10/04/2026
A People and Culture manager once described her organisation's wellness program to us as "a calendar of good intentions."
Yoga in January. A mental health webinar in October. A step challenge that quietly died in week three.
She wasn't embarrassed about it. She was just tired of defending a budget line that wasn't producing anything she could point to. "We keep doing things," she said. "I just don't think they're working."
The honest answer was that they probably weren't. Not because she hadn't tried. Because the program had the five most common problems we see in corporate wellness across Australia.
They were designed for everyone, which meant they were designed for no one. A generic stress workshop lands differently for a warehouse team on rotating shifts than it does for a desk-based team in the CBD. Tailoring is not optional. It is the whole job.
They ran once. A single session does not change behaviour. Consistency is what separates an event from an outcome.
Leadership quietly opted out. When the executive team doesn't show up, the message reaches the rest of the organisation faster than any internal comms campaign.
There was no measurement. Without even basic check-in data, there is no way to know whether anything is improving or whether the budget is just funding things that feel good.
And it was all reactive. Bringing in a stress workshop after burnout has already hit is damage control, not strategy.
None of this is a failure of effort. It is usually a resource and structure problem. But naming it clearly is the first step to building something that actually works.
What would you add to this list? 👇
