“What data do you collect to assess whether your interventions are effective, delivering a return on investment, and whether adjustments are needed if the results aren’t meeting expectations?”
That was the challenge Dame Carol Black posed to the room as she kicked off the first Make a Difference Leaders’ Lunch of 2025.
Data-driven approach more important than ever
Hosted by Wedlake Bell LLP, the event brought together senior health, wellbeing and HR leaders from a wide range of organisations to answer a pressing question: How do we get data-driven employee health and wellbeing right – so we know if we’re really making a difference?
As thinking about employee health and wellbeing matures, business costs rise and fear of wasting money buying the wrong health benefits persists, a data-driven approach is more important than ever.
If you get it right, wellbeing becomes aligned with the broader business, organisational culture and people strategy. This ensures initiatives are not siloed and establishes employee health and wellbeing as both a critical enabler and a sustained priority.
The reality? Many organisations are not short of data but they’re struggling to use it effectively. While engagement surveys, absence reports and usage statistics are plentiful, many attending the Leaders Lunch admitted that the data often feels fragmented, difficult to interpret, and even harder to use in a way that influences decision-making at the top.
Which of these challenges do you relate to?
Employers face a common set of challenges when it comes to data-driven employee health and wellbeing. These were some of the common challenges shared by Leaders’ Lunch attendees.
1. Start with the ‘why’
Jill King, SVP International at Personify Health (who are sponsors of the Leaders’ Club), warned against collecting wellbeing data simply because it’s the “right thing to do.” For example, if a focus of the business strategy is commercial growth of XX%, or an improved customer service of Y%, or an improved efficiency of Z% then think about how supporting employee health and wellbeing will directly impact this. She explained, “Without a clear strategy tied to business performance, you end up with low-risk, low-impact initiatives that fail to move the needle”. The result? Investment dries up.
2. Data is too complex
With information coming from multiple sources—engagement surveys, health and wellbeing solution providers, HR dashboards—leaders struggle to make sense of it all. “We need to spend a lot of time and energy just trying to interpret it,” admitted one attendee.
3. The quality of data is inconsistent
Many leaders rely on vendor-provided reports, and these often lack depth. “Vendors give quarterly reports, but they don’t give us data we can interrogate” one leader shared. “You have to be able to demonstrate health outcomes – not just health behaviours – and bring it back to business
performance” stressed Jill.
4. It’s hard to measure true impact
Many organisations track usage—how many employees engage with wellbeing programmes, healthcare support, EAP, counselling, fitness programmes—but usage alone often isn’t enough. “Usage tells us whether people are engaging, but does it actually improve wellbeing?” asked Dame Carol Black.
5. Insights are not joined up
One leader explained that while her data shows an improvement in an employee’s sleep, she struggles to clearly link this outcome to sustained high performance through better workload management. Additionally, identifying and leveraging the right data to assess whether health and wellbeing initiatives effectively address diverse employee needs remains a significant challenge.
6. Linking data to prevention is challenging
Some leaders noted that while data can show the impact of health interventions, it’s often difficult
to use these insights to build a strong case for a more proactive, preventative approach.
The solution
Leveraging a combination of four or five key data points ensures that wellbeing aligns with the broader business and people strategy and makes it possible to assess impact.
To find out which are the four or five data points recommended, as well as other insights shared around how you use data to tell a story to the Board and other key takeaways, you can download the full Leaders’ Lunch report here.
The Make A Difference Leaders’ Club is a community of like-minded, senior peers from across sectors – all with a workplace culture, employee health and wellbeing remit, and a common goal to advance best practice and make a difference both to employees’ lives and to their organisation. It’s free to join – you just have to qualify. You can find more details and apply here.
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