Why Wellness Programs Fail- and What Really Works

Despite the growing investment in workplace wellness programs, employee morale and satisfaction continue to decline. What’s going wrong? 

🔔 Subscribe & Share this episode if you believe leaders can—and should—create workplaces where people actually want to show up.

 - Wellness Starts with Culture, Not Perks

 - Leaders Must Build Real Relationships—Swiftly

 - High Expectations + High Support = Wellness

🎧 Episode Summary:

Despite skyrocketing investments in workplace wellness programs, burnout, disengagement, and dissatisfaction are on the rise. So, what’s going wrong?

In this energizing and eye-opening episode, Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick welcome Dr. Katina Sawyer, co-founder of Workr Beeing and a leading voice on workplace wellness, leadership, and inclusion. Together, they dive into why most corporate wellness efforts fall flat—and what truly makes a difference.

Hint: It’s not the snacks or yoga.

💬 Favorite Quotes:

“If I hate my coworkers, no amount of yoga is going to fix that.”
 “Being kind and being nice are two different things. It is kind to hold people accountable.”
 “So what? Now what? That mindset shift is how culture begins to change.”

📚 Related Reads from Gostick & Elton:

If you enjoyed this conversation, don’t miss Anxiety at Work, your guide to building high-performing, mentally healthy teams—packed with tools to reduce stress and boost engagement. Available wherever books and audiobooks are sold.

Transcript

Despite the growing investment in workplace wellness programs, employee morale and satisfaction continue to decline. What's going wrong? Hello, I'm Chester Elton and with me is my dear friend and co-author, Adrian Gostick. Well, thanks, Ches. Our guest today says that creating environments where employees thrive isn't about yoga sessions or free snacks. Instead, it starts with leaders modeling behaviors that prioritize inclusion, authenticity, accountability, all those good things we've talked about for years. And that lays the foundation for genuine workplace wellness and team success. That's what we're going to focus on today. As always, we hope the time you spend with us will help reduce the stigma of anxiety at work and in your personal life. And with us today is our new friend, Katina Sawyer, PhD, the co-founder of WorkerBeing. That's W-O-R-K-R space. B-E-I-N-G. Very clever, Katina. Well done. She is an associate professor of management and organizations at the University of Arizona. I think that's go wildcats. And you're- It is, correct. Yeah, there you go. They're down. Go big 12, yeah. I got a good seed this NCAA. Alongside her is her co-author Patricia Grabarek. I think I said that right. She's also a PhD. Yeah. Katina's upcoming book is Leading for Wellness, published by Wiley on March 25th, 2025. She also holds a dual PhD and MS in industrial organizational psychology and women's studies from Penn State. They're not in the tournament. Anyway, we won't go there. And is a leading expert in work-life balance, leadership, positive workplace behaviors, and diversity. So, welcome to the show, Katina. We are delighted to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. Well, thanks. Yeah, thanks for taking some time with us. I'm delighted to be here. Well thanks, yeah. Thanks for taking some time with us. I think everybody listening, you know, most people work in either organizations or they have their own businesses and a lot of times we spend a lot of time, effort, and money into these wellness programs that we are, you know, are well intended, but you say most of them are failing. So walk us through that. Yeah. So when we first started thinking about writing this book, the thing that was sort of plaguing us or the problem that we were trying to solve was that we saw companies doing a lot to try to increase employees' health and well-being. And they were taking a lot of actions and putting a lot of programs in place and initiatives in place. And yet we were seeing the data coming out that burnout is on the rise, disengagement is on the rise, right? And so companies are spending more than ever, and the numbers are getting worse, and that didn't seem to make any sense to us. So we started to talk to people about, well, why might this be? And we had some friends in the wellness space, and we also knew people who were working for companies who had invested quite a bit into these programs. And what we kept hearing over and over again was, wellness is not really about a Band-Aid program. If my day-to-day is not going well, if I'm very stressed, and my leader's not doing a good job leading, and my coworkers and I are not getting along, doing a 45-minute yoga session at lunch is not going to fix the fact that when I go back to my desk, those same bad things are going to be in place. A lot of what we were hearing was, we think our companies are well-intended, like you mentioned, but they're doing sort of a spaghetti at the wall approach. Companies recognize the importance of health and wellness, and so they've allocated budget to that, but what to do with that budget is more mysterious. And so they're just sort of like, what will people like to do? What do we think people will say, that was fun, but is it driving results? Is it actually changing things from the inside out? The answer largely to many of these programs or initiatives that companies are spending so much money on is it's not doing exactly what they think it is. Isn't that interesting? My takeaway from that is if I hate my coworkers, yoga doesn't matter. Yeah. No amount of yoga is going to fix a bad work environment. Yeah, but what about snacks though? Come on. Snacks can fix it. Yeah, no amount of yoga is going to fix a bad work environment. Yeah, but what about snacks though? Come on, snacks. Yeah, come on. Yeah, chocolate. Chocolate solves a lot of problems. Pool tables in the break room and all of that. They're not bad ideas on their own. It's just that they can't operate independently of a good work environment. Well, and to your point, you know, if you're asking the wrong question, right? What do we think people would like? Well, who doesn't like foosball? Right, exactly. Who doesn't like snacks? Exactly. Is it doing what we want it to do? You talk about in your book, you talk about a SWIFT process, S-W-I-F-T. Walk us through that framework. What does SWIFT stand for? Sure, yeah. So the SWIFT process was something that we thought through when we tried to articulate what it was that we heard people talking about when their leaders were very good at intentionally building strong relationships. And so for our book, we interviewed dozens and dozens of people and then surveyed hundreds of people to try to understand what leaders are doing when they're considered exemplary at supporting people's wellness. And one of the core things that was related to our findings was that they really take time and set aside dedicated effort to build strong relationships with other people. So the SWIFT process when we were trying to come up with a catchy way to articulate what we were hearing people tell us these leaders do, has to do with not just cultivating connections but cultivating connections quickly because leaders don't often have a lot of time. You might be onboarding a bunch of new people at once, so how do you get to a place where you're actually building these strong connections but you can do it in an expedient way? So, that starts with first setting aside the time for relationship building sprints, we call them, where you're really spending extra time up front to get to know somebody because that lays the foundation for later interactions that you might have. So you have to be dedicated about that. You have to really make sure that you're setting aside that time early on in the relationship more so than you would need to later in the relationship just to meet to get to know the person, not to talk shop. The next is that when you meet with people, you have to welcome them warmly and in a way that's going to make them comfortable. So if all of your time is spent with you as the leader sitting behind a desk, and you're making this very formal, structured, rigid environment, people aren't going to feel comfortable to share things about themselves that will help you build that relationship quicker. So you also have to create a warm and comforting environment. And then you have to ask questions, intentionally inquiring about other people's lives. We have a segment in the book about what questions not to ask, right? So you don't want to come out of the gate asking inappropriate or illegal questions. And by the way, Jester wants to know some of those in a minute. Yeah. So, like, how much do you weigh? Yeah, right? That would be not a good question to ask. What religion are you? Yeah, those questions. And, you know, some of those things may come up naturally in conversation the person may want to share as you talk, but, you know, asking things like, what's important to you outside of work? What makes you tick? What are the things that you find most motivating? What's your favorite thing to do? What's your favorite hobby? Those kinds of questions are innocuous, but also give you a lot of good information and help you to start building a relationship with the employee. And then the last two pieces are following up. So if you learn this thing about this employee, you know, maybe their favorite thing to do is, you know, they love gardening. And so the next time you see them, you ask, you know, well, how are things going in the garden? You know, what are you growing, whatever. It shows that you remember and you're continuing to build on the information that you gained. And so following up is important that you don't just let those conversations go by the wayside, but you use them to build the relationship. And the last is taking time to reflect. Really processing the information that you've heard from your employees, and thinking of ways that you might be able to better support them based on what you've heard. So we have a great example in the book of somebody saying that, you know, the number one thing their employee shared with them, they love to get outside and take a walk. And so the leader followed up on that later to say, hey, how's it going? Are you able to get outside, get your walks in? And the employee was like, you know, actually I have all these back-to-back meetings. And the leader worked with them to try to make that schedule so that they could get those walks in. And then they would reflect from time to time over what ways they might be able to better support that habit in their employees and try to help them to create that schedule that was going to support their well-being. And this, you know, logically it makes great sense, but you know, you teach leadership management, you know this. A lot of leaders go, look, I just don't have time for this. Just what you mentioned there. But on the management side, I've got such pressures. I am an individual contributor as well as managing these seven people in my IT department. It requires a mindset, just not only hope on the side of a leader, but also the organization has to change its mindset, I'm guessing as well. How do we begin that? Yeah. So that's something that is a challenge if you're operating in a context that's not supportive of you supporting other people. However, we have some strategies that we think that leaders can use to be able to overcome being encased in a more toxic workplace culture. So the first is not to underestimate your own power to create a subculture that differs from the broader culture. One of the things we saw these leaders doing very successfully was sort of taking this like, so what, now what type of attitude. Like, yeah, I'm in an organization that's not so great. That's the situation I'm in. Now what? Right? Like, now what can I do to actually use my sphere of influence to create the subculture that I want to create? So not just succumbing to the culture and recognizing your own power is a good mindset shift. They also found champions, other people in the organization who thought that the culture could use some shifting and tried to partner with those individuals to brainstorm and share ideas and best practices so they had a little community of support. And another thing that they did was they used metrics. So you know, if they're creating this subculture and their team's happier and more engaged and more productive, they're capturing those things and trying to let the numbers sell why other people might want to follow in their footsteps. So they're trying to use some influence tactics to help these things catch on. But worse comes to worse, they're always thinking about, well, what power do I have? Instead of just saying, well, you know, it stinks here, so I guess it's just gonna stink for everybody and there's nothing I can do about it. Yeah, isn't that interesting? You succumb to the overall toxicity of wherever you work. Yes, yes. And we're big fans of that as well, control what you can control. You've got a team. You can have a culture that's very different on your team. To your point, I really appreciated your bit about metrics. Prove that it works. Then who can take issue with that, right? Exactly. Yes. You also write a lot about authenticity. I'd love to learn more about that. We heard loud and clear, and this is actually the very first theme that we talk about in the book, of what people came to us with when they discussed these leaders who were exemplary at supporting their well-being. We often think of leaders as being these decisive, they know all the answers, they're very assertive, they always reassure people in tough times that it's going to be OK, that they're fine. And we think of leaders like a rock, right, that's just like unwavering. And that's inherited from a lot of years of leadership norms that some of those things can be helpful under certain circumstances, but certainly not all the time. And our ideas and views of leadership in the research have evolved, but popular conceptions have not caught up to that. So leaders often view themselves as having to hit those expectations. That's the way that's being leader-like. But what we found is that people actually don't want that from a leader. They want a leader who doesn't seem like a superhero. They want a relatable person who they see as a human being, who they can find commonality with. And that does two things. One, it shows the people on your team that there's not something wrong with them for sensing something in the environment that might be off or for being worried about something or for being confused or lost. If they make a mistake, they feel comfortable bringing it to the leader because the leader's also upfront about the fact that they've made mistakes. So it creates this openness to actually have tough conversations. And the other thing that it does is it motivates people to try to become leaders themselves. Because if you view the leaders in your organization as being these robotic, never faltering, stiff people, right, then you think about yourself becoming a leader and that's a different proposition, right? That's like, well, do I sacrifice my soul to become this leader, right? As opposed to you're seeing someone doing it in a way that you find relatable and that you could actually envision yourself growing and evolving into over time. Yeah, that's such a good point. As a leadership expert yourself, we're talking to so many younger people who say, I don't wanna be a leader. Their lives look miserable. I wanna go home at five and have a life outside. And so making it more appealing in a way, that's a really good point. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're not role modeling for the people who are watching you lead a sustainable form of leadership, people are going to think about that a little bit differently. That doesn't look sustainable to me. Do I want to burn myself out? Do I want to live the life that that person is living? And the answer often is no. But if you do it in a realistic way, and show the cracks, right? And also give yourself the flexibility to actually do the things you wanna do. It's so fascinating to us talking to leaders who are like, oh, you know, I really wish in a perfect world, I would disconnect over vacations, and I would, you know, be able to spend time going to my kids' T-ball game, and I would, you know would be able to spend time going to my kids' T-ball game and I would be able to disconnect on the weekends, but I just can't do that. And part of that is a self-fulfilling prophecy because they're not doing it, so their team's not doing it, so they're getting pinged by their team and then they're feeling the need to respond to their team and if everybody just decided they weren't going to do that, things could shift, right? So often the leaders complain about the thing that they have some power over. Wonderful advice. This is from Katina Sawyer, who's the author of the new book, Leading for Wellness. Katina, where would you point people to learn more about your work? Yeah, so you can go to our website, workerbeing.com. That's W-O-R-K-R-B-E-E-I-N-G.com. And if you want to find out more about our book, we have a book page there. You can also find us on social at WorkerBeing on any platform. So last one for me is around accountability, because this is one of the themes in your book as well. When you talk about accountability, sometimes it seems as this dark subject, I'm going to hold you accountable. And it's not really this positive, but I think it can be. So walk us through how you've thought about accountability and how it plays into this, this bigger idea of wellness, because maybe they don't seem aligned until you'll help us walk us through this. Yeah, holding people to expectations is actually from childhood something people want. Having no rules and no boundaries actually creates a lot of chaos and can create very unhealthy relationship dynamics. When you hold people accountable in a way that sets them up for success in a kind way, that produces both fair expectations, but it also produces better results for them. And so in the end, what often happens and the way in which this sort of plays out is that you feel nicer by letting people break boundaries and not be accountable because they're sort of asking you for a lack of accountability, right? They're like, this is stressful for me to get to this or I'm having a hard time meeting these expectations. And of course, if your expectations are unrealistic, you should reassess those. But if you're giving people realistic goals and timelines, right, and they're, you know, not accountable to those. You're not doing them any favors either psychologically or work-wise by continuing to let that go. So by being permissive, you're actually setting up a bad dynamic. But by putting yourself in a position where you're actually in a high expectations, high support, that's actually what we came up with here at U of A for the way we mentor doctoral students. It's a high expectations, high support. We are going to hold you accountable, but we're also going to be with you every step of the way. That's a really healthy relationship to have, but it can't be high support, low expectations. High expectations, no support, right? those are the sort of things to think about when you're trying to, being kind and being nice are two different things. It is kind to hold people accountable. Yeah, you know, it's so funny you mentioned that. I live in New Jersey. Yeah. Adrienne lives in Utah, and there was a great little bit on East Coast people are kind but not nice. West Coast people are nice but not kind. The example is a guy's got a flat tire on the side of the highway and West Coast, they drive by and go, oh, isn't that too bad, which is nice. They don't stop to fix the tire. But in Jersey, the guy would stop to help you fix your tire, insulting you the whole time. What do you mean you don't know how to fix your tire? What are you, a moron? I'm from Philly, I'm from Philly. So I get this analogy very, very much. Yeah, it might not be kind, but they'll fix your tire. Yeah, right. Well, and being from Philly, you've got to be excited about the Super Bowl. Good for you. Fly, eagle, fly. Yes, that was so much fun to watch. I mean, just great. And being here in Arizona now, there aren't that many Eagles fans. So I gotta rub it in people's faces when I can. Would you say that the Eagles this year had high expectations and high support? I think they did. I would agree. Absolutely. Hey, last question for me, because we're always interested in self-care tactics, particularly with successful people. I know you've got your PhD, you're writing this book, you've got this great little company. Walk us through some of the practices that you've found that personally help you thrive. Sure, yeah. So, we're always about these systemic solutions, right? So like leaders and top down. But sometimes you're in a situation where you're just stressed and there's not much that you can do about it or you're not in a position where you have as much influence to change the dynamics. So you need to find ways personally to cope, right? There are multiple ways that you can cope with stress that have been found to be effective. One of them is simply like watching TV, unplugging, listening to music, trying to just basically, Netflix is OK. However, that's not the best way to recover. So you shouldn't use that one all the time. But it does have some positive benefits. What's even better is if you are watching Netflix and you're totally disconnected from your phone, for example, so adding another element, disconnecting from technology, disconnecting from email, social media, et cetera, just not having any other devices except for the thing you're watching, that can be okay, or just disconnecting in general without having any other media distraction. And hanging out with friends, really getting out in nature and disconnecting. So both disconnection and relaxing can be good. Control is also positive. So I do a lot of thinking forward for my schedule for the next week. It might seem like you're still working, but actually taking time to set a schedule for the next day frees your mind so that you're not spinning on what you're going to do and that the next day you're not spinning on what comes next. And the very last piece, which is the best one, is mastery, which is engaging in a hobby that you care a lot about because that helps you both to disconnect. It also gives you a sense of control because you're feeling like you're improving and getting better in a domain that you care about that's not work. It also can be relaxing because it's something that you enjoy. If you can only do one thing to recover after work, besides sleep, if you're not getting enough sleep, that's bad, but one thing that's active, mastery, reconnecting with a hobby that you've forgotten about would be the number one. So interesting you mentioned that because people make fun of Adrian's thimble collection. Yeah. Now it's totally validated. Yeah, unlike Chester's totally validated. Yeah. Yeah. Unlike Chester's weird creepy doll collection. You probably see it behind him. Creepy is in the eye of the beholder, Adrian. Both of these collections sound fascinating. Hey, Katina, this has been amazing. So great to learn from you. Again, the book is Leading for Wellness. Pick it up. It's from Wiley, Katina Sawyer, professor at to learn from you. Again, the book is Leading for Wellness. Pick it up. It's from Wiley, Katina Sawyer, professor at the University of Arizona. Hey, we want to thank you, Katina, so much for coming on today. It's been a lot of fun, and I think we've learned a lot as well. We wish you the best of luck with the book. Thank you so much for having me. This has been awesome. So, Adrian, a lot of energy, I think some really good concepts. I'm curious, you had one or two big takeaways? Well, you know, a few things. First off, because she's right, I mean, we've all been doing more on wellness, we've been doing more on taking care of our people and burnout is on the rise. We're not getting rid of it. It's what we used to say about employee engagement is we all know about it, but we don't do anything about it. Well, maybe the things we're doing aren't really helping. So, and what she's talking about is a very human approach to leadership that you and I talk about in all of our books is, is you put in time and effort to know their stories, right? This, this swift method that she's talking about is great. All right. You set aside time, you welcome them. We're always so much happier to see people who are excited to see us. You know, you're inquisitive. You do it. You do you do some follow up because there's nothing worse. We've all seen managers where they go, Hey, how you doing, Chester? And you go, I had a bad week that you're texting back. And then silence, radio silence, right? Well, that's great. You know, stiff upper lip. Okay, see ya. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like that too, the welcoming. I love that she had, welcome them warmly. You know, there's a qualifier there. It's just not, hey, welcome to work. It's, you know, warmly. To your point, ask good questions, right? And then follow up. I really appreciated the reflection. I think, you know, we never take enough time to reflect, you know, whether it's to write in our journals or like you say, follow up, or think about what went well that day. What did we learn? What are we going to take forward? Her subculture comment really stuck with me. You know, you and I had a subculture when we built our training group. As most, you know, you're going to have a subculture when we built our training group. As most, you're gonna have a subculture in manufacturing, you're gonna have a subculture in marketing and so on. That control what you can control and build the kind of culture that you want. The authentic leader, my big takeaway there was, you want people, leaders that are themselves, and then your addition is, yeah, be the kind of leader people wanna be. You know, so many people go, well, if that's what a leader is, count me out. Yeah, so I get an extra maybe 20% raise, but I have a miserable life, and that's okay. You know, I'll keep making what I'm making, and yeah, no, that's, and I'm gonna come back just for a moment to the subculture idea. I love her, so what, now what? Remember that, remember, so what, now what? And it's so powerful. It's like, you know, look, life is hard. We know that. Life isn't fair sometimes. It's not fair that you have a tough boss or a lousy environment, this, that, and the other. Now, what are you going to do about it? As you said, control what you can control. I think that's great. And you can be more approachable, more, more, she says, accountable too. And that doesn't need to be a negative. It can be a positive because people want to be held accountable. When we go out and we speak or we train, what do we tell people? It, no, they were really asked a lot of me. So as an individual, right? They, they stretched me they asked me to do things I'd never done before. Yeah, I think my biggest takeaway in self care was it's okay to absolutely binge watch on Netflix for hours on end. I took that away too. I love that. She didn't say hours on end. I added that. But wasn't an issue. She didn't say hours on end. I added that part. But wasn't it interesting she said, focus though on that. Because how many people nowadays, they're watching TikTok while they're watching Netflix, while they've got the other things going. It's like multitasking. It means you're not really doing anything. Well, I really did appreciate too, where she said, look, have a hobby outside of work, something that you're passionate about, that just disconnects your mind from everything, whether it's jogging or sports or collecting commemorative symbols. Please don't send me any commemorative symbols, anybody. Anyway, it really was delightful. And you know, it is interesting because, you know, we talk about anxiety at work, and she's talking about creating great workplaces. And you know, if you or your employees are stressed or overworked or worried about uncertainty, on the verge of burning out, you know what's coming here, Adrian. The book Anxiety at Work is a must-read guide for every leader in business and a professional who wants to build a resilient, high-performing team. You know, we pack our books with highly actionable tools. Our book, Anxiety at Work, is from Harper Business. It shows you how to create that culture of trust, support, productivity, even in uncertain times. So don't just manage stress, transform it into a competitive edge. There's great tips and anxiety at work. It's on Audible, it's on lit video books, it's on Kindle, and at fine bookstores everywhere. Did I get that commercial right, Adrian? Are you inspired? Well, the only problem is with Audible, they have to listen to us. But otherwise, great content. So hey, you know who reduces our anxiety every day is our producer Brent Klein. I want to thank him and I thank Christy Lawrence for finding amazing guests like Tina and all of you who listened in. If you like the podcast, share it and learn more about what we do at thecultureworks.com. Gives you lots of free resources. And we love speaking to audiences, whether it's in person or virtual. We speak around the world on topics like culture, teamwork, resilience, mental health. Give us a call. We'd love to talk to you about your next event. Adrian, another wonderful time. Always time well spent spending with you, so I will give you the last word. Thanks everybody for joining us. Thanks, Chess, for all your insights. Until next time, everybody, we wish you the best of mental health.