We’re reaching a tipping point.

While headlines scream productivity crisis and talent shortages, we keep throwing the same solutions at the wall – more apps, more wellness perks, more fire-fighting. Meanwhile, the cracks in our working culture deepen. 

Low engagement, rising presenteeism, burnout and retention woes are no longer HR issues anymore. They’re economic ones.

Let’s call this what it is: a systemic problem that demands a systemic solution.

The true cost of disengagement

Only 1 in 10 UK employees say they feel engaged at work. The cost of that disengagement? A staggering £293 billion a year in lost productivity for the UK economy¹.

Add to that the 49.7 days per employee lost each year to a mix of absenteeism, stress-related illness and presenteeism². Deloitte puts the cost of poor mental health alone at £51 billion annually³ and that’s before you factor in the £8 billion cost linked to working parents juggling jobs and concerns for their children’s mental health³.

These are not just “wellbeing” numbers. These are productivity metrics. Strategic risks. Economic drag.

Why ‘wellness-washing’ won’t cut it

Despite rising investment in meditation apps, resilience workshops and mindfulness initiatives, the data is clear: most individual-level interventions don’t improve employee wellbeing⁴. In some cases, they even backfire⁵.

Why? Because they treat the individual, not the system. They’re a glossy sticking plaster over deep structural issues.

As Oxford researcher William Fleming put it: “Wellbeing won’t be solved by more perks or apps—we need to change the structure and culture of work itself.”⁴

Radical Change

So, what does ‘radical’ look like?

It doesn’t mean expensive overhauls or complex frameworks. It means bold, human-centred design. Strategies like:

• Embedding outdoor time into the working week—shown to improve focus, mood, clarity and creativity⁸.
• Empowering line managers with the time and tools to lead well⁶.
• Shifting from reactive EAPs to proactive culture change.
• Creating space for strategic thinking—not just more doing.
• Redesigning work to serve the whole person, not just their job title.

As André Spicer wrote: “The most effective way to improve employee mental health is by reducing stress, not adding new ways to cope with it.”⁵

And this is the new leadership challenge!

We need to forget fancy job titles. For what organisations need right now, are leaders with the courage to ask: Are we making it easier -or harder – for our people to thrive?

The answer matters. Not just for wellbeing, but for strategy, innovation and long-term performance.

Because culture eats strategy for breakfast. And right now, our culture is starving our potential.

Where do we go from here?

It starts with fresh thinking, and in our view – fresh air.

It’s one of the reasons we created ‘Outdoors is a Habit’: a movement helping business leaders embed small, strategic shifts in how and where we work – starting with time outdoors. For this isn’t a perk or a wellness walk. It’s a proven, evidence-led way to:

• Reduce stress and improve clarity
• Increase creativity and decision-making
• Boost engagement, retention and productivity
• Make time to think, not just do

From walking meetings and outdoor 1-2-1s, to nature-based strategy days, this is about making the outdoors a regular, purposeful part of the working week – for individuals, teams, and leaders alike.

Coming up next…

In our forthcoming blogs, we’ll explore how making ‘Outdoors a Habit’ can directly tackle key business challenges, like retention, productivity and burnout – and how any organisation can start, simply and sustainably.

If you’re curious now about how this works in practice, contact us now.

References

[1] Gallup (2025) State of the Global Workplace: 2025 Report. Washington, DC: Gallup Inc.

[2] Vitality (2024) Britain’s Healthiest Workplace Survey 2023: Special Report. London: VitalityHealth in partnership with the Financial Times.

[3] Deloitte UK (2024) Mental Health and Employers: The Case for Investment – Supporting Working Parents and a Mentally Healthy Workplace. London: Deloitte LLP.

[4] HR Magazine (2024) No evidence mindfulness and wellbeing apps improve employee wellbeing. 11 January. Available at: https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk (Accessed: 7 August 2025).

[5] Spicer, A. (2024) Work ‘wellness’ programmes don’t make employees happier – but I know what does. The Guardian, 17 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com (Accessed: 7 August 2025).

[6] CIPD (2025) Good Work Index 2025: Survey Report. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

[7] Mental Health UK (2025) Burnout Report 2025: A National Health Check on Stress in the UK Workforce. London: Mental Health UK.

[8] Oppezzo, M. and Schwartz, D.L. (2014) ‘Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(4), pp. 1142–1152. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036577

[9] Lenovo (2023) Workplace Wellbeing Report. Cited in: FPNE (2025) The Need for Workplace Culture Change.

[10] Hunter, M.R., Gillespie, B.W. and Chen, S.Y.P. (2019) ‘Urban nature experiences reduce stress in the context of daily life based on salivary biomarkers’, Frontiers in Psychology, 10, p. 722. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00722