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The Future of Well-being

Analyzes findings on the continuing role of well-being in employer’s workforce strategy from the 2025 Employer Well-being Strategy Survey.

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May 20, 2025

2025 Employer Well-being Strategy Survey
This inaugural survey focused on the current and future state of employer well-being programs
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Key Takeaways

  • The vast majority of employers are planning to maintain, and sometimes increase, well-being investments over the next 3 to 5 years.
  • Both mental health and financial well-being are slated for expansion by over half of employers.
  • Social determinants of health (SDOH) may soon become a common aspect of employers’ well-being approaches.
  • Well-being vendors will be held to a higher standard by nearly all employers.

Continuing or Even Expanding Well-being Programs Expected

The scope of employers’ well-being initiatives has expanded in the past 5-10 years, and they are not letting off the gas in the future. In fact, only 2% of employers envision reducing their well-being investments over the next 3 to 5 years, consistent with current investment efforts described in Part 1.

Figure 9.1 
Figure 9.1: Future Expansion of Well-being, 2025

Addressing SDOH, the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, is something that 59% of employers expect to expand in the coming years, more so than any other area of well-being. Followed distantly behind, about one-third of employers will focus on enabling employees to take time away and disconnect from work, supporting ongoing efforts to combat employee burnout (Figure 9.2).

Figure 9.2: Additional Areas of Expansion in the Next 3-5 Years, 2025 
Figure 9.2: Additional Areas of Expansion in the Next 3-5 Years, 2025


Aside from offerings, employers have their eye on various strategic approaches to enhance the effectiveness of their well-being strategies. Figure 9.3 shows the various levers employers may pull in order to increase impact. Nearly all employers (94%) will raise expectations of their well-being vendors to deliver on outcomes, which is likely related to the fact that 77% of employers report increased expectations from their leadership about their well-being programs.

“

We aim to have competitive well-being offerings, so we need to evaluate our vendors every few years. We do RFPs to truly understand the marketplace, particularly when we’ve had a program in place for a long time.


Frank Giampietro, EY

Figure 9.3 
Figure 9.3: Employer Well-being Practices for Impact, 2025

Conclusion

The 2025 survey is a display of employer commitment to supporting employee well-being. To take this a step further, in the face of economic and other headwinds, employers are strongly prioritizing well-being, whether physical, mental, financial, social, community or job satisfaction. Further, they plan to actively enhance their initiatives and hold their vendor partners to a higher standard to deliver positive outcomes. In all, employers will continue to support employee well-being around the world in 2025 into 2026.


More Topics

Resource icon_right_chevron_dark Mental Health icon_right_chevron_dark Financial Well-being icon_right_chevron_dark Physical Activity icon_right_chevron_dark
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