The wellness industry is booming, yet its growth highlights an uncomfortable truth: the workplace remains a melting pot of dis-ease. Toxic food options, sedentary desk jobs, and endless hours behind screens create environments where health and wellbeing are often compromised. As we step into 2025, it’s time for senior leaders to confront this reality, challenge outdated practices, and take bold steps towards transformative change.
Before we dive into my predications – let’s examine the data; after all great health and wellbeing interventions are based on data and not free fruit.
Here are my top predictions for the top workplace health trends set to redefine organisational culture in the year ahead.
1. Employees Holding Leaders Accountable
Employees are no longer passive participants in workplace culture. They expect more from their leaders—more empathy, more authenticity, and more accountability.
- Health Starts at the Top: Leaders set the tone for organisational health. Their attitudes and behaviours ripple through the organisation, influencing morale, productivity, and health outcomes.
- Health Leadership and Training: Embedding health awareness and hybrid team management into supervision and leadership training is non-negotiable. Leaders at all levels must be equipped to navigate these complexities.
- Role Modelling: Employees want to see their leaders walk their talk. This means recognising their isn’t endless capacity for work, taking breaks, prioritising mental health, and embracing flexible work practices.
- Action, Not Just Words: Caring isn’t enough; leaders need to demonstrate tangible actions that foster positive change.
- The Right to Disconnect: Employees expect organisations to protect their work-life balance by enforcing boundaries that allow them to truly disconnect from work outside of office hours.
2. Data-Driven Health
Workplace health is evolving from a feel-good initiative to a data-driven imperative.
- Measuring Impact: Engagement surveys, productivity metrics, and absenteeism rates provide measurable insights into the ROI of health programs.
- AI-Powered Analytics: Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to identify hotspots for improvement, offering granular insights into organisational, team, and individual health. However, ethical considerations around data usage must remain a priority.
- Wellbeing Technology: From wearables to wellness apps, technology is now an integral part of employee benefits, enabling organisations to track and support their workforce’s health.
- Ethical Data Use: The integration of wearable tech and AI analysis must be handled carefully, with clear policies to protect employee privacy and ensure data is used responsibly. Ethical frameworks should guide how organisations collect, store, and utilise health data, preventing misuse and fostering trust.
3. Psychosocial Risk Prevention
Psychosocial risks refer to workplace factors that negatively impact employees’ mental health, such as excessive workloads, lack of support, or workplace conflict. Proactively identifying and addressing these risks creates a psychologically safe environment where employees feel supported and valued. This environment allows everyone to thrive, fostering trust, collaboration, and innovation. It doesn’t mean that we stop holding people to account. Preventative care reduces the likelihood of burnout, stress, and mental health issues, enhancing overall organisational resilience.
4. Tackling Social Connection, Loneliness, and Isolation
The pandemic highlighted the importance of social connection in maintaining mental health. Organisations must prioritise fostering genuine human connections, both in-person and virtually, to combat loneliness and isolation.
5. Functional Movement and Prevention of Work Related Ill Health
Preventing ill health starts with proactive measures. Encouraging functional movement and recovery practices not only improves employee health but also prevents long-term issues. Targeted pre-habilitation (prehab) and rehabilitation (rehab) plans tailored to the physical nature of work activities are essential. This links in the government white paper ‘Get Britain Working’ – more on this later.
For desk-based roles, integrating movement breaks, ergonomic solutions, and healthier lifestyle habits fosters a culture of prevention, reducing the risks associated with sedentary work.
6. Workplace Health Equity
Creating a level playing field for health is essential. Health equity ensures all employees have access to appropriate support, resources, and facilities, regardless of their role or background.
Specific challenges, such as women’s health, require focused solutions. Providing access to women’s health physiotherapists allows new mothers to return to work safely and healthily. Additionally, the Labour Government’s Menopause Plan for large employers emphasises the need for comprehensive policies and support systems, ensuring women can thrive in the workplace.
7. Navigating Hybrid Work Challenges
It really pains me to write about this, I’ve always worked in hybrid and flexible roles so really struggle with the fact this is still an issue.
Balancing the realities of real estate costs with employee expectations is a tightrope walk many organisations are lining themselves up for. Mandating a minimum number of days on-site or enforcing a return-to-office policy can come across as draconian. If this is the organisational direction, honesty in messaging is key – for the love of all the free apples on wellness Wednesday please don’t pretend it’s about culture & togetherness when it’s about justifying property footprint and building expenditure.
Employees value transparency and respect. The rise of compressed hours and four-day workweeks shows that flexibility is not just desirable but increasingly expected, providing a path forward that aligns business needs with employee wellbeing.
8. The End of Perkwashing
The era of overinflated benefits packages is coming to an end. Employees value authenticity over flashy perks. Honest and meaningful support—such as flexible working, robust mental health initiatives, and genuine care—trumps superficial offerings.
9. Financial Coaching and Education
Financial wellbeing is an often-overlooked aspect of employee health. With the cost of living still high in the UK, financial stress remains a significant challenge for many employees. Educational programs covering budgeting, investing, and retirement planning empower employees to make informed financial decisions. In addition, fostering personal planning for retirement ensures long-term financial security, reducing stress and enhancing overall wellbeing.
10. Leading with Courage and Care
2025 is a pivotal year for workplace health. As leaders, the challenge isn’t simply to adopt these trends but to integrate them into the very fabric of your organisation. This means holding a mirror to current practices, listening to your employees, and taking bold steps to foster a culture of genuine care. Remember, a thriving workplace isn’t built on perks—it’s built on trust, connection, and shared purpose.
Why does this matter in 2025?
The government has set an ambitious target to raise employment rates to 80% – increasing the workforce by 2.4 million people. the UK faces a number of health-related workforce challenges that will make realising this ambition particularly difficult. Since the beginning of 2020, the number of people who have left the labour market altogether due to long-term illness has risen by 671,000, and now sits at a near record 2.78 million. At the time of publication, the UK remains the only G7 country with a smaller workforce than before the Covid-19 pandemic (Work Foundation, 2024).
The Government has launched a new ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper, with a primary focus on boosting support and work incentives for those who have fallen into economic inactivity – including interventions for those with long-term illnesses and a review to understand how employers can support workers to stay in employment. But until the Keep Britain Working Review reports in Autumn 2025, there remains a significant policy gap as to how to stem the flow of those leaving work due to ill health in the first place. In the meantime, employers are expected to fill the void making inroads into developing their own systems and support networks for employees.
A bit about me & my background
Before I became a Functional Health Specialist….
I was an MBA-educated Senior Leader, alongside being a Chartered Health and Safety Practitioner. I’ve worked in several technically complex and operationally diverse industries that present numerous challenges to keep people healthy, safe and well. I have a proven track record of delivering exceptional results in many areas.
I offer workplace health and wellbeing consultancy that provides tailored support and guidance for organisations that may not have their own HR, Safety or Occupational Health teams but want to protect the health and wellbeing of their employees or maybe you have your own dedicated teams but need an additional pair of hands for a particular project or just a bit of additional support.
How can I help your workplace to be happier, healthier and more engaged?
- Develop a wellbeing leadership framework
- Develop wellbeing specific policies
- Undertake a health & wellbeing gap analysis
- Help build a picture of your health risks
- Help you develop your wellbeing programme
- Workshop Facilitation & Training Delivery
- Specific training sessions for menopause for leaders, managers and employees
- Raise the profile of women’s health in the workplace
- MHFA & Health Champion Trainer
- Provide ongoing support for your mental health first aiders & health champions
- Complete complex workplace assessment (DSE/Ergonomic)
- Return to Work Enabler
- Take part in your wellbeing events
- Host your menopause café
If you’d like to improve your workplace wellbeing or know an organisation that you work with that might be struggling to take the first steps or have a specific wellbeing challenge you’d like to solve, I’d love to work with you, so do get in contact.
References
- Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Managing Psychosocial Risks in the Workplace. 2024.
- Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Health and Wellbeing at Work. 2024.
- Labour Government. Menopause Workplace Plan for Employers. 2024.
- World Economic Forum. The Future of Wellbeing at Work. 2023.
- Stemming the tide: Healthier jobs to tackle economic inactivity – Work Foundation. 2024.
