That’s all great in theory, but in practice, the return on investment in wellness programming isn’t particularly high. For one, participation in these programs appears to vary widely from company to company, with one study finding that wellness programs have a participation rate of less than 20 percent. That’s a lot of spending on benefits that only a minority of employees use.
Even if we only look at the people who are active users of these benefits, studies find minimal effects of wellness programs on both objective and subjective measures of employee health. For example, a recent study published in the Industrial Relations Journal finds that out of 90 different interventions, including access to mindfulness apps or relaxation classes, none have an effect on workers’ well-being, with one notable exception: volunteering.
What is so special about volunteering that differentiates it from other popular wellness activities? One possibility is that volunteering gives people the opportunity to see, first hand, the impact that they can make. And having an impact is key to a feeling of mattering.
If what workers need is to feel as though they matter — to be of significance, to be important in some way — what can companies do to make that happen? Certainly not spending massive amounts of money on yoga classes or other amenities that only a few use. And while companies could simply increase the number of volunteering opportunities available to workers, a more foundational remedy would be to tackle an underlying root cause of workers’ feelings of not mattering: that leaders no longer have the time or capacity to truly and deeply listen to them.
The time crunch facing many business leaders is not too different from the time crunch facing physicians. Doctors used to be able to spend time building relationships with patients, but today, billing practices and patient loads have forced many doctors to cut their time with each patient down to just 19 minutes – and everyone is unsatisfied. Similarly, many company leaders are often overwhelmed by their own responsibilities and are unable to spend as much time as they’d like with each employee.
The increasing demands on their time are unfortunate, because good listening by leaders has been shown to have outsized effects on many of the metrics that wellness programs are supposed to address. For instance, numerous studies find a negative relationship between manager’s listening behaviors and employee burnout and emotional exhaustion. Other research shows that the more workers perceived that their supervisors were listening to them, the less likely they were to indicate they were looking to leave their positions. Perhaps most compelling, given the present turmoil in the job market, managerial listening is associated with lower levels of worker stress and insecurity in firms going through layoffs.
In sum, if organizations want healthier and happier workers, they don’t necessarily need to pay workers more (although I’m sure no one would say no), or to offer extravagant perks. They need to train their leaders to be better listeners and restructure workflows so that leaders have the cognitive capacity and time to listen to their direct reports.
What’s notable is that those who are listened to are not the only beneficiaries of listening; so too are those who do the listening. In research that spans different countries, multiple studies have shown robust positive associations between perceptions of supervisors’ listening and leadership. Other work has shown that in teams, those who emerge as leaders tend to be those who are effective listeners, and that good listeners are more influential. In effect, people who listen well are seen as good leaders.
As more and more workers report experiencing burnout, companies will continue seeking ways to help support them. But the way to support employees isn’t to give them more perks. It’s to give them the most valuable resource we have: our time and attention.