Do You Have Wellness Privilege at Work?

In a world where lifestyle-related conditions and illnesses are on the rise, pandemic-related burnout rates are skyrocketing and, according to a Microsoft WorkLab report from March 2021, a whopping 41 percent of employees are threatening to quit their jobs, more employers are recognizing the importance of workplace wellness.

While reaching this recognition is an important first step, simply offering a wellness program is not enough. Most workplace wellness efforts fall short. According to Rand’s Review of the U.S. Wellness Marketplace, 80 percent of eligible employees opt out of voluntary wellness programs. Furthermore, a 2019 NBER working paper written by Damon Jones and others details how a first-of-its-kind large-scale, randomized clinical trial examining employee wellness programs revealed no impact on health outcomes for employees who participated in the programs.

Employers are not benefiting either. The same study by Jones et al. found no significant reduction in health care spending or utilization of health care services.

The reasons for this lackluster report card are multifaceted, ranging from an overreliance on rewards and incentives to the delivery of siloed, check-the-box programs that are disconnected from business as usual. The failure of leaders to truly model well-being also defeats efforts to foster wellness among employees.

While these shortcomings have been discussed at length, one problem that has only recently gained traction is that most workplace wellness programs do not adequately address the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) needs of an organization’s workforce. More specifically, very few organizations have tackled wellness privilege.

What Is Wellness Privilege?

For the uninitiated, wellness privilege is an unearned benefit or advantage enjoyed by some individuals or groups that makes the pursuit of well-being easier. Conversely, those unearned benefits or advantages are unavailable to others, making the pursuit of well-being, for all practical purposes, out of reach.

Studies such as Gallup-Healthways’ 2014 Country Well-Being Rankings identify six domains of well-being—physical, emotional, social, financial, career and community. In each of these domains, there are seemingly simple things anyone should be able to do to self-optimize and fuel better health and well-being.

In the physical domain, for instance, individuals can eat better, move more and avoid smoking. To maximize one’s level of well-being in the other domains, a person can put into practice tried and true methods such as mindfulness, gratitude and finding work that matches their deepest purpose. Individuals can sharpen their habits with strategies such as breaking goals into micro steps or tracking their efforts with devices.

These tactics sound fairly straightforward, but implementing them requires much that is not obvious. Despite what authors of dime-a-dozen books on how to form new habits would have readers believe, achieving better health encompasses more than changing individual behaviors. Professor Sir Michael Marmot, director of the University College London Institute of Health Equity, summed up the problem succinctly by explaining, “It is unreasonable to expect people to change their behavior when the social, cultural and physical environments around them fully conspire against them.”

We agree. For many people, whether they are aware of it or not, their health and wellness is largely dependent on the privilege they do or do not possess in their everyday lives.

Check for Privilege and Inequity

Questions to ask to determine whether an employee, manager or leader might or might not have privilege at work include

• Am I healthier because of where I live, or less so?
• Am I more- or less-enabled to pursue well-being because of the places I go—in particular, the organization I work for?
• Am I more likely to be well because of the people in my life, especially my boss?

Taking the exploration of wellness privilege one step further demands asking whether systems within certain ecosystems of influence are benefiting or working against people’s health. Privilege comes to the fore when systems are analyzed.

It is undeniable that when two people operate within the same ecosystem, such as serving on the same team at work, one is likely to have more privilege than the other. The upshot of this reality is that the more privilege a person has, the more likely they are to be well and to thrive personally and professionally.

Systemic questions about wellness privilege include

• Does the organization support taking time off to rest and recover by, for example, providing paid sick days?
• Does the organization control how employees manage their time at work?
• Can employees observe religious holidays and traditions without using vacation time?
• Can employees afford to join out-of-office lunches or afterwork social activities?
• Are employees of underrepresented genders and races regularly asked to perform menial tasks their colleagues are not expected to perform?
• Do employees have opportunities to grow in their career?
• Do all employees get equal airtime during workplace conversations and team meetings?

Moving From Questions to Solutions

An assessment tool we developed asks 50 questions similar to those listed in this article. By going beyond the “daily walk and broccoli” approach to wellness, completing the assessment can help anyone identify how much wellness privilege they actually have. The assessment takes a holistic and comprehensive view of the key items that make the difference between living a good life and living a great one. It points out those things that enable each person to become their best selves by showing the answers are different for everyone.

The tool can also help organizational leaders by highlighting the systemic forces at play in positively or negatively influencing efforts to become healthier and happier. Recognizing where and how they have wellness privilege in their workplace will enable individuals, managers and organizational leaders to take action to improve workplace wellness for themselves, their team and the organization.

Implementing new rules and policies will be particularly important for ensuring wellness privilege is available to everyone in an equitable and just way. The goal must be to create a workplace where employees feel happier, live healthier and thrive.