t’s time to talk work structures instead of just work wellness.

According to the Global Wellness Institute, work wellness was a $52 billion dollar industry in 2019, with the overall wellness economy estimated at $4.4 trillion in 2020. With all that budget going towards wellness, it sure seems work stress issues should be solved by now—that is, if wellness alone could solve them.

Historically, work wellness has primarily focused on support at the individual level. What started off as gym memberships and fancy cafeterias has more recently shifted toward trainings and support for more self-care, self-agency, and healthier personal work habits. Yet lately this is getting some scrutiny. Work wellness is a bit more nuanced than just what a single individual can do personally; we need to take into account other factors such as corporate culture, power dynamics, workflow structures, healthy workloads, and multiple other variables if we want real change.

We’ve been missing a key aspect by only addressing work wellness through an individual wellness lens, and this has led to mixed outcomes. Focusing on individual wellness is great—in fact I’ve argued that it’s absolutely necessary. Self-agency is a vital component to addressing work stress. However, it’s not the only component.

It’s just one component.

The other component is work structures. We need to start addressing workflows, workload management, program and project ebbs and flows, and our fundamental approach to how we engage our work at a team and organizational level.

Often it’s the work structures that keep us “stuck” in the hamster wheel, running a mile a minute and not being able to pause. These are the structures that hold us back from our fullest potential—at the individual, team, and organizational level. To really address work wellness and capitalize on the benefits of it (stronger engagement, retention, creativity, and better decision making), we need to spend some time understanding these structures so we can start to change them.

Here are three ways to begin addressing work wellness by shifting your work structures.

We are living in a world of decision overload, well-documented overwhelm, and high stress levels, and we are experiencing extremely turbulent times of change (e.g., generational shifts, an increasingly global work environment, AI and fundamental technology shifts, not to mention COVID-19 and adjustments to hybrid work environments).

We need the time and space to reflect on ourselves, our peers, our teams, and our work worlds. We need time to process everything that is rapidly evolving and changing around us. We need time to make solid and sound decisions.

And we are sorely lacking this time.

The greater your responsibility, the more necessary this becomes. In fact, a leader’s commitment to strategic space is a key indicator of effective leadership. I’ve witnessed this time and time again. Interesting side note: In Tim Ferriss’ bestselling book Tools of Titans, where he summarizes his top interviews with elite performers from a variety of fields (e.g., Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Foxx, Chris Sacca from Shark Tank, Brené Brown, and many more), he cites the single most consistent pattern amongst all these high achievers is that more than 80 percent of them had committed to meditation or a mindfulness-based practice. Strategic. Space.

Take a close look at your teams. How are they truly doing? Are members staying late and working into the evenings? How about emails—do you see many after hours? What’s their energy level and engagement like throughout the day?

I come from tech and worked as a strategic consultant on enterprise-level programs. One thing I noticed was that, for many national and even global programs, many members of the core team often rotated together from project to project. This was sometimes due to a combination of specific subject matter expertise, a high level of program-specific experience, and it offered an added value of a team with prior experience working together in various venues.

This is great—until it isn’t.

Core team members who rotate from high-stress and high-pressure projects one after another (without breaks) are at risk of burnout. Especially programs with high-stakes deadlines with no break or buffer in between.

A few months ago, I was speaking with an executive leader about restructuring their high-performing program team to incorporate periods of “proactive rest” for a handful of their members. Why? Because the benefits of a rested team affect performance and outcomes, and this executive was smart enough to realize it. We also explored how to stimulate creativity and innovation bursts for their organization through these structured rest periods.

Reflect on your own teams. Who needs breaks? Has everyone on the team had a “valley” in order to rest and re-energize before they climb their next “peak”? How are you capitalizing on this time?

Consider this as a harsh reality check: a while back I was speaking with a team member from a program where multiple people on the same program team had died of either heart attacks or strokes within a six-month time frame.* The behind-the-scenes rumors were that these deaths were all related to work stress, specifically the high pressure and unrealistic deadlines.

Now let’s pause for a moment to really let this sink in—the impact at the individual level. Family level. Community level. The unspoken belief was that overwork was at the core of the deaths, though nothing was ever cited or proven on record. Certainly, the notion of deaths from work stress is backed by significant research from well-reputed sources, including the International Labor Organization. In Japan, there’s even a name for this: karoshi—death by overwork. Some researchers claim that America is facing our own karoshi crisis. For an in-depth analysis, the book Dying for a Paycheck by Stanford Organizational Behavior Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer provides examples.

Now, regardless of cause, let’s just reflect on the impact that this team’s perception of the high pressure and those deaths had on that organization. What do you think that pressure was doing to team morale? What about the quality of outcomes? How about error rates? Do you think it impacted the reputation of that organization? Do you think it impacted who stayed and left that program team? You bet it did.

Plan and execute. We are good at this stuff, right?

As leaders, we know how to develop a plan and execute against that plan. It’s time we start applying it to the world of work wellness. One way is to simply include it as part of strategy development; another way is to incorporate it into a team project plan or at the onset of a program. This can be done internally or externally through the support of consultants and some basic educational training.

One client of ours has had a High Workload Response Plan in place for nearly four years.* It helps them manage and navigate through their peak stress period (they have a “busy season”). They plan for the busy season about three months in advance. As with any well executed plan, they track it. They monitor progress. They make it fun and celebrate their wins. They’ve had such success with it, it is now part of their yearly planning process.

I have another client who developed a personal plan and integrated stronger work boundaries based on some coaching and training with us.* He planned his days more intentionally. Set up strategic space and time for himself. He even received a major promotion due to his increased energy, newfound creativity, and improved work outcomes from his efforts. But here’s the real story: a major personal health emergency with an immediate family member arose unexpectedly. He was under extreme personal stress and was bedside at the hospital for multiple weeks straight. We spoke just after he had this experience. His comment: I don’t think I could have managed all that without this work on boundaries.

Sometimes we can’t plan for something—but we can prep for it.

Here’s the best news: his family member is healthy again. And here’s the good news: he had cultivated skills, tools, and the support he needed when he truly needed it—and he continues to thrive at work. Bonus: he’s sharing and teaching these skills to others too.

It’s time we start creating work structures that honor our needs and optimize our full potential—individually and collectively. We need to stop looking at wellness as just a simple “side training” or box-checking activity and consider the possibility that focused effort in this space will create stronger teams and stronger outcomes. As we strategically shift our approaches to work, we will not only improve our health and business outcomes but also contribute to sustainable, resilient, and innovative corporate environments that positively impact our communities. Wellness—only amplified.

*Client stories slightly altered to ensure confidentiality.