my office’s “wellness week” just adds to our stress

A reader writes:

I’m a former attorney from a government office, and I’ve been curious how you’d view something that was framed as positive but felt … off.

Each spring, our office held a “Wellness Week” intended to promote work/life balance. We were divided into teams, and each day included a different “wellness challenge” to be completed during the workday. These ranged from things like a scavenger hunt outside, guided meditation sessions, or reading an article about wellness, to more involved activities like donating to charity. During this week, I often had to forgo my actual wellness activities to participate in the one-size-fits-all “wellness” challenges so as not to let my team down.

On paper, this all sounded fine. Participation was repeatedly described as “optional” and “no pressure.” However, there was a competitive element: the team that completed the most challenges won a pizza party.

In practice, this created a very different dynamic. Many of us were already overworked and underpaid attorneys with significant caseloads, and this particular week didn’t come with any reduction in workload or expectations. The activities — especially the charitable ones — often required additional time, coordination, and money. For example, one year we were encouraged to donate “professional clothing,” which meant providing fairly new items that needed to be dry cleaned and presentable. This largely fell on the attorneys, who were already carrying the heaviest workloads.

Because participation was tracked by team, there was a subtle but real pressure not to be the person who held your team back. Even though no one explicitly said participation was required, it was hard not to feel like opting out would be noticed. At the same time, participating meant taking time away from already demanding work or adding tasks outside of working hours.

What made it feel particularly tone-deaf was the disconnect between the stated goal (reducing stress and promoting balance) and the reality (adding more to already full plates). It also raised questions for me about whether this kind of programming unintentionally shifts responsibility for burnout onto employees — i.e., “do more yoga and scavenger hunts” — rather than addressing structural workload issues.

Is this a common dynamic with workplace “wellness” initiatives? And how can employees navigate situations where something is labeled “optional” but carries implicit social or team pressure?

From a management perspective, what would a more effective (and less burdensome) approach to supporting employee well-being actually look like?

Yeah, when “wellness” becomes one more employer-imposed obligation, it’s not wellness at all. It’s just more stress.

It’s also awfully invasive, frankly. If employers want to support employee wellness, they should look at what they themselves can do, not just come up with lists of things employees should be doing. If “wellness” is truly a company value, then the company can do things like offering free and healthy snacks, excellent health insurance, generous time off, schedules that allow time for rest and exercise, and workloads that are kept to a manageable level — things that they alone are uniquely positioned to do. Scavenger hunts and charity drives ask things of employees and take all the burden off the employer. But it’s a hell of a lot cheaper for employers than doing things of real substance on their end — and so as a result, it’s incredibly common.

And as you point out, it becomes additionally offensive when you’re pressured to participate in activities but not given any real relief in your workload to make it possible; at that point, it’s just one more thing you need to juggle and can become antithetical to wellness.

As an employee, the best thing you can do is to take it at face value when you’re told that participating is optional. Yes, there may be implicit to pressure to participate, but you can still say no. If coworkers press you to participate, you can say, “I just don’t have the room on my plate; it would end up being the opposite of wellness for me.” You just need to be willing to hold firm; the majority of the time, if you do, the reaction won’t be anything you can’t handle. Moreover, doing this will model for others that they can do it too — and you might find that once you do it, others feel more comfortable setting their own boundaries too.

You can also speak up about the pressure, if you’re willing to! It would be a social good to say, “You know, tracking this by team creates pressure for people to participate when they might have reasons not to, and that’s at odds with the whole idea of a wellness initiative. Can we make this truly opt-in, where people who want to participate have the opportunity to, but it’s truly okay when people don’t? A team shouldn’t be penalized if someone on their team doesn’t have time or simply doesn’t want to participate.”

You’d probably have the gratitude of your coworkers for being willing to say that.

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