It’s Calm app subscriptions. It’s pastel posters in the staff kitchen proclaiming, “It’s okay not to be okay.” These aren’t bad things. In fact, they’re often deeply well-intentioned. But in many UK boardrooms, wellbeing has become less about actual well-being, and more about optics; a decorative veil laid carefully over structural dysfunction.
I say this not with cynicism, but as a sociologist and ex-CEO who has been around the block and works with companies trying (often earnestly) to do better. The problem is not intent. The problem is misunderstanding the root causes of the very stress, burnout, and disengagement these initiatives are trying to fix. Because when the 70-hour workweek is still quietly celebrated, when psychological safety is spoken about more than it’s practised, when performance reviews still reward presenteeism over purpose, it doesn’t matter how many yoga classes are added to the team schedule. Wellbeing initiatives can’t be retrofitted over cultures that remain structurally exhausting.
Let’s take a typical example. A senior executive, overwhelmed, disengaged, quietly panicked about their own declining motivation, is sent on a resilience retreat. They return rested, sure, but also silently terrified of being seen as fragile. Within weeks, the inbox fills again, the same interpersonal politics reign, and the Slack channel pulses at all hours. It’s not long before the cracks reappear. But now, there’s lavender oil in the toilets and a quarterly ‘Thrive Thursday’.
This isn’t parody. This is the reality of a growing number of organisations inadvertently addressing systemic issues with self-care stickers. Wellbeing has become a brand asset. Something to be audited and marketed, rather than lived. We see entire departments rebranded as ‘People and Culture’ while under the surface, conflict goes unaddressed, leadership remains emotionally unavailable, and junior staff quietly withdraw.
The core issue? Many businesses still treat stress and burnout as individual malfunctions. The onus is on the employee to cope better, rather than asking what’s making coping so necessary in the first place. Instead of diagnosing the organisational dynamics that cause burnout: unclear expectations, lack of autonomy, covert hostility? It’s easier to promote meditation…
But workplaces are social systems. Every problem has a sociological and psychological core. If your junior team is disengaged, it may not be because they haven’t downloaded Headspace: it may be because their ideas are routinely ignored. If senior women are leaving in droves, it might not be a lack of ‘balance’, but the subtle exhaustion of always having to emotionally mediate meetings. If your best manager is quietly burning out, perhaps it’s because she’s managing three people’s emotional loads, not just their KPIs.
To move beyond performative wellbeing, we need to treat culture as infrastructure, not ambiance. That means honest diagnostic work: what’s not being said in meetings? Who’s doing the unspoken emotional labour? Where are the contradictions between what we value and what we reward? None of this requires cynicism. In fact, it requires optimism; the belief that people want to work in healthier ways, and that organisations can evolve. Many of the leaders I work with are compassionate, self-aware, and desperate to create better cultures. But they’ve been handed the wrong tools. Or rather, they’ve been sold the accessories before laying the foundation.
It’s time to stop mistaking wellbeing for wall art. It’s not the plants in the corner or the Prosecco on a Thursday. It’s psychological safety. It’s structural integrity. It’s being able to tell the truth without fear of reprisal. And yes, sometimes it’s a lavender-scented toilet. But only if it comes with a culture where no one has to cry in it.
