one consultations while tirelessly cold-calling organisations to persuade them that supporting employee health belonged in the workplace. Her first client was Harrods, a significant early endorsement, but convincing other organisations was rarely straightforward. 

“People genuinely questioned why nutrition had anything to do with work,” she recalls. “There were times when I wondered whether this was more of a hobby than a career.” 

History, however, has a habit of rewarding those who arrive early. 

Research now consistently demonstrates the relationship between good nutrition, energy, concentration and productivity, while employers increasingly recognise that healthy behaviours contribute to engagement, resilience and performance. What was once regarded as a niche service has become part of a much broader conversation about how organisations create environments where people can thrive. 

For Angela, though, the most significant shift wasn’t simply that organisations began talking about wellbeing. It was that they started asking entirely different questions. 

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated that transformation almost overnight. As organisations grappled with unprecedented uncertainty, employee health; and particularly mental wellbeing, moved from the margins of business conversations to the centre of them. Demand for SuperWellness grew rapidly, but Angela quickly recognised that employers weren’t just looking for wellbeing initiatives; they were looking for answers. 

“At the time, organisations were curious, but they didn’t necessarily understand the problems they needed to solve,” she says. “Before you can recommend interventions, you have to help organisations understand what’s driving the outcomes they’re seeing.” 

That realisation prompted a significant evolution of the business. Keen to develop a deeper understanding of the wider factors that shape workplace wellbeing, she went on to complete an MSc in organisational psychology, exploring the organisational, cultural and behavioural influences that sit alongside individual health and wellbeing. 

In 2023, SuperWellness repositioned itself away from delivering standalone wellbeing activities towards helping organisations embed health and wellbeing into strategy, leadership and organisational culture. The focus shifted from individual behaviour change to whole-system change, recognising that sustainable workforce health depends as much on job design, leadership capability and organisational culture as it does on helping individuals make healthier choices. 

That mirrors one of the biggest changes Angela has witnessed across the sector itself. 

“A decade ago, wellbeing was approached as a series of disconnected initiatives; health promotion webinars, mindfulness apps or mental health first aid training, bolted onto organisations as a ‘nice to have’ rather than built into the infrastructure,” she explains. “The lack of measurable outcomes forced organisations and the sector as a whole, to rethink that approach. Increasingly, wellbeing is becoming recognised as something that should support business objectives rather than sit alongside them.” 

Despite this progress, Angela believes many organisations still misunderstand what effective workplace wellbeing looks like. Too often, businesses assume success comes from launching more initiatives, investing more into platforms and benefits but in fact, the real challenge is integrating wellbeing into everyday business decisions. 

“Awareness isn’t the problem anymore,” she says. “Execution is.” 

“Embedding wellbeing consistently across an organisation remains difficult because it depends on thousands of daily decisions made by leaders and managers while balancing commercial pressures, operational demands and constant change. Organisations often underestimate how long meaningful cultural change takes, expecting rapid transformation when delivering one or two fundamental improvements each year represents significant progress.” 

Perhaps the biggest lesson Angela has learned over the past decade is that many of the decisions with the greatest impact on workforce health are rarely recognised as health decisions at all. 

Questions about staffing levels, workload, shift patterns, performance expectations or whether a newly promoted manager has the skills to lead people are often treated purely as operational considerations. Yet each one shapes stress, sleep, resilience and ultimately employee health. 

“The question isn’t whether your organisation affects people’s health,” she says. “It’s whether that impact is intentional or accidental.” 

This whole-system perspective has also reshaped Angela’s own thinking. Early in her career, her focus was on helping individuals improve their nutrition and lifestyle. Today, influenced by evidence such as the IGLOO framework, she believes lasting change only happens when organisations support wellbeing at every level; from the individual and their team to leadership, organisational systems and the wider context in which people work. 

Angela’s unwavering and stalwart commitment to raising standards extends beyond her consultancy. Recognising that workplace wellbeing had attracted many passionate practitioners without formal qualifications, The company introduced a Level 5 qualification, led by its head of wellbeing strategy Elliot Foster, to help professionalise the sector and ensure organisations investing in wellbeing have access to evidence-based expertise. 

She is also candid about the challenges the profession still faces. Budgets remain constrained, despite growing expectations, and she believes there is still too much “wellbeing washing” – organisations introducing visible initiatives without addressing the organisational factors that undermine health in the first place. Equally, while psychological safety has become a central part of workplace conversations, Angela argues it must be balanced with accountability, ensuring wellbeing supports high performance rather than becoming detached from it. 

Looking ahead, she believes regulation, including the introduction of psychosocial risk assessments, will help organisations take workforce health more seriously. But ultimately, legislation alone won’t transform workplaces. 

The real shift will come when leaders fully understand that wellbeing is not simply an HR issue but a driver of organisational performance. After more than a decade helping employers rethink the relationship between work and health, Angela remains optimistic. 

Not because wellbeing has become fashionable, but because the conversation has fundamentally changed. 

The organisations leading the way no longer ask what health has to do with work. 

Instead, they’re asking how creating healthier organisations can help create better businesses.