Are your wellness benefits improving employees' lives? 90% of employers say yes

The COVID-19 pandemic changed not only how people work but also what they value in their benefits — and there's no denying that wellness has become one of the biggest priorities for employers and employees alike.

But have wellness benefits turned out to be a worthy investment? Gympass surveyed over 2,000 benefit leaders to answer this very question, and a majority said yes. In fact, 90% of companies believe they see a positive return on their wellness benefits, 85% said their wellness programs decreased the cost of recruitment and retention and 78% reported that their benefits saved them money on healthcare. Any investment in well-being, whether mental health, preventative or nutritional care, can make a difference, underlines Livia Martini, chief people officer at Gympass.

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"The conversation around well-being shifted from something that was not at all at the forefront of benefits discussions to something that slowly but surely became more relevant," she says. "If a company is not prioritizing well-being, they're seeing the impacts of that directly on their [employees'] lives."

Martini emphasizes how essential wellness is to the workplace ecosystem, and the overall employee experience in and out of work. According to Gympass, 98% of HR leaders saw an improvement in employee satisfaction after rolling out a wellness program, while 85% noticed decreased utilization of sick days as a result of their benefits. 

"If you sleep better, you work out better. If you work out better, you have more incentives to eat healthier, and that all [leads to] more energy for you to potentially see other people at night and work on your social well-being," says Martini. "Not one of these pillars works by itself, and all of them working together have a huge positive effect."

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Ultimately, the best employee is a person who has the time and energy to have a rich life outside of work, notes Martini, and workers are embracing that mindset — 93% of workers said they consider well-being to be equally important to salary, according to Gympass.

"If a company does not pay attention to its workforce, if it does not try to make its employees happier, healthier and more productive, employees will know it and start shopping for other jobs," says Martini. "Companies have no way of getting out of this."

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Martini advises employers to find out what their employees value, and build their wellness benefits from there. But regardless of the company, a good rule of thumb is to keep the benefits as flexible as possible so workers have the most agency in choosing how to take care of themselves, stresses Martini. She points to remote work as an example: An ideal policy should encourage employees to work from where they wanted, whether that's the office or their homes. Of course, this kind of flexibility isn't always possible depending on the job, but employers should offer accommodations where they can, says Martini. 

"We know there's no journey that's the same," she says. "Give people the freedom to pursue their own path."