22nd May 2025
Why Workplace Wellbeing Is Essential for Business Success in the Intelligent Age
Only 25% of workers are happy at work, revealing a global crisis in workplace wellbeing. Oxford’s Jan-Emmanuel De Neve argues for a strategic shift: companies must prioritize structural and cultural changes—like belonging, fairness, and leadership empathy—over surface-level perks to enhance productivity, retention, and organizational resilience in the Intelligent Age.
This article was written by Kate Whiting and published in World Economic Forum.
The world of work for many people in 2025 “isn’t necessarily a positive place,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve.
Five years after the COVID pandemic increased the focus on mental health and wellbeing at work, “the pendulum is swinging back” to a pre-COVID era, the Oxford Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science believes, with a shift away from the human case for investing in workplace wellbeing.
The McKinsey Health Institute finds investing in employee wellbeing could boost the global economy by $11.7 trillion, according to the World Economic Forum’s Thriving Workplaces report, which also cites De Neve’s research.
The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Health and Healthcare is working with its partners to strengthen both the investment case and evidence base for prioritizing holistic workplace health to improve productivity and the overall health resilience of the global workforce. Through the Healthy Workforces and Chief Health Officers communities, leading organizations are working with De Neve and other researchers to illuminate and harmonize the most critical workplace measurements and metrics.
These efforts are urgently needed. Only a quarter of workers in the US, UK, Canada and beyond are actually happy at work, according to De Neve’s research with Indeed, outlined in a new book he has co-written with colleague George Ward, Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters: The Science Behind Employee Happiness and Organizational Performance.
But only a quarter of workers in the US, UK, Canada and beyond are actually happy at work, according to De Neve’s research with Indeed, outlined in a new book he has co-written with colleague George Ward, Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters: The Science Behind Employee Happiness and Organizational Performance.
“There’s a lot of room for improvement. There’s also a huge gap between saying and doing from senior managers.”
How investing in workplace wellbeing can boost growth.Image: McKinsey Health Institute
More than 80% of managers surveyed by De Neve and his team agreed that investing in people is good for business. “But only 19% have actions against a strategic priority around investing in people and making that the core of their business.”
The book makes the business case for why workplace wellbeing matters for company performance, productivity, retention and recruitment.
“This is really a call to all senior managers that people are their greatest assets and if you take care of people, they’ll take care of business.”
“We need to rethink how we define success in the workplace,” says Shyam Bishen, Head of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Health and Healthcare.
“For too long, wellbeing has been treated as an option. But the evidence is clear: when organizations put people’s health and wellbeing at the heart of their strategy, everything else improves, from innovation to resilience to business performance. This is a pivotal moment to make workplace health a shared priority across leadership teams, for the sake of employees and the future strength and sustainability of organizations. Good leaders create an environment of wellbeing for their teams.”
Read this article in full here: How Companies Can Improve Workplace Wellbeing In The Intelligent Age – And Why It Matters
