Why Employees Don’t Use Wellness Programmes
Why Employees Don’t Use Wellness Programmes
A company announces a wellness benefit. HR sends an email. Posters go up. Managers are encouraged to mention the service. Six months later, participation is disappointing.
The easy conclusion is that employees do not care about their health. A more useful question is: What would an employee have to believe, risk or rearrange to use the programme?
Consider a warehouse worker who cannot leave a shift without asking a supervisor, a call centre agent whose breaks are closely scheduled, or an employee who worries that disclosing anxiety could affect a promotion. The service may be available on paper while feeling inaccessible in practice.
In a 2024 South African Depression and Anxiety Group survey of 963 respondents, only 57% said they could easily talk to their boss. The survey was not representative of every South African workplace, but it highlights a practical obstacle: offering support does not automatically create the trust needed to use it.
This challenge extends beyond South Africa. In a US employer survey analysed by RAND, employers offering wellness programmes without incentives reported median participation of 20%. Participation varied with programme design and incentives, so the figure should not be treated as a target for South African businesses. It does show how large the gap between offering and using a benefit can be.
Ask what the programme demands of employees
Does participation require time during a busy shift? Does it assume everyone has a private office, a computer or reliable data? Are resources available in languages employees understand? Can a night-shift employee access the same support as someone in head office?
Then there is the question employees may never ask aloud: “Who will see my answers?” A vague promise of confidentiality is unlikely to reassure someone who thinks personal health information could reach their line manager. Employers need to explain the process plainly: what an employee shares, who handles it, what support may follow and what management can see in aggregated reporting.
Low participation can also signal that the programme addresses a different problem from the one employees experience. A lunchtime fitness challenge may appeal to some people. It may feel irrelevant to a team struggling with unpredictable shifts, persistent fatigue or long waits for healthcare. Neither the employer nor the employee benefits from pretending those needs are the same.
How H360 WHIP can help
H360 WHIP offers digital health-risk screening and aggregated workforce insights that can help an organisation examine the concerns emerging across its workforce. Rather than selecting every wellness activity on instinct, leaders can use participation and risk patterns to consider where support may be most relevant.
Screening still needs a thoughtful introduction. Employees should understand that it identifies potential risks, not medical diagnoses, and that an appropriate healthcare professional must assess clinical concerns. Employers should also explain confidentiality clearly and examine whether staff across roles and shifts can participate comfortably.
The goal is to turn a wellness programme from a list of benefits into a response to real needs. That starts by asking employees what stands between an available service and a usable one.
Request a Free Workforce Health Assessment to explore where your current wellness approach may be missing the people it is intended to support.
