When it comes to mental wellbeing initiatives in the workplace, we need to get much smarter about what works, for whom, to what extent, in what context, how and for how much. 

Britain’s Healthiest Workplace survey is the only survey in the country to focus specifically on health and wellbeing at work and its multi-level questionnaire allows a unique insight into both employee and management perspectives. The programmes tested were common types such as resilience training, mindfulness, relaxation courses and time management initiatives.

I found no average treatment effect across the majority of these short-term programmes and multiple long-standing mental health outcomes. Importantly though, the results don’t discount positive benefits, but they also highlight that there can be negative effects to balance this out.

The notable exception in these results is volunteering opportunities. There is existing evidence for the positive impacts of charitable volunteering and these results suggest that perhaps we are taking the wrong approach. Should we be considering wellbeing on a more social level – as a collective good not something to purely be measured through an individual? William Fleming,
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See also
 Putting science to work: Understanding what works for workplace mental health. 
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