Worker well-being is declining even as employers deepen investments in benefits

Companies have deepened their investments in benefits programs to support overall employee well-being in recent years.

A recent survey indicates employers have no plans to change their commitment to well-being benefits, with 93% reporting they intend to maintain or expand offerings in this category for 2025, according to Business Group on Health.

But separate research from Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School shows workplace well-being has declined to its lowest level since researchers first started tracking in 2019, despite these investments.

Young people and rank-and-file employees have been acutely impacted by this decline, Richard Smith, a professor who leads the school’s Human Capital Development Lab, told HR Brew. And the decline may not be fixed by broad-based benefits alone, but rather deeper consideration for workers’ individual needs, he suggested.

A widening gap. Johns Hopkins researchers measured well-being by analyzing survey responses from 1.3 million individuals across 2,769 organizations over the past year. They assigned well-being scores based on five factors: mental and emotional support, sense of purpose and fulfillment, personal support, financial health, and meaningful connections.

The data showed wide gaps in well-being between different generations, as well as different levels at work, Smith said.

The average well-being score among respondents aged 25 or younger declined steadily in recent years, from 4.2 in 2021 to 3.98 in 2024. The gap between the two youngest and two eldest cohorts surveyed also widened in this time period.

What’s more, “we’re seeing a marked difference between the well-being reported by executives and managers versus their employees,” Smith said. Employees and individual contributors reported well-being scores that were similar to executive and C-level leaders in 2022—just above 4.10. Lower scores among managers and executives were “probably reflective of the extra burden of management during the pandemic,” as they were “figuring out how to keep business operations, checking in with their people,” Smith said.

By 2024, however, rank-and-file employees’ scores declined to 4.05, while executives’ shot up to around 4.55, higher than any other worker level.

Focusing on flexibility. While Smith couldn’t point to one “smoking gun” factor that’s caused this decline in worker well-being, he did note that consideration for workers’ individual personal situations may be weaker now that many businesses are pushing return-to-office policies.

Whereas managers might have been more understanding of workers’ childcare or eldercare responsibilities when many companies were remote due to the Covid-19 pandemic, that personal support doesn’t appear to be as strong today, Smith said. The “modality shift” from remote or hybrid to in-person work may have an effect not only on the personal support pillar of well-being, but also mental and emotional, he said.

Smith recognized that HR leaders may be in a tough spot when addressing some of these issues, as they’re “busy enforcing the rules and the standards,” and want to ensure perks are granted equitably across the organization. But given flexible work arrangements seem to be tied to worker well-being, he at least recommended granting them when a worker’s personal situation calls for it, if possible.

What’s more, he recommended being “mindful that the well-being experience that you have as a manager and executive is much different than your employees, potentially.” Running “skip-level meetings” where employees meet directly with their managers, and fostering “open dialogue” with other workers, may help address this gap, he suggested.