Author: Avidon Health Team

Avidon Health is transforming how organizations promote healthier lifestyles through behavior change science and technology-driven coaching. Our mission is to empower individuals to achieve better health outcomes while driving measurable business success for our clients.

With over 20 years of expertise in health coaching and cognitive behavioral training, we’ve built a platform that delivers personalized, 1-to-1 well-being experiences at scale.

Today, organizations use Avidon to reimagine engagement, enhance health, and create lasting behavior change—making wellness more accessible, impactful, and results-driven.

Employers & HR Leaders

Open Enrollment Wellness Program: How to Launch One People Actually Join

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date July 28, 2026

Employee reviewing benefits paperwork and a laptop at her kitchen table during open enrollment

Benefits Strategy

Open Enrollment Wellness Program: How to Launch One People Actually Join

By Avidon Health | July 2026 | 7 min read

Open enrollment is the one stretch of the year when your whole workforce actually reads a benefits email. Most employers spend it on plan documents.

Quick answer: Open enrollment is the best time to launch a wellness program because it is the only period when nearly every employee actively reviews their benefits. Bundle wellness enrollment into the same flow as medical elections, tie it to one visible incentive, and treat communication as a six-week campaign instead of a PDF attachment.

According to Voya Financial research, 91% of working Americans say they typically pick the same health plan as last year. That inertia cuts both ways: the window where people rubber-stamp a medical plan is the window where a wellness offer finally gets seen.

Why Open Enrollment Is the Best Time to Launch a Wellness Program

The attention is already there. Employees are in a portal, thinking about their health, making decisions with real money attached. Launch a wellness program in March and you compete with everything else on their plate. Launch in October and you ride a wave you did not have to create.

The window is short. According to Voya, 49% of benefits-eligible employed Americans spend less than 20 minutes reviewing their workplace benefits during open enrollment. Still more than you will get in February, and attention is rising: 77% of employees plan to spend more time reassessing their elections, up from 69% a year earlier, per Voya's 2025 research.

Voya's Nate Black frames annual enrollment as the one period all year when employees actually engage with their whole benefits package, and warns that the moment "should not be taken lightly."

Mid-market employers have the most to gain. Only 28% of workers at establishments with fewer than 100 employees had access to a wellness program in March 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You are offering something most of your competitors' people do not have. Say that in your materials.

What Most Employers Waste the Window On

Most open enrollment benefits communication is compliance-driven: plan descriptions, rate sheets, deadline reminders. Accurate, forgettable. The waste is not sending it. It is sending only that, then launching the wellness program quietly in Q1 when nobody is watching.

The result is invisible programs. According to SHRM's EAP research, most employers now offer an employee assistance program, yet Gallup finds far fewer employees use it, or even know it exists:

80%+of employers offer an employee assistance program (SHRM)

Under 10%average EAP utilization across organizations (SHRM)

31%of employees do not know whether their employer offers one at all (Gallup)

81%of those who do know have never used it (Gallup)

That is an awareness problem, not a product problem.

There is a budget consequence. According to SHRM's 2025 survey, just 39% of organizations offered wellness programs with resources. Programs get cut when they cannot show participation, and they cannot show participation when nobody knew they existed.

Your Open Enrollment Wellness Launch Timeline

If you are running an October or November enrollment, build now. A realistic plan gives you six weeks of setup, two to four weeks of active enrollment, and a January kickoff while motivation is still high.

Timeframe	What to do	Why it matters
Early August	Choose the program, confirm pricing, lock the incentive	Legal and vendor review runs long
Late August	Draft the communication calendar and your one-sentence pitch	The pitch comes before the design
September	Brief managers, add the wellness step to the benefits portal	Managers field the real questions
Early October	Teaser email plus one all-hands mention	Two touches before beat six touches during
Open enrollment	Wellness election sits inside the medical election flow	Killing the separate sign-up is your biggest lever
November to December	Confirmations, incentive reminder, nudge for non-enrollers	Late enrollers are your cheapest participants
January	Launch the first challenge or course	Enrollment isn't participation. Give people something to do

That last row is where programs die. People enroll in October, hear nothing until spring, and forget they signed up.

The gap is measurable. In an Avidon controlled study of 300 non-incentivized participants, program completion ran 17% with no coaching, 28% with live coaching alone, and 36% with coaching plus technology. Enrollment gets people in the door. Structured follow-through decides whether they finish.

112%

higher program completion with coaching plus technology than with no coaching at all, in an Avidon controlled study of 300 participants

Getting it right pays. Gallup found employees who strongly agree their organization cares about their overall well-being are 4.4 times as likely to be engaged and 53% less likely to be job hunting. Still sizing the spend? Start with what an employee wellness program costs before locking an incentive number.

What to Say in Your Open Enrollment Benefits Communication

Lead with what the employee gets, not what the program is. Nobody enrolls in "a holistic well-being platform." They enroll in "a coach who will help you sleep better, free, plus $150 on your paycheck." Write for someone skimming on their phone at 9pm. Four rules reliably lift enrollment:

Rule 1

One offer per message

Do not bundle the wellness launch with HSA contribution changes.

Rule 2

Name the time cost

"Ten minutes a week" beats "comprehensive."

Rule 3

Put the incentive in the subject line

Not paragraph three.

Rule 4

Send from a real person

Mail from "Human Resources" gets archived unread.

The internal business case is easier than most HR leaders expect. MetLife's 2026 study found employers expect an average return of $2.30 for every $1 invested in employee health, and that just 44% of employees feel holistically healthy, so the demand is real.

Design the Incentive So Enrolling Is the Easy Choice

Incentives work when they are specific, near-term, and attached to one visible action. A $50 gift card for finishing a health assessment during enrollment beats a $500 premium differential that takes eight steps across a year. Pick the one action you want done in October.

Incentives are standard at scale, and mid-market employers have more room than they think. According to KFF's 2025 survey:

53%of large firms with a health risk assessment use incentives to drive completion

62%of large firms with biometric screening use incentives the same way

56%of firms with 10 to 199 workers already offer smoking cessation, weight management, or lifestyle coaching

The infrastructure exists. The enrollment moment is what is missing. Before publishing a dollar figure, work through wellness incentive design for 2026.

How to Tell Whether It Worked

Track four numbers:

Share of eligible employees enrolled
Share completing a first activity within 30 days
The 90-day active rate
Incentive redemption

Enrollment alone flatters the program. The 30-day number predicts whether you will still have a budget next year. Track the source, too: if 70% of enrollments came through the portal and 4% from your announcement email, you know where next year's effort goes.

Then the harder half: enrollment is a decision, participation is a habit. Habits need cues, repetition, and early wins, which is why the January kickoff matters more than the October signature. Understanding how habits work separates a program with 60% enrollment and 8% engagement from one that sticks.

How Avidon Health Approaches Open Enrollment Launches

Avidon Health builds programs on cognitive behavioral training, meaning content designed to change what people do, not just what they know. For an enrollment launch, that means short courses and challenges someone can start in ten minutes, so the first win lands before the novelty fades.

Speed matters as much as depth. Mid-market teams do not have nine months, so a small-business wellness program needs to be live inside one enrollment cycle. Avidon's health coaching efficacy report has the numbers for the renewal conversation: 73% of participants who attended a first coaching session completed the full four-session program, and 97% would recommend their coach.

Frequently Asked Questions

Open enrollment wellness program launches, answered.

When should we start planning an open enrollment wellness program launch?+

Start six to eight weeks before enrollment opens. For a November enrollment, that means August. You need time to pick a vendor, clear legal and privacy review, lock the incentive, add the enrollment step to your portal, and brief managers.

Can we launch a wellness program outside of open enrollment?+

Yes, but expect lower initial participation. Outside enrollment you are asking employees to opt into something new with no surrounding context. If you have to launch off-cycle, anchor it to another moment of attention: a January reset, a benefits fair, or review season.

How do we get employees to enroll in a wellness program during open enrollment?+

Put the wellness election inside the same portal flow as medical elections so it is not a separate task. Add one incentive tied to a single action, send three or four short emails from a named person, and brief managers. Removing steps beats adding messages.

What is a realistic participation rate for a new wellness program?+

For a first-year launch during open enrollment, 30% to 50% enrollment is a reasonable target for a mid-market employer, with 15% to 25% still active at 90 days. Report both numbers, because enrollment alone overstates progress.

Should wellness program enrollment be opt-in or opt-out?+

Opt-in is the safer default given privacy expectations and applicable wellness program rules, so talk to counsel first. You can still cut friction inside opt-in: pre-check nothing, ask for one click, and defer the health assessment until after the employee enrolls.

News

Why Most Workplace Wellness Programs Fail: Clark Lagemann on At Work, Under Pressure

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date July 27, 2026

Podcast Feature

Why Most Workplace Wellness Programs Fail: Clark Lagemann on At Work, Under Pressure

By Avidon Health | July 2026 | 2 min read

Avidon CEO Clark Lagemann joined host Jessi Beyer on At Work, Under Pressure to talk about why so many wellness programs look good on paper but never change behavior.

Podcast episode graphic for At Work, Under Pressure featuring Avidon Health CEO Clark Lagemann on why workplace wellness programs fail

Most workplace wellness programs fail because they ask employees to change too much, too fast, for reasons that do not actually matter to them. Lasting change starts with small, realistic actions that build confidence, not with one big launch.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Amazon Music

Over 33 minutes on At Work, Under Pressure, Clark Lagemann and host Jessi Beyer dig into why programs that look good on paper so rarely move the needle, and what behavior change actually requires.

The 80% Problem.

Here's the math most programs ignore. At any given time, only about 20% of a population is in the Action stage of change. The other 80% sit across four earlier stages, from "I don't have a problem" to "I'm getting ready."

So a program built on step challenges and meal logging is designed for one employee in five. The other four aren't resistant. They're somewhere else in the process, and they're often the same people driving your highest healthcare costs.

$8,214

Per employee, per year. The estimated cost of modifiable lifestyle risks in healthcare spend and lost productivity.

Clark's point on the show is that small wins aren't a consolation prize. They're how the brain rewires. Each completed action delivers a reward, the reward reinforces the loop, and repetition moves the behavior from deliberate to automatic. Ask someone to overhaul their life on day one and you've built a program that manufactures failure by day four.

"Most won't succeed, not because they lack willpower, but because leaders rarely design work cultures that make change possible." Clark Lagemann, CEO, Avidon Health, writing in Inc

What Clark and Jessi Covered.

Why there's no silver bullet for workplace wellness, and why pizza parties aren't a strategy
How Avidon grew out of a physician practice focused on behavior change beyond medication
Why "non-compliance" is the wrong way to frame the problem
How motivational interviewing connects change to what actually matters to someone
Why readiness for change drives engagement more than program design does
What workplace wellness has to do with recruitment, retention, and profitability
Why AI is a useful thought partner but no substitute for human accountability
Why mental health stays harder to see, discuss, and support than physical health

🎧 Listen to the full episode of At Work, Under Pressure with Clark Lagemann.

Related: why habits don't stick at work · Avidon for employers

Employers & HR Leaders

The Great Detachment: Why Employees Are Checked Out and Staying Anyway

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date July 17, 2026

Woman at work gazing away from her desk, illustrating employee disengagement and the Great Detachment

Employee Engagement

The Great Detachment: Why Employees Are Checked Out and Staying Anyway

By Avidon Health | July 2026 | 5 min read

The Great Detachment is Gallup's name for a workforce that stays put but checks out: engaged enough to keep the job, disconnected enough to stop caring. Employee engagement recently hit a 10-year low, and about half of workers are quietly watching for the exit. The fix isn't more perks. It's rebuilding connection through proactive, personal support.

A disengaged employee sitting at a desk, quietly checked out during the Great Detachment

The Great Detachment describes employees who stay in their jobs but stop feeling connected to the work. Engagement is at a 10-year low and about half of workers are watching for a new role. The fix isn't another perk. It's rebuilding clarity and connection through proactive, human support that reaches people directly.

If your turnover numbers look stable but energy on your teams feels flat, this is probably why. Detachment doesn't show up in a resignation report. It shows up as people doing the minimum, disengaging from the mission, and keeping one eye on the job market while they collect a paycheck. That's a harder problem than quitting, because nothing obvious breaks.

What is the Great Detachment?

The Great Detachment describes employees who feel stuck: they stay in their roles, often because the job market feels risky, but they've stopped feeling connected to the work. According to Gallup's Great Detachment research, the trend is driven by falling clarity about what's expected of them and a fading sense of connection to their employer's mission.

The numbers are stark. U.S. employee engagement fell to 31%, a decade low, and fewer than one in three workers feel strongly connected to their company's mission. Globally, only about 20% of employees are engaged, which Gallup ties to roughly $10 trillion in lost productivity worldwide.

This is different from quiet cracking or burnout, where the strain is visible and the employee is clearly struggling. Detachment is quieter. The person still shows up, still hits the baseline, and still looks fine on paper. That's exactly what makes it easy to miss.

Why detachment is more dangerous than a wave of quitting

A resignation is a problem you can see and plan around. Detachment is a slow leak. The employee stays, productivity and initiative erode, and the disengagement can spread across a team long before anyone hands in notice.

The retention risk is real, it's just delayed. In late 2025, Gallup found that about half of U.S. employees were either watching for openings or actively looking for a new job. These aren't people who've left. They're people who've mentally packed a bag and are waiting for the market to turn. When it does, you lose them all at once, and the ones most likely to go are often your strongest performers with the most options.

Detachment also quietly raises your costs. Disengaged employees are linked to lower output and higher absenteeism, and replacing them once they finally leave runs into real money. If you're already tracking high employee turnover solutions, detachment is the upstream problem feeding that pipeline.

Why your current programs aren't reaching detached employees

Here's the uncomfortable part: most employers already offer the benefits that should help, and detached employees don't touch them. A disengaged person is the least likely to go find a resource, log in, and start a program on their own.

The proof is in utilization. More than 80% of employers offer an Employee Assistance Program, yet usage typically sits under 10%. A benefit that depends on an already-checked-out employee to raise their hand is a benefit built for the people who need it least.

Detachment is fundamentally a connection problem, and connection isn't something you can leave sitting in a benefits portal. It has to be brought to people. That's the same gap behind workplace loneliness: the support exists, but it never reaches the person quietly drifting away.

How to re-engage a detached workforce

Re-engagement doesn't come from a pizza party or a new perk. It comes from restoring the two things Gallup says detachment erodes: clarity and connection. A few moves make the difference.

Move 1

Bring support to people

Instead of waiting for them to find it, bring support to people. Proactive, personalized outreach dramatically outperforms passive availability. In a controlled study of 300 non-incentivized participants, Avidon Health found program completion ran 17% with no coaching, 28% with coaching alone, and 36% with coaching plus technology, a 112% improvement over no coaching. Detached employees engage when the support comes to them, guided by a person, rather than waiting behind a login.

Move 2

Make the connection human

Detachment is a relationship problem, and relationships are rebuilt person to person, not through software alone. Avidon's coaching earns an average rating of 4.7 out of 5.0, and 97% of participants say they'd recommend their coach, based on roughly 700 participants surveyed in 2023. A real, steady human is what pulls someone back toward the work.

Move 3

Rebuild a sense of control and progress

Detached employees have often stopped believing their effort changes anything. Structured behavioral support helps them feel capable again. In Avidon's stress management program, surveyed across more than 7,500 participants over six months, 96% said it helped them handle stress more effectively and 94% felt more confident and in control. That renewed sense of agency is the foundation of workplace stress reduction that actually sticks, and it's what re-engagement is built on.

112%

improvement in program completion with coaching plus technology versus no coaching, in a controlled study of 300 non-incentivized participants

Frequently asked questions.

Common questions about the Great Detachment.

What is the Great Detachment? +

The Great Detachment is Gallup's term for employees who stay in their jobs but feel disconnected from the work. They keep showing up while disengaging from the mission, driven by falling clarity about expectations and a weaker sense of purpose. It coincides with engagement hitting a 10-year low.

How is the Great Detachment different from quiet quitting? +

Quiet quitting describes doing the bare minimum as a deliberate boundary. The Great Detachment is broader and quieter: employees aren't making a statement, they've simply drifted, feel stuck, and are often watching the job market while staying put.

Why are employees staying if they're disengaged? +

Mostly because the job market feels uncertain. Gallup found that about half of U.S. workers are watching for or actively seeking new roles, but many stay put until they feel it's safe to move. That makes detachment a delayed retention risk, not a stable situation.

How does the Great Detachment affect employers? +

It shows up as lower productivity, reduced initiative, higher absenteeism, and a large group of employees ready to leave the moment the market improves. Because no one is quitting yet, the cost stays hidden until it becomes a retention crisis.

How can HR re-engage detached employees? +

Focus on the two things detachment erodes: clarity and connection. Proactive, personalized support that reaches people directly works far better than passive benefits, especially when it's guided by a real coach rather than a portal employees have to find on their own.

Why don't detached employees use the programs we already offer? +

Because passive benefits depend on the employee to initiate, and a disengaged person is the least likely to do that. More than 80% of employers offer an EAP, yet utilization stays under 10%. Support has to be brought to people, not left for them to discover.

Employers & HR Leaders

Grief in the Workplace: How HR Can Support Grieving Employees

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date July 17, 2026

Workforce Well-Being

Grief in the Workplace: How HR Can Support Grieving Employees

By Avidon Health | July 2026 | 6 min read

Grief in the workplace is common, costly, and largely invisible. Most employers offer a few days of bereavement leave, but grief lasts months, not days. The organizations that support grieving employees well pair flexible policies with proactive, ongoing check-ins, so people aren't left to cope alone the moment their leave ends.

A manager offering support to a grieving employee in a quiet workplace conversation

Bereavement leave is a good start, but grief outlasts it by months. Employers who support grieving employees well combine flexible, generous leave with a phased return, trained managers, and ongoing support that stays reachable long after the initial days off.

Loss touches almost every workforce every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records more than 3 million deaths in the U.S. annually, and most of the people left behind are working adults. That means at any given time, a meaningful share of your team is carrying a loss you probably can't see, and the way your policies and managers respond shapes whether those employees stay, disengage, or leave.

Why bereavement leave alone isn't enough.

Bereavement leave is a good start, but it runs out long before grief does. Most U.S. employers offer paid bereavement leave, and the most common allowance is three to five days for an immediate family member. Grief doesn't respect that timeline. The emotional and cognitive effects of loss, including trouble concentrating, fatigue, and what many people describe as brain fog, routinely last for months.

So the typical pattern looks like this: an employee takes a few days off, returns to a full workload, and is quietly expected to be "back to normal." They're not. The support ended right when the hardest part, the long middle stretch of grief, was just beginning.

There's also a coverage gap underneath the averages. Roughly three in four private-industry workers have access to paid funeral or bereavement leave, which leaves about one in four without any at all, and part-time and lower-wage workers fare far worse. There is no federal law requiring bereavement leave, so what an employee gets depends entirely on where they work.

The hidden cost of unsupported grief.

Grief that goes unsupported doesn't disappear. It shows up as presenteeism, missed deadlines, and eventually turnover. The Center for Workplace Mental Health, part of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, notes that grief commonly impairs concentration, decision-making, and day-to-day performance, often for far longer than colleagues expect.

The financial picture is significant. Estimates have put grief-related lost productivity in the tens of billions of dollars a year in the U.S. Even setting exact figures aside, the mechanics are clear: a distracted, exhausted, unsupported employee costs more in lost output and in the risk they'll walk out the door.

Retention is where it bites hardest. When people feel their employer abandoned them during the worst moment of their life, loyalty erodes fast. Grief also frequently follows a long caregiving stretch, which is why it connects so directly to the pressures facing working caregivers on your team. Support the whole arc, and you protect both the person and the relationship.

What good grief support actually looks like.

The employers who handle this well share one trait: their support is proactive and ongoing, not a one-time policy line. A few practices make the biggest difference.

Practice 1

Flexible leave and a gradual re-entry

Start with flexible, generous leave, then build a gradual re-entry. A phased return, reduced hours for a week or two, or a temporarily lighter workload gives people room to function while they recover. Rigid all-or-nothing leave forces employees to choose between grieving and keeping up.

Practice 2

Managers trained to respond well

Train managers to respond with something better than an awkward "let me know if you need anything." Most managers want to help and simply don't know how. Give them plain-language guidance: acknowledge the loss, ask how the person wants to be supported, keep checking in past the first week, and protect the employee from being buried on day one back. This is the same reaching-people-early principle behind reducing mental health leaves: the goal is to reach people before a hard moment becomes a crisis.

Practice 3

Ongoing support that stays reachable

Make ongoing support genuinely reachable. Grief peaks and recedes unpredictably, so the help has to be there weeks and months later, not just in the packet handed over on the return-to-work day.

Why proactive support beats a benefit nobody uses.

Here's the catch with most grief and mental-health benefits: they exist, but almost no one uses them. More than 80% of employers offer an Employee Assistance Program, yet utilization sits under 10%, with industry figures often cited around 4 to 5%. A resource a grieving employee never opens does nothing for them.

The fix is proactive, personalized outreach instead of passive availability. In a controlled study of 300 non-incentivized participants, Avidon Health found that program completion ran 17% with no coaching, 28% with coaching alone, and 36% with coaching plus technology, a 112% improvement over no coaching. The lesson generalizes: people follow through when support comes to them, guided by a real person, rather than waiting behind a login they have to find on their own.

112%

improvement in program completion with coaching plus technology versus no coaching, in a controlled study of 300 non-incentivized participants

That guided support also helps people regain a sense of control when life feels anything but controllable. In Avidon's stress management program, surveyed across more than 7,500 participants over six months, 96% said it helped them handle stress more effectively and 94% felt more confident and in control afterward. Grief and stress aren't identical, but the mechanism is the same: structured, compassionate coaching helps people steady themselves and move forward. It's the same evidence base behind effective workplace stress reduction.

And it lands because the support is human. Avidon's coaching earns an average rating of 4.7 out of 5.0, and 97% of participants say they'd recommend their coach, based on roughly 700 participants surveyed in 2023. For a grieving employee, being met by a steady, trained human is exactly what a benefits brochure can't do.

Frequently asked questions.

Common questions about supporting grieving employees.

How long should bereavement leave be? +

The most common policy is three to five paid days for an immediate family member. But grief lasts months, so the strongest employers pair baseline leave with flexibility, a phased return, and support that continues well after the initial days off.

Is bereavement leave required by law? +

No federal law requires employers to provide bereavement leave. A handful of states have enacted requirements, but for most of the country it's entirely up to the employer, which is why policies vary so widely.

What should a manager say to a grieving employee? +

Keep it simple and human. Acknowledge the loss directly, avoid clichés, ask how the person prefers to be supported, and protect them from an overwhelming workload on their first days back. The most important part is continuing to check in weeks later, not just once.

How does grief affect employee productivity? +

Grief commonly causes trouble concentrating, fatigue, and reduced decision-making capacity that can persist for months, according to the Center for Workplace Mental Health. Unsupported, it drives presenteeism, absenteeism, and higher turnover risk.

Why don't employees use the grief benefits we already offer? +

Passive benefits go unused. More than 80% of employers offer an EAP, yet utilization usually stays under 10%. Proactive, personalized outreach dramatically outperforms resources employees have to find and initiate on their own.

How can a small HR team support grieving employees without a big budget? +

Focus on the low-cost, high-impact moves first: a flexible leave and re-entry plan, brief manager training, and one clear, human point of contact for ongoing support. Then layer in guided coaching so employees actually engage rather than coping alone.

Employers & HR Leaders

The Men’s Health Engagement Gap: Why Male Employees Skip Wellness (and How to Reach Them)

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date July 16, 2026

Mid-career male employee in a modern office using his smartphone during the workday

Men's Health

The Men's Health Engagement Gap: Why Male Employees Skip Wellness (and How to Reach Them)

By Avidon Health | July 2026 | 6 min read

Men use preventive care, EAPs, and wellness programs at markedly lower rates than women. That gap turns into late diagnoses and higher claims. Here's why it happens and how to design engagement that men actually take up.

Male employee looking at health and wellness content on his phone

Quick answer: Engaging men in workplace wellness starts with accepting that most men won't raise their hand first. Male employees skip wellness programs less out of apathy than out of stigma, time pressure, and a sense that asking for help signals weakness. The fix is private, low-friction, self-directed support framed around performance and energy, not a sign-up sheet in front of the team.

Men are the hardest group to pull into a wellness program, and the numbers are stark. According to a Cleveland Clinic survey, roughly two-thirds of men put off seeing a doctor as long as they can, and 72% would rather do household chores like cleaning the bathroom or mowing the lawn than go at all. If your program depends on employees opting in, you are structurally set up to reach the women on your team and miss the men.

The Gap Is Real, and It's Expensive.

Men don't just skip the annual physical. They under-use nearly every part of the health system employers pay for, and the bill lands later.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that women are roughly twice as likely as men to seek preventive care and about a third more likely to see a doctor at all. That avoidance compounds: a 2025 analysis in The Lancet Public Health found that across most countries, men had higher rates of conditions like hypertension and diabetes yet were less likely to be diagnosed or to complete treatment.

For an employer, that pattern is costly in the worst way. Conditions that are cheap to manage early, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, early-stage depression, get caught late, when they are expensive and disabling. The financial logic mirrors what we lay out in the cost of unhealthy habits at work: avoidance is not free, it just moves the cost downstream.

Why Men Opt Out.

This is not a motivation problem, and treating it like one backfires. Men opt out for reasons that are predictable and, importantly, designable around.

Reason 1

Stigma and self-image.

Many men were raised to equate needing help with weakness. Cleveland Clinic's data shows a large share of men stay quiet because they don't want to appear vulnerable, so a program that requires a public request for help is asking them to do the one thing they most want to avoid.

Reason 2

Time and "I'm fine."

"Too busy" and "it'll go away on its own" are the two most common reasons men give for delaying care. A lunchtime seminar or a multi-step portal sign-up simply loses to a full workday.

Reason 3

Mental health is the sharpest edge.

Men are far less likely to seek support for stress, anxiety, or depression. The National Alliance on Mental Illness has found men are less likely than women to say they would even use a workplace mental health resource, which matters because the stakes here are life and death, not just claims.

Reason 4

The programs weren't built for them.

Much of corporate wellness is framed and marketed in ways that quietly skew female: the imagery, the group challenges, the "self-care" language. Men often don't see themselves in it, a version of the broader access problem we cover in why employees skip wellness resources.

The EAP Trap.

The most common employer answer to men's health, "we have an EAP," is also the clearest example of the gap in action. The resource exists; men just don't touch it.

More than 80% of employers offer an Employee Assistance Program, yet utilization sits in the low single digits, well under 10% by most measures, according to SHRM. Among men, the number is lower still. A benefit used by a few percent of the workforce is not a men's health strategy, it's a line item. The problem isn't the counselor on the other end, it's that reaching them requires a phone call men are unlikely to make. For alternatives, see our take on modern EAP alternatives.

How to Design Engagement Men Actually Take Up.

Because men are the least likely group to come forward, the goal is to meet them where they already are instead of waiting for them to ask. Five design choices do most of the work.

Choice 1

Make it private and self-directed.

No sign-up in front of the team, no HR gatekeeper, no waiting room. Men engage far more readily when they can start quietly, on their own phone, on their own time. Autonomy is the unlock.

Choice 2

Frame it around performance, not "wellness."

Energy, strength, focus, sleep, staying in the game for your family. The same content lands very differently when it's about functioning at your best rather than about feelings or self-care.

Choice 3

Strip out the friction.

No app store download, no portal password, no forms. If getting started takes more than a moment, most men won't. On-demand and mobile-first beats scheduled and in-person every time.

Choice 4

Use 1-to-1 coaching, not just group challenges.

A private, judgment-free conversation with a coach fits how men prefer to deal with problems, one at a time, quietly. Group step challenges have their place, but they rarely reach the man who is struggling.

Choice 5

Target the risks men actually carry.

Alcohol, tobacco, weight, cardiovascular risk, and unspoken stress. Programs that speak directly to those, without lecturing, build credibility fast.

Proof That the Right Design Reaches Them.

When the design fits, men engage, and the behavior change follows. This is where employer wellness stops being a poster and starts moving numbers.

In a controlled Avidon study of 300 non-incentivized participants, program completion rose from 17% with no coaching to 36% with coaching plus technology, a 112% improvement, detailed in our efficacy and outcomes report. Crucially, the gains show up in exactly the risk areas where men lag.

88% of participants met their tobacco-related goals (sample of 2,000+)

93% met their alcohol-consumption goals (sample of 2,000+)

The lesson for HR is simple. Men are not a lost cause for wellness, they are a design problem. Build the program to be private, low-friction, and framed for how men actually think about their health, and the hardest group to reach becomes one that quietly shows up.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Common questions about engaging men in workplace wellness.

Why don't men participate in workplace wellness programs? +

Men participate less because of stigma around appearing weak, time pressure, and a sense that many programs weren't designed for them. Surveys show most men delay care and would rather do chores than see a doctor. The barrier is rarely apathy, it's that programs require men to publicly ask for help, which is the thing they most avoid.

How can employers engage male employees in health programs? +

Make participation private and self-directed, remove friction like app downloads and portal logins, frame content around performance and energy rather than "wellness," offer 1-to-1 coaching instead of only group challenges, and target the risks men actually carry, such as alcohol, weight, and cardiovascular health.

Why do men avoid mental health support at work? +

Men are less likely than women to seek help for stress, anxiety, or depression, and less likely to say they would use a workplace mental health resource at all. Traditional options like EAPs require a phone call and self-identification, which many men won't do, so private, low-friction, on-demand support tends to reach them better.

Are EAPs enough to support men's health? +

Usually not on their own. More than 80% of employers offer an EAP, but utilization runs well under 10%, and lower among men. A benefit used by a few percent of employees is not a men's health strategy. Pairing it with proactive, private, mobile-first coaching reaches men who would never place the call.

What health risks are most important for men in the workforce? +

Men carry higher rates of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes, along with elevated risk from alcohol and tobacco use, and they are more likely to die by suicide. Programs that address these directly, without lecturing, tend to earn engagement faster than generic wellness content.

Employers & HR Leaders

Protecting Outdoor and Warehouse Workers from Extreme Heat: An HR Playbook

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date July 16, 2026

Outdoor solar technician in hi-vis gear removing his hard hat, overheated on a rooftop during extreme heat

Workforce Well-Being

Protecting Outdoor and Warehouse Workers from Extreme Heat: An HR Playbook

By Avidon Health | July 2026 | 7 min read

Heat is now the deadliest weather hazard on the job, and a federal standard is on the way. Here's what actually protects outdoor, warehouse, and field teams, and how to build it before the next heat wave.

Outdoor worker in high-visibility gear laboring in extreme heat on a job site

Quick answer: Protecting workers from extreme heat means giving them water, rest, shade, and time to acclimatize, then backing it with a written plan and trained supervisors. The employers who get this right treat heat as a scheduled operational risk, not a summer afterthought, and they build the plan before temperatures climb, not during the first emergency.

Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related death for U.S. workers, and it costs employers long before anyone collapses. According to the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, heat already drains an estimated $100 billion a year in U.S. labor productivity, a figure projected to reach $200 billion by 2030. For any employer with people working outdoors, in warehouses, or in un-conditioned plants, this is a bottom-line issue, not just a safety one.

This piece stays on one thing: the heat and thermal-safety playbook. For the broader question of reaching workers who never sit at a desk, see our guide to frontline employee wellness, and for the factory-floor context specifically, our breakdown of blue-collar wellness programs.

Why Heat Is a Bigger Risk Than Most Employers Think.

Heat quietly does two kinds of damage: it hurts people, and it drags on output. Both are larger than the headlines suggest.

On the human side, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 479 worker deaths from environmental heat exposure between 2011 and 2022, plus roughly 34,000 heat-related injuries and illnesses serious enough to miss work. Safety researchers widely consider these numbers an undercount because heat often goes unrecorded as the cause.

A 2025 analysis from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health makes that gap concrete: it links nearly 28,000 workplace injuries every year to hot weather, most never logged as heat-related at all. Heat doesn't just cause heat stroke. It makes hands slower and judgment worse, which turns into falls, equipment errors, and other "ordinary" injuries.

The risk is not evenly shared. Construction workers are nearly four times more likely to die from heat exposure than workers in other industries, and the lowest-paid workers experience roughly five times as many heat injuries as the highest-paid. The people most exposed are often the least protected.

The Productivity Cost You're Already Paying.

Even when no one gets hurt, heat is expensive. Work simply slows down when bodies overheat.

Exposure to temperatures above 85°F leads workers to cut about an hour off their effective workday compared with milder conditions in the 76-80°F range, according to economic research summarized by the U.S. Joint Economic Committee. In labor-intensive manufacturing, output drops an estimated 4% for every degree above 80°F.

$100B

Estimated annual U.S. labor-productivity loss from heat, projected to double to $200 billion by 2030.

That is why the national figure matters at the company level. Heat shows up as slower throughput, more mistakes, more sick days, and higher turnover, all of which compound the same way other unhealthy habits quietly raise costs at work. Treating heat as a productivity variable, not just a safety checkbox, tends to unlock the budget to actually fix it.

What OSHA's Proposed Heat Rule Will Require.

For decades there was no federal heat standard. That is changing, and employers who prepare now will not be scrambling later.

In August 2024, OSHA published a proposed Heat Injury and Illness Prevention standard covering both indoor and outdoor work, and it held public hearings through mid-2025. Even before it is final, it is the clearest blueprint available for what "reasonable" heat protection looks like, and OSHA can already cite employers under the General Duty Clause.

The proposal is built around two temperature triggers, measured by heat index:

Initial Heat Trigger — 80°F

Provide cool drinking water (at least one quart per employee per hour), shaded or air-conditioned break areas, paid rest breaks as needed, an acclimatization plan for new and returning workers, and a clear way to communicate in the heat.

High-Heat Trigger — 90°F

Add mandatory paid rest breaks of at least 15 minutes every two hours, active monitoring for symptoms of heat illness, and hazard alerts to the crew.

The through-line is that protection scales with the temperature, and most of it has to be written down and paid for, not left to individual judgment on a hot afternoon.

The Five Moves That Actually Protect Workers.

The science of heat safety is settled and refreshingly practical. Five moves do most of the work.

Move 1

Water, rest, shade, made automatic.

OSHA's long-standing Water. Rest. Shade. guidance still holds: cool water within easy reach, scheduled breaks that don't require permission, and real shade or cooling near the work. If a worker has to ask, many won't.

Move 2

Acclimatize new and returning workers.

OSHA has found that most heat-related deaths occur in a worker's first few days on the job, before the body adapts. Ramp new hires up gradually, starting at about 20% of the normal heat workload on day one and building over roughly a week. Apply the same ramp to anyone back from two or more weeks away.

Move 3

Schedule around the heat, not through it.

Move the hardest physical work to early morning, rotate crews through hot zones, and build in more frequent breaks as the heat index climbs. This is the same shift-aware thinking that drives our guide to shift-worker wellness, applied to temperature.

Move 4

Train supervisors and use the buddy system.

Frontline leads need to recognize the early signs of heat exhaustion, cramping, confusion, nausea, and to act without waiting. Pairing workers so they watch each other catches trouble faster than any policy memo.

Move 5

Write the plan and name an owner.

A one-page heat action plan, posted where crews actually are and assigned to a specific person, converts good intentions into a repeatable response. The plan should spell out the triggers, the breaks, the water logistics, and exactly what to do when someone shows symptoms.

Reaching Workers Who Aren't at a Desk.

A heat plan only works if it reaches the people in the heat, and those people rarely have a company email or a lunch-hour to spare. The delivery has to fit the job.

Short, mobile-first prompts work far better than portals or newsletters: a text reminder to hydrate before a shift, a 30-second audio refresher on heat-illness signs, a quick check-in during a break. Pairing these with on-site toolbox talks and peer champions covers both the worker who lives on their phone and the one who rarely looks at one. That is exactly the gap wellness that reaches every shift is built to close.

When the delivery fits the job, people engage. In a controlled Avidon study of 300 non-incentivized participants, program completion climbed from 17% with no coaching to 36% with coaching plus technology, a 112% improvement, detailed in our efficacy and outcomes report. The same principle carries straight over to heat safety: the guidance only works when it reaches workers in the format and rhythm of their actual day.

Done well, heat safety becomes part of the daily rhythm rather than a poster nobody reads. That is the difference between a compliance document and a workforce that actually stays safe and productive through the summer.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Common questions about protecting workers from extreme heat.

What temperature is unsafe to work in? +

Risk rises sharply once the heat index reaches about 80°F, and it becomes serious at 90°F and above. OSHA's proposed standard uses those two points as triggers for specific protections, but humidity, sun exposure, physical exertion, and clothing all shift the real risk, so the heat index matters more than the raw temperature.

Does OSHA have a heat standard for employers? +

There is no final federal heat standard yet, but OSHA proposed a Heat Injury and Illness Prevention rule in 2024 that is moving through rulemaking. In the meantime, OSHA can cite employers for heat hazards under the General Duty Clause, so waiting for the final rule is not a safe compliance strategy.

What should a workplace heat action plan include? +

A strong plan names the heat-index triggers, guarantees water and paid rest breaks, designates shaded or cooled break areas, sets an acclimatization schedule for new and returning workers, trains supervisors to spot symptoms, and assigns one owner responsible for running it. Post it where crews can see it.

How do you protect indoor workers from heat? +

Warehouses, kitchens, and plants can be as dangerous as any job site. Use fans and cooling where possible, provide water and rest breaks on the same triggers, monitor the indoor heat index rather than the outdoor forecast, and acclimatize workers to hot areas just as you would outdoors.

Why does heat lower productivity even when no one gets sick? +

Heat degrades both fine motor control and decision-making, so work slows and errors rise well before anyone reports feeling ill. Research links temperatures above 85°F to roughly an hour of lost effective work per day, which is why heat carries a large productivity cost independent of injuries.

Employers & HR Leaders

Shift Worker Wellness: How to Build a Program That Actually Reaches Them

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date July 9, 2026

Healthcare shift worker taking a coffee break during a long shift

The Reach Gap

Shift Worker Wellness: How to Build a Program That Actually Reaches Them

By Avidon Health | July 2026 | 6 min read

Most wellness programs are quietly built for a 9-to-5 day, which is exactly why the workers who need support most rarely show up in the numbers. Reaching shift workers is less about new content and more about a format that fits nontraditional hours.

Night-shift worker using a mobile wellness program on a break

A shift worker wellness program works when it fits nontraditional hours instead of assuming a 9-to-5 day. That means asynchronous content people can use between shifts, support for sleep and energy on rotating schedules, and coaching that doesn't require booking a weekday appointment. Get the format right and shift workers engage. Get it wrong and they stay invisible in your numbers.

Why shift workers are your hardest population to reach.

Most wellness programs are quietly built for day-shift employees. The lunch-and-learn, the noon webinar, the "book a coaching session this week" nudge: all of it assumes a predictable daytime schedule. Your night nurses, warehouse crews, drivers, and hospitality staff rarely fit that mold, so they show up least in your engagement data even though they often need support most.

The size of the gap is real. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, non-daytime schedules are most common in leisure and hospitality (37%), transportation and utilities, and wholesale and retail trade, the same frontline industries that anchor many employer populations. These aren't edge cases. They're often the majority of a healthcare system, a manufacturer, or a logistics operation, and they overlap heavily with the blue-collar workforce many wellness programs already struggle to reach.

The health stakes are higher for this group, too. The CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) links shift work and disrupted circadian rhythms to elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, gastrointestinal problems, and mental health conditions. It's not that shift workers make worse choices. It's that their bodies are working against the clock.

Sleep is the first domino.

If you fix one thing for shift workers, make it sleep. CDC data shows 61.8% of night-shift workers report short sleep duration, compared with 35.9% of daytime workers. Short sleep is where the rest of the cascade starts: worse mood, higher stress, more errors, and a greater long-term disease burden.

That's also why generic "get eight hours" advice falls flat. Someone rotating between days and nights can't follow a fixed bedtime. What helps is practical, schedule-flexible guidance: how to anchor sleep around a changing shift, how to eat for energy at 2 a.m., how to wind down when the sun is up. This is exactly the material Avidon built into a shift-work course on its platform, "A Shift Worker's Guide to Health and Sanity," covering sleep, nutrition, energy, and emotional well-being. It runs about 15 minutes, short enough to finish on a single break instead of demanding a block of free time.

Avidon's own outcome data suggests sleep is a movable target with the right support. In a six-month behavior-change study of more than 1,200 participants, the results pointed in one direction:

55%became "sound sleepers"

48%were getting seven to nine hours of sleep afterward

31%said insomnia was no longer a significant issue

1,200+participants over six months

When sleep improves, the downstream stress and energy problems get easier to address.

The real problem isn't offering support. It's getting it used.

Here's the trap most benefits leaders fall into: they add a resource, see low uptake from frontline teams, and conclude shift workers "just aren't interested." Usually the resource was never reachable in the first place.

Employee Assistance Programs are the clearest example. According to SHRM, more than 80% of employers offer an EAP, yet utilization typically stays under 10%. A benefit no one uses isn't a benefit. It's a line item. And a phone line staffed during business hours is doubly useless to someone finishing a shift at 6 a.m.

Engagement climbs when support is both accessible and actively coached.

112%

improvement in program completion with coaching plus technology versus no coaching, in a controlled study of 300 non-incentivized participants

In that same study, completion ran 17% with no coaching, 28% with coaching alone, and 36% with coaching plus technology. The lesson for shift populations: passive access is not enough. The combination of always-available content and human coaching is what moves people who've been overlooked by every other program.

Stress support benefits from the same design. In a separate six-month study of more than 7,500 participants, 96% said Avidon helped them handle stress more effectively and 94% felt more confident and in control. For a workforce carrying circadian strain on top of ordinary job pressure, that kind of skill-building matters, which is why Avidon also offers a dedicated "Stress Management for Healthcare Workers" course for the clinical shift staff who carry some of the heaviest load.

What a shift-worker-ready program looks like.

You don't need a separate program for shift workers. You need a program flexible enough to include them. Five design choices make the difference:

Choice 1

Asynchronous by default

Content, courses, and challenges should work with no scheduling requirement, so a night-shift employee can engage on a break or after a shift, not only during business hours. Avidon's platform is fully digital and accessible on any device, anytime, for exactly this reason.

Choice 2

Schedule-aware content

Sleep and nutrition guidance should assume rotating and overnight hours, not a fixed daytime routine.

Choice 3

Coaching that meets them where they are

Human coaching drives the engagement lift above, but only if sessions and messaging flex around nonstandard availability.

Choice 4

Short and practical

Frontline workers engage in minutes, not hours. Micro-content that delivers a quick win respects their time and builds momentum.

Choice 5

Framed without shame

Shift work is the nature of the job for most who do it. Content should treat that as a constraint to work within, never a personal failing.

Get these right and shift workers stop being the segment that drags down your participation rate. They become proof the program actually works for everyone.

The cost of leaving them out.

Ignoring shift workers isn't neutral. It concentrates your least-supported employees in the roles with the highest health risk and, often, the highest turnover and absenteeism costs. Avidon's Cost of Unhealthy Habits breakdown shows how quickly unaddressed conditions translate into employer spend. A program that reaches frontline teams isn't a nice-to-have. It's where a lot of the avoidable cost actually lives.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Common questions about building a wellness program that reaches shift workers.

What is a shift worker wellness program? +

It's an employee well-being program designed to work for people on nontraditional schedules, including night, evening, rotating, and irregular shifts. The defining feature is flexibility: asynchronous content, schedule-aware sleep and nutrition guidance, and coaching that doesn't require a weekday appointment.

Why do shift workers have worse health outcomes? +

Shift work disrupts the body's circadian rhythm. NIOSH links it to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, gastrointestinal issues, and mental health conditions, largely driven by chronic sleep disruption. CDC data shows 61.8% of night-shift workers report short sleep, versus 35.9% of daytime workers.

Why don't shift workers use our existing wellness benefits? +

Usually because the benefits assume a daytime schedule. Noon webinars, business-hours EAP lines, and "book a session this week" prompts don't fit rotating hours. SHRM reports that more than 80% of employers offer an EAP but utilization stays under 10%, a reachability problem more than an interest problem.

Does wellness coaching actually work for shift workers? +

Yes, when it's accessible. In an Avidon study of 300 non-incentivized participants, adding coaching plus technology raised program completion 112% over no coaching. A six-month study of more than 1,200 participants also saw 55% become sound sleepers, directly relevant to the shift-work population.

Do we need a separate program just for shift workers? +

No. You need one flexible program that includes them by default: asynchronous, schedule-aware, and actively coached. That serves day-shift and shift employees together without building two systems.

Employers & HR Leaders

Workplace Stress Reduction Strategies That Actually Move the Needle

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date June 24, 2026

HR leader presenting a workplace stress reduction plan to her team in a bright modern office

Stress At The Source

Workplace Stress Reduction Strategies That Actually Move the Needle

By Avidon Health | June 2026 | 6 min read

Workplace stress reduction strategies work best when they target the source of the stress, not just the symptoms. The fixes that actually move the needle are structural, and they sit with the employer, not with the already-stretched employee.

The most effective workplace stress reduction strategies fix the conditions that create stress rather than asking employees to cope with it. The five highest-impact moves for employers are redesigning unrealistic workloads, training managers, offering flexibility matched to the person, protecting recovery time, and building a psychologically safe culture.

Most stress programs start and stop at the individual. A meditation app here, a lunch-and-learn there. Those have their place, but they ask already-stretched employees to absorb pressure the organization created. According to the American Psychological Association's 2024 Work in America survey, 43% of workers said they typically feel tense or stressed during the workday, and that figure climbs to 61% among people in low-psychological-safety environments. The environment is doing the heavy lifting, for better or worse.

That's the reframe this guide runs on: if the conditions create the stress, the conditions are where you fix it. Here are five strategies you can actually deploy.

1. Redesign the workload before you add another perk

The fastest way to lower stress is to stop manufacturing so much of it. Workload and long hours are consistently named as top stress drivers, so auditing how work is distributed beats layering wellness perks on top of an overloaded team.

The APA found that 45% of employed adults say they work more hours per week than they want to. When the baseline ask is unsustainable, no amount of resilience training closes that gap. Start by mapping where the overload actually lives. Look for chronically understaffed teams, unclear priorities that cause rework, and "always-on" expectations that quietly erase recovery time.

Practical moves: set realistic capacity targets, kill low-value recurring meetings, clarify who owns what so people stop duplicating effort, and make "no" an acceptable answer to scope creep. These cost little and remove stress at the root.

2. Train managers, because they set the emotional weather

Managers are the single biggest lever you have. Gallup's State of the Global Workplace research has repeatedly found that managers account for roughly 70% of variance in team engagement, and the day-to-day manager relationship shapes how stressed people feel far more than any company-wide policy.

A manager who sets clear expectations, runs predictable one-on-ones, and models healthy boundaries lowers their team's stress without a single new program. One who fires off midnight emails and changes priorities weekly raises it just as fast. The good news is this is teachable.

Give managers a short, practical playbook: how to set priorities, how to check in on workload without micromanaging, and how to spot the early signs of someone struggling. Make people-management skills part of how managers are evaluated, not an afterthought. If burnout is showing up on specific teams, our burnout-prevention guide goes deeper on prevention tactics for managers.

3. Offer flexibility that fits the person, not the policy

Flexibility reduces stress, but only when it actually matches how someone works and lives. The APA's 2025 Work in America research found that workers report better mental health and job satisfaction when their work arrangement lines up with their preferences, rather than when employers mandate a single "best" model for everyone.

That means flexibility is less about remote-versus-office and more about autonomy. Where can you give people genuine control over when and how they work? Flexible start times, async-friendly norms, and meeting-light focus blocks often deliver more stress relief than a blanket policy.

The catch: flexibility without clear expectations creates its own anxiety. Pair autonomy with clarity on goals, response-time norms, and core collaboration hours so people aren't guessing.

4. Protect recovery time like it's part of the job

Stress isn't only about load, it's about whether people get to recover from it. Yet recovery is exactly where many cultures fall short. NIOSH-based survey data has found that a large majority of workers report often feeling "used up" at the end of the day, a clear signal that recovery isn't keeping pace with demand.

Recovery is an employer responsibility, not a personal hobby. If your culture rewards people who never log off, you're training the whole organization to skip recovery. Make rest visible and normal.

Concrete steps: encourage real breaks during the day, set and respect genuine off-hours, make sure people actually use their PTO, and have leaders model it by taking time off out loud. When recovery is built into how the team operates, stress stops compounding week over week.

5. Build a culture where well-being isn't a risk to admit

Strategies one through four only stick if the culture supports them. People won't use flexibility, take recovery, or flag an unmanageable workload if doing so feels like a career liability. Psychological safety is the foundation everything else sits on.

In lower-psychological-safety environments, 61% of workers feel stressed during the workday, versus 27% where safety is higher. That's more than a 2x difference driven largely by culture.

Building that culture is ongoing work: train managers to respond well when people raise concerns, communicate openly during change, recognize good work consistently, and make mental health support easy to reach without stigma. This is also where a structured program pays off. A consistent, science-based approach gives people real tools instead of one-off advice.

That's the difference an evidence-based platform makes.

47%

of participants lowered their stress levels in a 60,000-participant risk-reduction study of Avidon's behavior-change programs — the kind of measurable shift that comes from sustained, structured support rather than a single workshop. See the data.

Putting it together

Workplace stress reduction isn't one initiative, it's a set of structural choices that compound. Each one lowers stress on its own, and together they change the baseline.

Strategy 1

Fix the workload

Audit how work is distributed and set realistic capacity before layering on perks.

Strategy 2

Equip the managers

Train the people who set the day-to-day emotional weather for their teams.

Strategy 3

Offer real flexibility

Give people genuine control over when and how they work, paired with clear expectations.

Strategy 4

Protect recovery

Treat rest as part of the job so stress stops compounding week over week.

Strategy 5

Build a safe culture

Make well-being safe to prioritize, so the other four strategies actually get used.

If you're building this into a broader program, our Corporate Wellness Strategy Guide walks through how the pieces fit together.

When you're ready to put real tools behind these strategies, see how Avidon's behavior-change platform helps employers turn structural intent into sustained, measurable support for every employee.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about reducing workplace stress.

What are the most effective workplace stress reduction strategies?+

The most effective strategies target the source of stress rather than the symptoms. That means redesigning unrealistic workloads, training managers to set clear expectations, offering flexibility matched to individual needs, protecting recovery time, and building a psychologically safe culture. Structural fixes outperform add-on perks because they remove stress at the root.

How can HR reduce employee stress without a big budget?+

Many of the highest-impact moves are low-cost. Auditing workload, cutting unnecessary meetings, clarifying priorities, training managers on healthy boundaries, and respecting off-hours cost little but meaningfully reduce day-to-day stress. These structural changes often beat expensive perks that don't address why people are stressed. For lean teams, our small-business wellness guide covers high-impact moves on a tight budget.

Why do manager-focused strategies matter so much for stress?+

Gallup research finds managers account for roughly 70% of the variance in team engagement, and they shape how stressed people feel more than any company-wide policy. A manager who sets clear priorities and models healthy boundaries lowers team stress directly, which is why manager training is one of the highest-leverage investments an employer can make.

Is workplace stress an employer's responsibility or the employee's?+

Both play a role, but employers control the conditions that create most workplace stress: workload, management quality, flexibility, and culture. APA data shows 43% of workers feel stressed during a typical workday, much of it driven by the work environment. Employers who address those structural drivers see better outcomes than those who put the burden entirely on individuals.

How is workplace stress different from burnout?+

Stress is the day-to-day pressure of demands exceeding resources, while burnout is the chronic exhaustion that builds when stress goes unaddressed over time. Reducing stress is often the best way to prevent burnout from taking hold. For prevention tactics specific to burnout, see our dedicated burnout-prevention resource.

Employers & HR Leaders

Frontline Employee Wellness: Reaching the Other 80%

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date June 23, 2026

Frontline healthcare worker in scrubs checking her phone during a break

The Other 80%

Frontline Employee Wellness: Reaching the Other 80%

By Avidon Health | June 2026 | 6 min read

Most wellness programs are built for people at a desk. The majority of the workforce isn't. Here's why frontline programs fall short, and what actually reaches the nurse, the picker, and the line cook.

Frontline healthcare worker checking a phone during a short break between shifts

Frontline employee wellness is well-being support designed for the roughly 80% of workers who don't sit at a desk. It works when it meets the realities of shift work, limited email access, and physically demanding roles, rather than assuming a desk, an inbox, and a 9-to-5 schedule.

Frontline employee wellness means designing well-being support for the people who don't sit at a desk: the nurse, the warehouse picker, the store associate, the line cook, the field tech. They make up most of the workforce, yet almost every wellness program is built for the minority who have a desk, an inbox, and a predictable schedule. That mismatch, not employee apathy, is why participation stays low. The good news: it's a design problem, which means it's fixable.

Here's the scale of it. According to SHRM Labs, roughly 80% of the global workforce is deskless, yet deskless tools attract only about 1% of enterprise software investment. So the majority of employees are asked to engage with well-being programs through channels they can't easily reach. The fix isn't more reminders or bigger incentives. It's meeting workers where they actually are.

Who Counts as a Frontline Worker

"Frontline" and "deskless" cover far more than one industry. If a job happens on your feet, on the move, or on a shift clock, it's frontline. That spans:

Healthcare: nurses, aides, techs, and support staff working rotating shifts in high-stress environments.
Retail: store associates and shift leads on the sales floor, rarely near a computer.
Hospitality and food service: servers, housekeepers, kitchen staff, front-desk teams.
Logistics and warehousing: pickers, packers, drivers, and dock crews.
Field and skilled trades: technicians, installers, and crews who work on the road or on site.

The common thread is that none of them spend the day at a workstation, and the wellness tooling most employers buy assumes they do.

The well-being case is hard to ignore. In UKG's Global Frontline Workforce Study, which surveyed nearly 13,000 frontline employees and managers across 11 countries and sectors, 75% reported burnout. Among Gen Z frontline workers the figure climbed to 83%, and over a third said they'd quit a job specifically because it hurt their physical or mental health. These are the workers least served by traditional programs and most exposed to the stress those programs are meant to relieve.

Why Standard Wellness Programs Miss Them

Most programs fail frontline teams for three plain reasons, none of which is about motivation.

No work email or portal. Step-counting apps, intranet sign-ups, and "check your inbox for the wellness newsletter" all assume a corporate login. Most frontline workers don't have one, or can't get to it during a shift. The message never lands.

Frontline construction worker in a hard hat taking a short break on a job site

No predictable break. A lunchtime webinar or a 3 p.m. mindfulness session works for a calendar-driven office. It reaches almost no one on a rotating 8- or 12-hour shift.

The wrong priorities. Frontline health risks skew toward fatigue, sleep, injury, and financial stress, not the ergonomic-desk and step-challenge framing most wellness programs default to.

This pattern is sharpest in manufacturing, where shift work and safety risks compound. We cover that environment in depth in our guide to blue-collar wellness programs, including the research on why traditional programs underperform on the factory floor. The piece you're reading now zooms out to the whole deskless economy, where the same access gap shows up in a store, a ward, or a delivery route.

What Actually Reaches Frontline Workers

The programs that work for frontline teams share a design philosophy: remove friction, meet people on the device in their pocket, and respect the shift clock. Five moves do most of the work.

Go mobile-first, and skip the login wall. Text-based prompts and a no-download mobile experience reach workers where email and portals can't. If joining takes a form and a corporate password, you've lost most of the floor before you start.

Keep every action under 30 seconds. A one-tap check-in, a single hydration log, a short audio reset. Complexity is the quiet killer of frontline participation, so strip it out.

Use peer champions, not top-down campaigns. Trusted coworkers on the floor drive far more sign-ups than an HR email ever will. They also surface what their teammates actually need, so the program adjusts to reality.

Schedule around shifts, not around 9-to-5. Make content available any time and asynchronous so a night-shift worker gets the same experience as a day-shift one. Anything tied to a single clock time excludes the people you're trying to reach.

Prioritize the risks that matter. Sleep and fatigue recovery, injury prevention, practical nutrition, and financial well-being resonate more than step challenges for workers whose jobs are already physical. Lead with what's relevant to their day.

A multi-channel approach matters because no single channel reaches everyone. Pairing on-site touchpoints with mobile-accessible content covers both the worker who lives on their phone and the one who rarely looks at one, and it hedges against the certainty that any single channel will miss part of the floor.

For remote and hybrid teams, the access problem looks different but rhymes, and we break that down in our guide to wellness for remote and hybrid teams.

It Works When It's Built for Them

The encouraging part: when programs are actually designed for frontline realities, these workers show up. Consider the contrast with a benefit most employers already have. Most employers offer an Employee Assistance Program, yet average utilization sits below 10%, according to SHRM. The support exists. It just isn't reaching people.

Engagement isn't fixed, though. It's a function of design.

112%

improvement in program completion, from 17% with no coaching to 36% with coaching plus technology, in a controlled Avidon study of 300 non-incentivized participants.

That result is detailed in our efficacy and outcomes report. The barrier was never that frontline workers don't care about their health. It's that the program was never built to reach them. Get the delivery model right, and the 80% of your workforce that traditional wellness ignores becomes the part that participates most.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about reaching frontline and deskless workers.

What is frontline employee wellness? +

Frontline employee wellness is well-being support designed for workers who don't sit at a desk, such as those in healthcare, retail, hospitality, logistics, and the trades. It accounts for the realities of shift work, limited email access, and physically demanding roles, rather than assuming a desk, an inbox, and a 9-to-5 schedule.

Why don't normal wellness programs work for frontline workers? +

Most programs rely on email, web portals, and fixed-time events, which assume a desk job. Frontline workers often lack a corporate login, can't check messages during a shift, and work rotating hours, so standard programs are structurally hard to reach. The barrier is access and design, not motivation.

How do you reach employees who don't have work email? +

Use mobile-first channels like text messages and a no-login mobile experience, deploy peer champions on the floor, and make content available asynchronously so any shift can use it. Keeping each action under 30 seconds removes the friction that causes most frontline drop-off.

Which industries have the most deskless workers? +

Healthcare, retail, hospitality and food service, logistics and warehousing, and the skilled trades all run on largely deskless workforces. SHRM Labs estimates deskless workers make up about 80% of the global workforce.

Do frontline wellness programs actually get used? +

Yes, when they're built for the environment. The gap is rarely interest, it's access. When a program uses the channels frontline workers actually have and keeps participation simple, engagement climbs. In one controlled study, program completion rose from 17% with no coaching to 36% with coaching plus technology.

Employers & HR Leaders

High Employee Turnover Solutions: How to Keep Good People From Leaving

Post author By Avidon Health Team
Post date June 22, 2026

Manager listening attentively during a one-on-one check-in with an employee

Employee Retention

High Employee Turnover Solutions: How to Keep Good People From Leaving

By Avidon Health | June 2026 | 5 min read

High turnover feels like bad luck, but most of it is preventable. Here are the solutions that actually move the needle, starting with the retention lever most companies overlook.

Manager and employee in a one-on-one check-in, a key driver of employee retention

The most effective high employee turnover solutions address why people actually leave: weak manager relationships, no growth path, burnout, and feeling like the company doesn't care. Most voluntary turnover is preventable, and employee well-being is one of the most underused retention levers available to HR teams today.

Turnover rarely comes down to pay alone. According to the Work Institute, more than 75% of the reasons employees quit are preventable, meaning the employer could have done something about them. That's the good news buried in a painful problem: if most turnover is preventable, then most of it is also solvable.

The cost of not solving it is steep. Gallup estimates voluntary turnover costs U.S. businesses roughly $1 trillion a year, and replacing a single employee runs about a third of their annual salary on average, climbing toward twice the salary for managers and specialized roles. Before you spend another dollar on recruiting, it's worth understanding what's driving people out the door and which fixes actually keep them.

What's actually driving your turnover

People leave for a handful of recurring reasons, and almost none of them are surprises. The most common drivers are a poor relationship with a direct manager, no clear path to grow, chronic burnout and workload, and a sense that the organization doesn't genuinely care about them as people.

That last one is bigger than most leaders think. A McKinsey Health Institute survey across 15 countries found that employees dealing with mental-health and well-being challenges are four times more likely to want to leave their organization. With nearly three in five employees reporting at least one such challenge, well-being isn't a soft perk. It's directly tied to whether your people stay.

High-impact solutions to reduce turnover

The fixes that work all share a theme: they treat retention as something you build into the everyday experience of work, not a bonus you bolt on after someone gives notice.

Solution 1

Strengthen the manager relationship

The single biggest lever is the relationship between employees and their direct managers. Train managers to hold regular one-on-ones, give meaningful feedback, and actually act on what they hear. A good manager can hold a team together through a hard stretch; a bad one empties seats no compensation plan can refill.

Solution 2

Build real growth paths

People stay where they can see a future. Map out development tracks, fund learning, and have honest career conversations before someone starts quietly browsing job boards. Growth doesn't always mean promotion. It can mean new skills, broader scope, or a lateral move that re-engages someone who's gone flat.

Solution 3

Tackle burnout before people break

Burnout is a slow leak that ends in a sudden resignation, and the evidence is clear that it's an organizational problem, not a personal one, so a meditation app won't fix it. Watch workload, protect time off so it's actually restful, and build a real employee burnout prevention approach before overwork shows up as attrition. If your culture quietly rewards overwork, you're training your best people to leave.

Solution 4

Treat well-being as retention, not a perk

This is where most companies leave the easiest wins on the table. A real well-being program, built on behavior change rather than a once-a-year health fair, gives people support that keeps them healthier, more engaged, and more likely to stay. It also produces a measurable return, which is how you defend the budget. The point isn't to add a benefit. It's to make people feel cared for in a way they can actually feel.

Solution 5

Listen, then act

Stay interviews beat exit interviews, because the goal is to fix problems while the person is still here. Ask what would make them stay, what's frustrating them, and what they'd change. Then close the loop. Nothing erodes trust faster than asking for feedback and visibly ignoring it.

Solution 6

Recognize and connect

People who feel seen and connected to their team are far harder to poach, while workplace loneliness is one of the quietest drivers of quitting. Build in regular recognition, especially from peers, and create real moments of belonging. A shout-out in the team channel often does more for retention than a generic engagement initiative.

How to know your solutions are working

You don't need a data science team to measure retention progress. You need a baseline and a few honest metrics tracked over time. Set them before you change anything, then watch the trend.

Track your voluntary turnover rate overall and by team, since a single bad pocket can skew the whole picture. Watch the themes coming out of stay interviews to catch problems early. And track participation in your well-being and development programs, because engagement with those is a leading indicator: people who lean in are usually the people who stay.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Common questions about reducing high employee turnover.

What are the main causes of high employee turnover?+

Most voluntary turnover traces back to a few preventable causes: poor relationships with direct managers, no clear growth or development path, chronic burnout, and feeling that the employer doesn't genuinely care. The Work Institute finds more than 75% of the reasons people leave are within the employer's control.

How can you reduce employee turnover without raising pay?+

Pay matters, but it's rarely the top driver. Improving manager quality, creating growth paths, reducing burnout, and investing in employee well-being all reduce turnover without a compensation overhaul. These address the reasons people actually leave, which are mostly about experience, not just salary.

Does employee well-being really affect retention?+

Yes. A McKinsey Health Institute survey found employees facing mental-health and well-being challenges are four times more likely to want to leave. Because so many employees report at least one such challenge, well-being support is one of the most direct and underused retention levers available.

How much does employee turnover cost?+

Gallup estimates voluntary turnover costs U.S. businesses about $1 trillion a year. Replacing one employee averages roughly a third of their annual salary, and can reach twice the salary for managers and specialized roles once you factor in recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, and lost institutional knowledge.

How do you measure whether retention efforts are working?+

Set a baseline first, then track voluntary turnover overall and by team, recurring themes from stay interviews, and participation in well-being and development programs. Compare the trend over time. Rising program engagement alongside falling turnover is a strong sign your solutions are landing.

Open Enrollment Wellness Program: How to Launch One People Actually Join

Why Open Enrollment Is the Best Time to Launch a Wellness Program

What Most Employers Waste the Window On

Your Open Enrollment Wellness Launch Timeline

What to Say in Your Open Enrollment Benefits Communication

Design the Incentive So Enrolling Is the Easy Choice

How to Tell Whether It Worked

How Avidon Health Approaches Open Enrollment Launches

Frequently Asked Questions

Get Your Program Live Before Enrollment Opens

Why Most Workplace Wellness Programs Fail: Clark Lagemann on At Work, Under Pressure

The 80% Problem.

What Clark and Jessi Covered.

The Great Detachment: Why Employees Are Checked Out and Staying Anyway

What is the Great Detachment?

Why detachment is more dangerous than a wave of quitting

Why your current programs aren't reaching detached employees

How to re-engage a detached workforce

Frequently asked questions.

Turn detachment into re-engagement.

Grief in the Workplace: How HR Can Support Grieving Employees

Why bereavement leave alone isn't enough.

The hidden cost of unsupported grief.

What good grief support actually looks like.

Why proactive support beats a benefit nobody uses.

Frequently asked questions.

Support your people through the hardest moments.

The Men's Health Engagement Gap: Why Male Employees Skip Wellness (and How to Reach Them)

The Gap Is Real, and It's Expensive.

Why Men Opt Out.

The EAP Trap.

How to Design Engagement Men Actually Take Up.

Proof That the Right Design Reaches Them.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Reach the Employees Your Program Keeps Missing

Protecting Outdoor and Warehouse Workers from Extreme Heat: An HR Playbook

Why Heat Is a Bigger Risk Than Most Employers Think.

The Productivity Cost You're Already Paying.

What OSHA's Proposed Heat Rule Will Require.

The Five Moves That Actually Protect Workers.

Reaching Workers Who Aren't at a Desk.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Build a Heat Plan Your Whole Workforce Can Actually Use

Shift Worker Wellness: How to Build a Program That Actually Reaches Them

Why shift workers are your hardest population to reach.

Sleep is the first domino.

The real problem isn't offering support. It's getting it used.

What a shift-worker-ready program looks like.

The cost of leaving them out.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Ready to reach every shift?

Workplace Stress Reduction Strategies That Actually Move the Needle

1. Redesign the workload before you add another perk

2. Train managers, because they set the emotional weather

3. Offer flexibility that fits the person, not the policy

4. Protect recovery time like it's part of the job

5. Build a culture where well-being isn't a risk to admit

Putting it together

Frequently asked questions

Turn structural intent into measurable support.

Frontline Employee Wellness: Reaching the Other 80%

Who Counts as a Frontline Worker

Why Standard Wellness Programs Miss Them

What Actually Reaches Frontline Workers

It Works When It's Built for Them

Frequently Asked Questions

Reaching Every Worker, Not Just the Ones at a Desk

High Employee Turnover Solutions: How to Keep Good People From Leaving

What's actually driving your turnover

High-impact solutions to reduce turnover

How to know your solutions are working

Frequently Asked Questions.

A program built to keep people.