Thriving Workplaces How Employers can Improve Productivity and Change Lives 2025

Executive summary Investing in holistic employee health can create almost $12 trillion in global economic value. As the world grapples with rapid technological advancements, demographic shifts and evolving work paradigms, it is vital to invest in employee health. Why prioritize workforce health? Investing in employee health can substantially increase economic returns. Research indicates that enhanced employee health and well-being could generate up to $11.7 trillion in global economic value. Organizations that prioritize health often see marked improvements in productivity, reduced absenteeism, lower healthcare costs and heightened employee engagement and retention. They are better placed to adapt to increased regulatory pressures on workplace health and safety standards and withstand greater focus from investors and the public on how organizations are meeting environmental, social and governance criteria. Moreover, a healthier workforce is a more resilient and adaptive workforce, more capable of navigating the uncertainties and challenges of a rapidly changing world. What is the current state of workforce health? Work can and should enhance health, yet it is not doing so for a sizeable proportion of employees. In a McKinsey Health Institute survey of more than 30,000 employees worldwide, only 57% reported good holistic health (an integrated view of an individual’s mental, physical, spiritual and social functioning),1 with important differences in holistic health and burn-out symptoms found across different industries and demographics. For example, employees who are women, LGBTQI+, younger or neurodivergent, or who report lower education levels or poor financial status, tended to report poorer employee health outcomes than their counterparts in the survey. This underscores the need for tailored interventions to address and prevent health challenges and tackle the workplace factors that contribute to them. How can organizations address workforce health? Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach, given that each organization is different and employees have varying needs, there are six “evergreen”, evidence-based principles for employers seeking to make a positive impact: understand the baseline health status of employees and the value at stake, develop initiatives for a sustainable healthy workforce, pilot interventions to test and learn, track three to five metrics to measure success, ensure leadership commitment and sponsorship, and embed employee health into organizational culture. These actions seem simple but are often hard to put into practice. Many organizations do not currently see or cannot measure the benefits of their current investments in employee health. They also don’t allocate resources in the most effective way – often, the issue is not how much is being invested but the type of investment being made. Rather than solely addressing the poor health of individual employees, developing a healthy workforce means taking a portfolio approach – addressing ill health and promoting good health; supporting individuals; and creating healthier teams, jobs and organizational environments. By making work a place that improves health, organizations can build a strong, productive and engaged workforce and release greater individual and organizational potential. The choice to demand a healthy workplace is one every employee and investor can make. Thriving Workplaces: How Employers can Improve Productivity and Change Lives 4