A question that came up in a recent discussion with Make a Difference Leaders is this: how do we reach the people who just don’t engage with wellbeing? The cynics, the disengaged, the people out in the field who never read a company email. The honest answer? Most organisations aren’t failing to reach these groups – they’re designing for the wrong audience in the first place.
Let’s start with the “cynics”
Cynics are often misunderstood. In many cases, they’re not anti-wellbeing – they’re anti what they think wellbeing is. If it’s positioned as yoga sessions, step challenges, and discounted gym gear, it’s no surprise some people switch off. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t see how it helps them perform.
I saw this recently when I got 50% off trainers through a benefits scheme. Nice, but it didn’t make me more motivated at work. What did? Being around high-performing teams with clear standards, strong leadership, challenge, trust, and a shared sense of purpose. That’s what drives engagement – and that is wellbeing.
This became really clear to me before we rebranded Ridgeflow Performance. We were running sessions called “Wellbeing Training for Managers” across large organisations—cohorts of 100+ leaders. By the time you got to cohort six or seven, you could feel the scepticism in the room.
So I’d spend the first 10–15 minutes doing the same thing: explaining the business case, sharing the data, and—crucially—giving people permission not to use the word “wellbeing” at all. Call it performance. Call it winning. Call it whatever lands. And almost every time, you’d feel the shift. People leaned in. Conversations changed. Engagement went up.
That’s when it clicked. Why are we spending the first part of every session trying to reframe the word, instead of just using language that works from the start?
Since then, I’ve seen this pattern across professional services, telecoms, finance, corporates, and startups.
One example – a well-funded start-up I’d been speaking to for a while about wellbeing. Limited interest. The moment the conversation shifted to performance, culture, and how their people actually show up day to day, the founder’s eyes lit up. Now we’re supporting them on a retained basis – looking at performance metrics, engagement, belonging, clarity, and manager support. All improving. And yes, wellbeing improves too – but we didn’t have to lead with it.
So for HR leaders reading this, a simple question: are you trying to sell wellbeing, or are you solving performance problems that wellbeing underpins?
Because if it’s the former, you’ll keep hitting resistance. If it’s the latter, the cynics often become your biggest advocates.
The second group often labelled “hard to reach”
These are frontline, non-desk, or remote workers. In reality, they’re not hard to reach – they’re just not sitting at a desk refreshing Outlook. Yet most wellbeing communication still relies on emails, newsletters, and intranet posts that many of these employees never see.
I worked with a cleaning company operating across 50+ sites in London. When we sent a wellbeing survey via email, engagement was low. When we sent it via WhatsApp – in English and Spanish – we got a 90% response rate. Same workforce, different channel.
In another example, we had near full sign-up for one-to-one wellbeing interviews, but only one person showed up. Why? Managers didn’t release staff. Operational pressure came first. That’s not a communication failure – it’s a leadership alignment issue. If senior leaders say wellbeing matters, but line managers are measured purely on output, guess what wins.
We’ve seen the flip side when this is done well. In a telecoms company, we worked with engineers in the field and head office teams, designing two distinct communication campaigns around the same wellbeing strategy and benefits. Engineers received messaging through on-site materials, team briefings, and formats that fit into their day. Head office teams engaged through digital channels. Same strategy, different delivery – and significantly better engagement across both.
With ASICS EMEA across 18 countries, we tailored communication and interventions for both desk-based and non-desk teams. With Rimi Baltic – 15,000 employees across 300 stores, as well as head office, supply chain, central kitchen, and e-commerce – we built completely bespoke wellbeing action plans and communication models for each part of the business. Different roles, different pressures, different realities – so different solutions. See more of our case-studies here.
The biggest mistake I see in global wellbeing strategies is assuming consistency equals fairness. It doesn’t. What works for office-based teams often has zero relevance for frontline staff. In retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics, roles are physically, mentally, and operationally different. The risks are different, the pressures are different, and the solutions need to be too.
We worked with a hospital where staff had high levels of musculoskeletal issues, driving absence. By analysing the data and implementing role-specific interventions, we reduced absence to the point it effectively created the equivalent capacity of several additional full-time specialist medical hires – six-figure impact from targeted health and wellbeing!
That’s the difference between generic initiatives and strategic ones. If you want engagement from “hard to reach” groups, you need to segment your workforce properly, understand the demands of each role, design interventions that fit how work actually happens, and communicate in ways that are accessible, visible, and relevant – not just available.
If people aren’t engaging with your wellbeing strategy, it’s easy to assume they don’t care. More often, it’s because they don’t see the relevance, don’t trust the intent, or simply can’t access it. This isn’t an engagement problem – it’s a design problem.
Get the positioning right, meet people where they are, and design for reality, not theory. Do that, and the “hard to reach” suddenly become a lot easier to reach.
If this is something you’re grappling with, or you’re just curious how this can be done in practice, feel free to reach out, here’s my website. I’m always happy to have a quick virtual coffee and share what’s worked (and what hasn’t) across different organisations. You can also speak to Claire Farrow, who can put you in touch and share a bit more context on the work. I’m also on the www.makeadifference.media Supplier Guide as an Associate provider if that’s helpful.
About the author:
Khalil Rener is the founder of Ridgeflow Performance and a top-tier leadership consultant, performance coach, and wellbeing expert. With a BSc and MSc in Sport and Exercise Science from Loughborough University, his work focuses on applying the principles of elite sport to help people and teams thrive at work. Khalil has supported organisations including DP World, Novartis, the NHS, JT Global, NatWest, Sport England, and many more—from global companies to schools, councils, and frontline teams. His breadth of experience spans industries, team sizes, and career stages, from senior leaders to students and early-career professionals.
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