How To Create a Culture of Well-Being in the Workplace

Why building a culture of well-being is so important.

Employees today expect more than a paycheck—they want to work for organizations that appreciate and care about them. A strong company culture can make a huge difference in how people show up to work each day and, in turn, impact the bottom line.

There are many levers that organizations can use to create a healthy company culture. But we would argue that a large part of what makes a good company culture is the degree to which the organization values and supports its employees’ holistic well-being. When employees feel better across multiple dimensions of their lives—social, physical, financial, mental, and work—they have the tools to thrive and make positive contributions to the workplace.

For example, in WebMD Health Services’ 2025 Workplace and Employee Survey, employees who strongly perceived that their organization cares about their well-being reported being 56% more engaged in their work, 34% more likely to stay with their employer and 37% less likely to experience burnout.

How to build a culture of well-being.

Creating a culture that makes employees feel cared for requires more than just having a corporate well-being program in place. A well-being program might offer a fitness class or biometric screenings, for example, but a culture that values well-being embeds those values into employees’ everyday work life. A truly integrated culture of well-being isn’t just an HR initiative—rather, it’s part of the organization’s identity.

So, how do you cultivate a culture where well-being is visible, valued and expected? Here are a few crucial steps you can take and some examples of how our clients live wellness and care for their employees every day.

Align your well-being program with your organization’s mission and values.

The most effective well-being programs reflect an organization’s core mission and values. For example, if an organization prioritizes collaboration, the well-being program should include team-based challenges. If an organization has goals related to employee growth, personalized health coaching and continuous learning should be a core part of the well-being offering. When programs are clearly aligned with what the company stands for, they feel more authentic, and employees are more likely to engage. Plus, the program’s success buoys the organization’s overall success.

Listen to what employees want and need.

Ask employees what they expect from you. This is easy to do with a quick survey or even a virtual focus group. Well-being needs vary across generations, race, gender and sexual orientation, so be sure to include a representative sample. Once you’ve conducted your listening, share what you learned and the actions you’ll take as a result.

Make employee mental health a priority.

It’s never been clearer that our mental health is just as important as our physical health. By regularly discussing the importance of mental health in the workplace—and continually promoting the resources the company makes available to employees to help—employers seeking to build a healthy company culture can make significant inroads. You can start by promoting your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and its many resources, and examine other programs you may want to introduce to reduce stress, help employees start a mindfulness habit or increase resilience.

Empower leaders to model well-being.

A strong well-being culture starts at the top. Leaders can have a profound impact on the overall success of a well-being program, both by making it an organizational priority and by modeling what it looks like to participate.

Some of our clients embed well-being into their leaders’ performance objectives. One standout example is a client whose VP of North America has a 35% weighted performance goal tied to employee well-being and engagement. At that company, each leader is responsible for at least one goal related to well-being. This creates a powerful ripple effect from the top of the organization.

Here are some other ideas to show how leaders can “walk the talk” as you create a culture of well-being at your organization:

• Discuss well-being in CEO town halls.
• Ask leaders to block time on their calendars for fitness or meditation, or join company-sponsored group fitness sessions.
• Encourage leaders to be open about taking time off to care for themselves—physically and mentally—or others in their life who need care.
• Devote just a couple of minutes to well-being during weekly team meetings: advertise well-being activities happening that week, encourage employees to take walk or stretch breaks, and highlight available mental health resources.

Foster everyday conversations.

For a well-being program to be relevant, it needs to show up in employees’ daily interactions—like in team meetings and one-on-ones. Many clients utilize our leadership toolkit, which gives managers tips and prompts for talking to their direct reports about well-being in a natural and authentic way. Other creative approaches include inviting employees to beat their leaders in wellness challenges, adding some fun and friendly competition to the mix.

Another way to build a strong company culture through conversation is to strengthen the bonds between coworkers. Employee resource groups are a great way to spark this connection, generate rapport between coworkers, and allow employees to share parts of their lives outside of work.

Make your well-being program easy to access and understand.

To fully engage with your well-being program, employees need to understand what tools are available and, most importantly, how those tools can support their personal health goals. The most successful organizations continuously communicate program benefits in clear, engaging ways and connect program tools to the things employees most care about, like getting better sleep or moving more during the workday.

These foundational program elements are a great place to start:

1. Encourage biometric screenings. Understanding one’s health is the first step toward improving it. Biometric screenings give employees a snapshot of key health indicators—such as cholesterol and blood glucose levels—that can reveal risk for certain chronic conditions. When combined with health coaching or educational resources, these screenings can be powerful motivators for positive lifestyle changes.
2. Promote health assessments. Health assessments are simple and quick for employees to complete, but the value they deliver is long-lasting. They give participants a good view into their current health habits and identify areas for improvement, giving employees a clear next step toward better well-being.
3. Boost energy and connection with physical activity programs. Movement is one of the most effective ways to support physical health, team connection and a healthy and fun atmosphere around the office. They’re easy to implement, scalable and highly customizable to fit your culture. Here are a few ideas that our clients have successfully implemented:
   • Onsite lunchtime yoga classes with a certified instructor
   • After-work softball games or tournaments with other local companies
   • Afternoon run sessions in a local park or greenspace
   • Incentives to sign up for a 5K sponsored by a local or national nonprofit for a good cause
   • Discounted memberships to a local or onsite fitness center

Enlist the support of well-being culture champions.

To really infuse well-being into the culture, it helps to enlist some ambassadors. Seek out people who are well-being advocates and ask them to become champions. Peer pressure can be a positive force for making healthy changes, so encourage champions to participate in well-being activities and share on workplace social media. You can also ask champions to organize special events and actively promote them to their colleagues.

Offer flexibility.

Over the last couple of years, the degree to which an employer offers flexibility in how, when, and where people work has emerged as a huge factor in creating a healthy workplace culture. Here are some aspects of flexibility you can introduce, like:

• Allowing employees to set their own schedules to better align with family responsibilities, or simply to work when they feel most productive.
• Offering four-day or compressed workweeks.
• Introducing additional PTO.
• Requiring “no meeting” days so employees can schedule appointments or get focused work done.
• Giving choice and control in work shifts for those who can’t work from home, including self-scheduling, shift-swapping, compressed workweeks, part-time work, and job sharing.

Check out more ideas on how to create a flexible work environment here.

Create a healthy work environment.

You can say that you support employees’ well-being, but it’s hard to truly achieve if the physical workplace doesn’t walk the talk. Examine some of the less-healthy messages your organization might be sending—from candy bowls in breakrooms to workspaces that are not ergonomically correct. Remember to consider your remote employees here as well!

Include more healthy options in the cafeteria, provide discounts for healthy meal services for remote employees, encourage outdoor walking meetings and using the stairs, make fruit available when it’s in season, host healthy cooking demonstrations, sponsor a recreational sports team, hold outdoor yoga classes—the list of activities that signal that an organization is committed to well-being is endless.

Offer numerous ways for employees to increase daily physical activity.

Taking regular breaks to move throughout the day can help reduce stress, increase focus, and improve mood. But employees need to feel that they have permission to step away from their desks to do it. There are ways to encourage this: walking meetings, ending meetings 10 minutes early, or blocking calendars for a lunchtime walk. Again this is an area where leaders can set the tone by engaging in these activities themselves.

Over the past couple of years, it’s become clearer that exercise doesn’t need to be an hour-long boot camp. And it shouldn’t have to happen after the workday ends or before it begins. Progressive employers with healthy cultures know that offering time to exercise during the day can actually make workers more productive.

Remember, creating a culture of wellness doesn’t happen overnight.

It takes considerable thought, planning, and time to combine all the elements. But, it’s achievable with intentional leadership and a focus on people. Ready to evolve your well-being strategy from an initiative to part of your organization’s DNA? Download our guide, 7 Steps to Creating a Culture of Well-Being in the Workplace or request a demo to chat with our team.