How Wellness Became Wellbeing (and Why It Matters)
7 Futures | Wellbeing That Delivers — Article 2 of 5
If personal wellbeing and organisational wellbeing are different conversations, as we explored in the first article, then how did they become so thoroughly entangled? Understanding that may help employers make more deliberate choices about where to invest next.
The personal wellness movement has been building for a long time. What began with yoga studios and health food shops has grown into something vast, fuelled by social media, by the pandemic, and by a genuine desire for people to take greater control of their own health. The range of tools now available to support that, from fitness trackers to breathwork to nutritional awareness, is remarkable. And the appetite for them, both at work and at home, shows no sign of slowing down.
When employers began importing this consumer wellness model into the workplace, it was not a foolish move. In many ways, it was the obvious move available at the time. The reasoning was intuitive: if people feel better, they will perform better. So organisations started offering the same products and services that individuals were already choosing for themselves: meditation apps, wellness days, resilience workshops, mental health awareness campaigns.
What may not have been fully appreciated is that these interventions are designed to improve the individual's subjective experience. They are not designed to shift organisational outcomes. The gap between the two is significant, and in many cases it is where credibility is quietly lost.
Researchers at Technological University Dublin recently identified "wellbeing washing" as an emerging concern across the practitioner community. The phrase can sound harsh, and in many cases unfair, because the intent behind these programmes is often positive. However, it points to something important: employees can usually tell when wellbeing is being added around the edges of work rather than connected to how work is actually experienced. This is particularly visible in environments where people are not simply seeking to feel calmer in the abstract, but are trying to maintain judgement, energy and confidence whilst delivering complex work under sustained pressure.
It may be worth considering this from both perspectives. From the employee's point of view, a mindfulness app can feel dismissive if the actual problem is sustained workload pressure and a culture that discourages recovery. From the employer's, investing in initiatives that employees perceive as performative erodes trust rather than building it. Deloitte's research found that 91% of C-suite executives believe their employees feel well supported, whilst only 56% of employees agree. That gap is telling.
The issue is rarely that employers do not care. The people making these decisions are often navigating genuine complexity: tight budgets, competing demands, and a wellbeing market that is considerably better at selling personal wellness products than it is at designing organisational wellbeing strategies.
So the question becomes: what would it look like to approach this differently? To start with the organisational question first, i.e. what do we need our investment in people to produce, and then design backwards from there, whilst still respecting the individual experience?
If your current wellbeing activity is appreciated but difficult to defend at budget review, it may be worth asking whether the problem is the quality of the activity, or the fact that it was never designed around the organisation's real pressure points. If we have raised questions which feel relevant, we would love to chat further: ben@7futures.com
This is the second in a series of five articles from 7 Futures exploring the distinction between personal and organisational wellbeing, and what it means for employers navigating a crowded and often confusing wellbeing market.
References
Ryan, E., Imbusch, N., Kinahan, M. & Guilfoyle, R. (2025). 'Current understanding and theories of wellbeing washing in the context of workplace health and wellbeing: A scoping review protocol.' MethodsX, 15.
Deloitte (2024). Well-being at Work Survey. Deloitte Insights.
Fisher, J. (2025). Cited in WorldatWork, 'What the Heck Is Well-Being Washing and Why Is It a Critical Issue?'