HR Can’t Be the Safety Net Anymore: From ‘Carewashing” to Real Well-being

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HR CAN'T BE THE SAFETY NET ANYMORE: FROM 'CAREWASHING' TO REAL WELL-BEING

Only 44.3% of U.S. adults say they’re “thriving”—the lowest Gallup has recorded since the Great Recession. Younger professionals report higher stress, lower optimism, and growing disengagement from work and leadership.

Meanwhile, more than half the workforce is job hunting, with Millennials leading the wave. And the number one reason why people are leaving? It’s not salary or title. It’s the search for better work-life balance and personal well-being.

The pressure to respond is falling on HR. However, HR is nearing a breaking point, with 71% of professionals more burned out than pre-pandemic and more than half being asked to do more with fewer resources.

Most organizations have well-being programs and have implemented flexible schedules to promote the so-called “work-life balance.” 

However, the structural problem remains: the way work is conceived and designed is draining well-being.

Inside this edition

• Why well-being is faltering, even when it’s on the priority list

• The mindsets and forces draining well-being

• A framework to redesign work around energy and motivation

• Lessons from Johnson & Johnson and Salesforce

• Free download: The People Sustainability Toolkit

🗞️ In case you missed it: Inflation pressures, tariff tensions, and a stalled job market are testing leadership nerves—while Walmart bets big on $600K store managers to drive performance.

Continue reading to explore why current employee support systems might not be enough.

SPREAD FOR YOU
📢 THE SILENT FORCES DRAINING WORKPLACE WELL-BEING

What’s Fueling Burnout and Disengagement?

Despite the growing number of wellness programs, only 21% of employees strongly agree their employer cares about their well-being.

There is a gap between public commitment and experience because nothing shifts in how work feels or functions. At the end of the day, the perception is that organizations are “carewashing.” 

But what is the root cause of this gap?

The Mindsets that Enable Unhealthy Cycles

• Many leaders (consciously or not) still equate productivity with maximum worker utilization, measuring performance by output volume rather than actual impact.

• People have internalized the pressure to appear busy and constantly deliver. According to Visier, 43% spend over 10 hours a week trying to look productive instead of doing meaningful work.

• Organizations excel at launching new tools and programs but rarely stop what’s no longer useful. Each new tool increases the “toggle tax,” with workers losing up to 200 hours a year switching between apps.

The Silent Forces that Drain Well-being

• Unclear expectations: More than half of US employees don’t know what success looks like; there is no clarity on their priorities or how their work connects to team or company goals.

• Chronic overload: Workload exceeds an employee’s capacity (not just during “busy seasons” but consistently.), and people are expected to stay “always on.” Chronic overload leads to burnout and reduces performance over time. 

• Fragmented schedules: The workday is filled with constant switching between tasks and apps and back-to-back meetings. Think of the crowded email chains to make a decision and pings that interrupt focus. Employees feel scattered and mentally drained by the end of the day, even if they didn’t accomplish meaningful work. 

• Limited recovery time: Burnout rates are similar among remote, hybrid, and on-site workers, showing that location flexibility alone doesn’t ensure recovery unless workloads and time boundaries are addressed. PTO isn’t used (or respected), breaks are skipped, and there’s no buffer after big projects or during intense weeks.

• Low psychological safety: People don’t feel safe raising concerns, setting boundaries, or admitting they’re struggling. The fear of being judged, penalized, or ignored leads to disengagement, which is higher in teams where managers don’t model empathy and openness. Moreover, 68% of organizations still lack a mechanism to measure psychological safety, and fear of speaking up persists. 

POLL

If these silent forces are draining well-being, what should HR leaders do differently?

HR FRAMEWORKS

A FRAMEWORK FOR CHROS: BUILDING WHOLE-PERSON WORK BY DESIGN

HR can’t keep functioning as the emotional buffer between broken systems and burned-out employees.

The way work is designed—and what we expect from it—needs a reset. For too long, organizations have chased productivity by maximizing employee output and cramming in tasks, meetings, and tools with little regard for human capacity.

The result? Surface-level well-being initiatives mask overload, disengagement, and burnout.

To build sustainable performance, CHROs must lead a shift from “worker utilization” to capacity and value creation. That shift begins with subtracting what drains energy and embedding whole-person design principles across roles, workflows, and teams.

The five actions that follow offer practical levers to build that shift—grounded in data, real company examples, and cross-functional strategies.

1. Reclaim Capacity as a Strategic Asset

Employees lose up to 41% of their time on low-value activities, like navigating tech systems, sitting in back-to-back meetings, or duplicating reports. Pause and reassess workflows and processes to regain the capacity for slack, allowing space for employees to think, reflect, grow, and innovate.

• Audit collaboration debt: Conduct calendar and workflow reviews to cut recurring low-value meetings and streamline communication.

• Preserve 10–20% protected time: This space is dedicated to strategic work, learning, and rest. Google’s “20% time” policy was designed for this.

• Redirect investments: Instead of fueling the “productivity theater,” invest in capacity tools like automated reporting or cross-platform dashboards to help remove duplications and manual work.

2. Redesign Roles Around Strengths and Energy

Roles are built around tasks, not people’s actual capacity or strengths. Providence Health redesigned patient care roles by shifting low-complexity tasks to “patient attendants.” The result? More focused nurses, lower turnover, and improved patient outcomes.

• Use tools like job canvases: Co-design roles with employees, mapping what tasks drain or energize them.

• Create cross-functional roles: Allow people to contribute where they thrive, not just where they’re needed.

• Reassign repetitive tasks: Free employees from those tasks that don’t require expertise to give more space for learning and high-impact work.

3. Reframe Flexibility as a Design Principle

Flexibility often enters organizations as a policy (remote work options, wellness hours, or leave programs.) However, for flexibility to truly support performance and well-being, it must be designed into the role, not bolted on. Instead of treating flexibility as a perk or individual negotiation, embed it into roles.

• Audit flexibility by role type: Different work rhythms require different flexibility. Flow-based roles need predictability; project-based work benefits from autonomy. Map flexibility needs across functions, not just levels.

• Redesign performance metrics: Move away from measuring presence or visibility. Help managers define outcomes, priorities, and progress without relying on “who’s online.”

• Make flexibility structural: Build it into job architecture so it’s predictable, fair, and not dependent on individual negotiations. Clarify what’s fixed (e.g., core team hours) and what’s flexible (e.g., deep work time, asynchronous delivery).

4. Equip Managers to Lead for Energy

When it comes to workplace well-being, managers are the first line of defense (and opportunity!) But most don’t know how to recognize burnout signs or lead with empathy.

• Redefine performance metrics: Include burnout risk, energy recovery, and psychological safety.

• Train managers using the 3Rs model: Role modeling, Recognizing distress, and Referring to support systems (Salesforce trains 100% of managers on this).

• Shift 1:1s from status checks to coaching conversations: “What’s draining your energy right now?”

5. Build Systems, Not Silos

Flexibility, well-being, and growth often live in separate initiatives (owned by different teams, launched in different quarters, and measured on different dashboards). When well-being, performance, and growth are designed as a unified experience, the employee work experience is coherent, energizing, and sustainable because the systems that enable performance are built to protect it.

• Redesign growth paths that consider energy, not just ambition: Offer lateral moves, temporary sprints, or rotational roles that provide development without overextension. When people grow within their capacity, they’re more likely to sustain performance.

• Embed well-being signals into performance conversations: Train managers to track psychological safety, workload recovery, and team energy alongside goals. This shifts accountability from deliverables alone to how work is done.

• Normalize flexibility in progression, not just accommodation: Flexibility shouldn’t be offered only when someone is burning out or stepping back. Design clear, role-appropriate flexibility options, from entry-level to executive positions, so that people don’t have to choose between advancing and protecting their well-being.

Want to bring these ideas into action? Start with tools that help you measure what really matters!

YOUR DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCE
THE PEOPLE SUSTAINABILITY TOOLKIT

Traditional dashboards track attrition and engagement, but they often miss the deeper signals of energy loss, burnout, and unsustainable work.

This free toolkit is for CHROs and people leaders who are ready to redesign their approach to measuring workforce health.

What’s inside?

✅ The Whole-Person Metrics Dashboard: 12 strategic metrics to assess energy, capacity, motivation, and manager enablement

✅ The People Well-being Compass: A practical tool to uncover risk across four critical well-being spheres—mental, emotional, physical, and social

✅ Tips to identify hidden pressure points and strengthen your people systems from the inside out

Use this toolkit to move beyond engagement scores and start tracking the real drivers of sustainable performance.

Read on to learn how leading companies treat well-being as infrastructure.

SUCCESS STORIES
DESIGNING FOR ENERGY, GROWTH, AND CAPACITY: LESSONS FROM THE FIELD

Johnson & Johnson and Salesforce are showing what it means to build resilience through structure: training managers to lead with care, integrating flexibility into role design, and aligning support with how people actually live and work.

The results? Higher retention, better energy use, and systems that sustain—not strain—the workforce.

Johnson & Johnson: Scaling Whole-Person Talent Planning

⭐ Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Company for the 22nd year in a row

🪴 100,000+ global learning modules supporting whole-person growth

💰 $500/year well-being reimbursement for mental, physical & emotional health

Here’s how they’re doing it:

Johnson & Johnson embeds well-being directly into how roles are designed and sustained—not just into benefits. Its performance and talent strategy now considers skills, experience, motivation, energy, and aspirations, using psychometric tools to match people with sustainable, fulfilling roles.

Their Energy for Performance program helps employees monitor and recharge personal energy across physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual domains—turning recovery into a core performance skill.

With J&J Learn, employees have access to a dynamic ecosystem of 100,000+ development experiences that evolve with them—supporting the “grow without burnout” mindset central to whole-person design.

Salesforce: Making Managers the Frontline of Mental Health

🎖️ Ranked No. 10 on the 2024 World's 25 Best Workplaces

📈 32% increase in college coaching usage (caregiver support)

💚 20% year-over-year growth in backup care utilization

💯 100% of managers trained in the 3Rs: Role Modeling, Recognizing distress, Referring support

Here’s how they’re doing it:

Salesforce operationalizes mental health by starting where performance happens—with managers. Their internal 3Rs framework trains every people leader to recognize, respond to, and escalate signs of burnout or emotional distress.

Well-being isn’t just supported—it’s built into the structure of caregiving and performance. From on-demand child care to elder care and college coaching, their integrated care model allows employees to show up at work while managing life outside of it.

Reimbursement programs cover therapy, fitness, and stress recovery services, removing financial and cultural friction from prioritizing health. These tools have become part of job design, leading to measurable gains in usage, resilience, and retention.

Want to go deeper? This upcoming summit is one you won’t want to miss.

UPCOMING EVENT
WORKPLACE WELL-BEING & MENTAL HEALTH SUMMIT

Join the Workplace Well-being and Mental Health Summit, a three-day virtual event designed to help HR leaders, executives, and wellness champions create healthy workplaces that drive sustainable performance.

This summit goes beyond perks and checklists to tackle the real challenges facing today’s workforce—burnout, disengagement, stress, and mental health stigma.

Attendees will gain evidence-based strategies for integrating mental health into leadership, culture, and operations. With deep conversations, expert-led workshops, and insights from leading voices in workplace wellness, this is your go-to platform to build a resilient, people-first organization.

📅 When: May 5–7, 2025 (7 am–11 am Pacific Time)
💻 Event Type: Online | Free
📢 Content Format: Panel | Workshop

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