Employee wellbeing must move beyond programmes to everyday practice: Shruti Walia, Cult.Fit

Employee well-being is no longer viewed as a standalone HR initiative. As burnout, stress and disengagement continue to challenge organisations, the conversation is shifting from offering wellness programmes to creating healthier ways of working that support long-term performance, resilience and retention.

Increasingly, organisations are recognising that wellbeing cannot be measured by participation alone. Instead, the focus is moving towards whether employees are building healthier habits, managers are creating supportive work environments, and well-being efforts are translating into stronger business outcomes.

In this conversation with People Matters, Shruti Walia, Head of HR at cult.fit, discusses why prevention is becoming central to workplace wellbeing, how organisations should measure impact beyond utilisation, and what it takes to build healthier workplaces for the future.

(Some responses have been edited for readability and flow.)

Q. Employee well-being has moved beyond a benefits conversation. How do you see HR leaders embedding wellbeing into business and people strategy today?

Employee well-being is no longer a peripheral HR initiative; it is becoming central to business and people strategy. Organisations are increasingly recognising that when employees feel healthy, supported and energised, they are more engaged, more productive and more likely to stay. That has a direct impact on retention, innovation and overall business performance.

Our recent study, The Always-On Epidemic: Breaking the Burnout Cycle in Indian Workplaces, reinforces this shift. It found that 91% of companies plan to increase investments in wellbeing, while 66% are expanding resilience and pressure management programmes. At the same time, nearly 49% of employees are actively looking for new opportunities, which underlines the connection between well- being and retention.

As a result, HR leaders are moving wellbeing from policy to practice by making it part of everyday work.

That includes promoting healthier habits, equipping managers to better support their teams, and giving employees access to fitness, mental wellbeing and preventive healthcare solutions in a way that is consistent and accessible.

Burnout cannot be solved through one-off wellness activities. What makes a meaningful difference is a consistent, long-term approach that helps employees build healthier habits over time rather than offering isolated interventions.

We have seen the strongest impact when organisations make wellbeing a regular part of employees’ lives through a combination of fitness, preventive healthcare, mental wellbeing support and community- led experiences that keep engagement high. Just as important is ease of access. If programmes are difficult to use or disconnected from employees’ daily routines, adoption tends to drop quickly.

The real shift happens when organisations focus on long-term behaviour change. That is when employees are better able to manage stress, improve their overall well-being, and sustain performance in a healthier way.

Q. As organisations invest more in workplace wellness, how should they measure success beyond participation rates and utilisation?

Participation and utilisation are useful starting points, but they only show whether employees are using a programme, not whether the programme is creating real impact. To understand success, organisations need to look at outcomes.

That includes indicators such as healthier habits, lower stress and burnout levels, improved mental wellbeing and stronger employee engagement. It is equally important to track business outcomes such as absenteeism, attrition, productivity and retention, because these provide a much clearer view of whether wellbeing efforts are making a measurable difference.

Regular employee feedback also matters. It helps organisations understand whether programmes feel relevant, accessible and genuinely valuable. Beyond traditional ROI, I believe more organisations should look at Value on Investment, or VOI, which captures broader gains such as employee wellbeing, workforce resilience and overall organisational performance. That gives a more complete view of long-term impact.

And honestly, some of the clearest signals aren't in a dashboard at all. Do people actually look forward to coming into office? Do they seem happy, energised, and glad to see their colleagues? When you notice that, you know something is working.

Q. How is Cult for Corporates helping organisations shift from reactive healthcare to a more preventive and holistic approach to employee wellbeing?

One of the biggest shifts we are seeing is that organisations no longer want wellbeing to begin only when employees are already stressed, disengaged or dealing with health issues. There is a growing focus on prevention and on creating environments that make healthy choices easier in everyday life.

Through Cult for Corporates, we help organisations take a more proactive approach by giving employees access to fitness solutions such as gym memberships, on-campus fitness facilities and yoga programmes.

The idea is to make wellbeing more integrated, more accessible and easier to sustain as part of

employees’ routines.

Our study also reflects this shift in behaviour, with 40% of employees saying they already use fitness to manage stress. As organisations invest more in preventive wellbeing, the opportunity is to move beyond reactive support and build healthier, more engaged and more productive workforces over time.

Q. Looking ahead, what do you think will define a truly healthy workplace over the next few years?

A truly healthy workplace will be one where wellbeing is embedded into everyday work rather than treated as something employees access only when they are already overwhelmed or unwell.

Over the next few years, I believe organisations will move away from one-size-fits-all programmes and focus more on helping employees build healthy habits through flexible, personalised and more accessible formats. Technology and data will play an important role in making these experiences more relevant, but the human element will remain just as critical.

Managers, in particular, will have a much bigger role to play in shaping supportive team environments and encouraging healthier ways of working. Ultimately, the organisations that invest in their people’s long-term wellbeing will be better positioned to attract talent, strengthen engagement, improve retention and build a more resilient workforce.