Chief Wellness Officer – Do I need one?

The number of companies recognizing the strategic value of employee health and well-being is rising. Over the last decade, many leading companies have included a C-suite role focused solely on employee well-being: the Chief Wellness or well-being Officer (CWO). I prefer and use the term well-being as I have previously explained here.

Appointing a Chief Well-being Officer for your company means that you provide the right direction and focus to help prioritize prevention and health and ensure you have a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce. In the same way that a company needs to appoint a Chief Financial Officer to deal with organizational finance, predict and prevent losses, a CWO is tasked with predicting and preventing employees’ health deterioration; with good finances and employee well-being, your business is meant to thrive.

I have also explained in my previous pieces how to integrate with small steps Lifestyle Medicine at work, so in the present article, I wish to go deeper and be more precise about the role, the person, and the duties of the one(s) who can take care of well-being. The emergence of the CWO role also reflects a growing recognition, among corporate environments, that acknowledging and promoting employee well-being is not only the right thing to do, but is also profitable for the business. By investing in their employees’ health holistically, companies can create a more productive, engaged, and resilient workforce.

That is because data shows it clearly: employees who feel seen, heard, and supported by their employers are better capable of weathering challenges and succeed in the long term. Employers are becoming even more aware of the importance of taking care of their team and the strong link between their well-being and job performance, engagement, and retention—all of which impact business results.

What is a Chief Well-Being Officer?

A Chief Well-being or Wellness Officer (CWO) is a person who makes sure that all employees thrive by taking good care of their well-being. This includes their physical and biological, their mental and emotional, and even their financial well-being, which the CWO makes sure that is integrated into the larger business strategy. The Chief Wellbeing Officer may work with a bigger or smaller team of colleagues to create and maintain a corporate culture of person-centric well-being strategies. For this goal to be achieved, in practice, a CWO also needs to work hand in hand with all senior executives, board members, owners, and HR professionals and influence all business strategies and policies that may benefit or harm employees in all aspects of their well-being.

Which are the industries that need a Chief Well-being officer?

Corporate well-being is definitely a payoff investment, independently of the industry you are working in, and if you are not convinced yet, I would be more than happy to explain to you the data in a quick call.

The CWO role started, and it is most prominent in the health care industry, where it helps to combat clinician burnout and maintain employee well-being. Stanford Medicine was the first large health care organization to implement such a role in 2017, and over the next three years, about 20 academic health care organizations followed. With rising burnout and quit rates, this role has become even more important in the healthcare industry.

After the pandemic, we’re seeing the CWO role expand to organizations beyond health care, and it’s not a huge surprise. There has been a long-held belief that to be high-performing, you need to sacrifice your well-being, such as your restorative sleep. Btw, my mission, as a healthcare provider and corporate wellbeing advisor, is to toss out this myth and change people’s mindsets.

Deloitte appointed a CWO back in 2015, intending to drive strategy and innovation around work-life, health, and wellness to empower people to be well so they can perform at their best in both their professional and personal lives. According to their CWO, this is critical because “…As a professional services organization, we are solving complex problems that require our people to show up as their best selves without suboptimizing people’s potential.” She also relates that being in the C-suite makes a statement that the firm takes this issue seriously.

EY named a CWO some years ago in November 2021 as they were formulating their return-to-office strategy, after lockdowns. The firm created a dedicated team to focus on all aspects of employee well-being. Their CWO states: “You have to view wellbeing as a business imperative, it’s not a nice-to-do…It’s actually imperative for businesses to be focused on this right now.” EY is also focusing on measuring how employees are doing and feeling, and how the company is doing with meeting their needs.

What is the impact a Chief Wellbeing officer has in a company?

In short, the CWO should be the person who is able to unleash the potential of each individual and make sure that they thrive under all challenges. The job description of a Chief Wellbeing officer should ask for a healthcare provider degree, together with proven life sciences and research training, and ability to assess health risks and benefits for each person and environment.

Depending on each company, the role of CWO could offer progress through continuous improvement by re-assessing the existing culture and risk profile, tracking change over time, and refining the well-being strategy to ensure lasting impact. The real impact is to be able to integrate well-being as a driver of organizational performance and reduce or remove all well-being inhibitors.

The team of the Chief Well-being Officer

The members of the team of a Chief Wellbeing Officer depend on numerous variables, such as:

1. The sector(s) and size(s) of the company or organization.
2. The local or regional role. On some occasions, one CWO can serve both markets, but in others, it would be necessary to have a regional CWO due to the idiosyncratic characteristics of the population.
3. Top pain points that the company faces today (absence, burnout, attrition, employer brand, to mention a few).
4. Existing resources, if any, such as occupational health doctors, EAP usage, survey data etc.

If you have already started to think of how to formulate the job description of a CWO, be cautious not to confuse this with a traditional HR role. Ensure that the well-being professional doesn’t simply become absorbed as another HR headcount fulfilling other HR responsibilities.

What if my company cannot afford a Chief Wellbeing Officer?

If you feel you cannot afford this structure, but you wish to offer an improved well-being experience to your people and help them thrive while taking care of your business, you can also collaborate with an external expert, like myself. An external Wellbeing Consultant works on a part-time basis, which would be a cost-effective way to get some high-level expertise into your business quickly and really set things up for success.

I take it as yet another positive sign that organizations are getting serious about well-being and improving culture in the workplace—and the benefits that come from valuing each person’s unique needs and supporting them in all aspects of their lives, as much as they can. The critical factor for this beginning is for the wellbeing consultant to have the right skills, knowledge, to ensure that wellbeing is always a feature of C-Suite discussions and always included as part of the overall business success strategy.

What can I do for your corporate wellbeing?

As a corporate wellbeing consultant, my team and I work together with the company and we build the strategy that can be afforded at this point. That includes:

• analyze the existing well-being status of your workforce,
• identify the drivers behind behaviors
• make sure that there are no systemic risks or blind spots that jeopardize people´s well-being
• plan and act with clarity and confidence.
• Choose among educational options and design everyday actions.

I help you build a prevention mentality among your employees, which starts with the basics: nutrition. My team of experts in areas such as physical activity and psychology is also involved in the process, based on your own needs, and can offer you a more complete proposal. Each team is unique, so is my approach when I analyze which seminars, workshops, strategies, KPIs should work for you. My goal is to help each and every one of your employees use their unique characteristics and give them the tools to thrive toward the common business goal.

Feel free to contact us and discuss your needs.

Basic references for a Chief Wellbeing Officer to read:

1. Directive 89/391/EEC “Framework Directive on Health & Safety at Work”
2. ISO 45003:2021 – Psychological health & safety at work (guidelines for managing psychosocial risk)
3. Law No. 3850/2010 (Greece): Code of Occupational Safety & Health –
4. Mental health at work: Fact Sheet – World Health Organization
5. WEForum, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/04/q-a-with-jen-fisher-the-rise-of-the-chief-wellbeing-officer-and-why-it-matters/