When geopolitical uncertainty is becoming part of everyday working life, how should global employers think about the health and wellbeing of their people?
That was the question at the heart of a recent Make a Difference Leaders Lunch, which took place at PwC’s offices in London and was sponsored by Personify Health. The session brought together employers from different sectors and organisation sizes to share experiences of supporting employees across borders, cultures and very different working environments.
The timing was particularly pertinent. As conflict in the Middle East intensified, the discussion provided a timely reminder that global employers are increasingly having to think about employee health and wellbeing against a backdrop of events they cannot control – and that the impact of those events can look very different depending on where people live and work.
The aim was not to arrive at a single global model. Instead, the discussion explored what needs to be in place to create a strategy that is coherent enough to provide consistency and guardrails, while flexible enough to respond to local needs.
Several themes emerged that could form the basis of a practical set of best-practice principles for employers.
Start with the business need – not the wellbeing programme
One of the clearest messages from the panel was that a health and wellbeing strategy should not exist in isolation from the organisation’s wider business strategy. This is as true for a global approach as it is for UK-centric strategy.
A successful approach starts by understanding what the organisation is trying to achieve and where workforce health can help. That means establishing clear KPIs and continually pressure-testing the strategy against changing business priorities.
As one panellist put it, health and wellbeing programmes cannot simply “look good or sound good or feel good” – they need to do good, delivering outcomes that matter to both employees and the organisation. The strongest case for investment is therefore made when workforce health can be connected to performance and other business outcomes.
This shifts the conversation away from the number of initiatives available or how many employees have accessed them, towards a more fundamental question: what difference are they making?
In practice: build the case locally before asking for budget
One panel member offered a useful checklist for anyone trying to secure investment in a particular territory.
Her advice was to:
- bring the proposal back to the organisation’s overall strategy and what it is trying to achieve;
- identify an HR colleague or other internal stakeholder who can help build support in the territory;
- find out what employees are actually talking about and what would secure their buy-in;
- research and compare the products and services available locally;
- understand the tax efficiency for both the organisation and employees;
- check the territory’s legal requirements around employee health and wellbeing; and
- only once that research is complete, present the case for budget.
The principle is simple: don’t start with the solution and then try to justify it. Start with the need, understand the local context and build the evidence before making the investment case.
The data challenge isn’t a lack of data – it’s knowing what to do with it
That led naturally to the question of measurement. This can be even more challenging for those responsible for multiple territories, where data needs to be collected from disparate sources.
The panel’s message was striking: organisations don’t necessarily need more data. They need to become better at curating, interpreting and using the data they already have.
Data might include employee sentiment and wellbeing measures alongside more established organisational indicators such as absence, claims costs, workplace safety and other measures of risk. The key is understanding which data matters, who owns it, how it is governed and how it connects to the outcomes the organisation is trying to achieve.
One panellist highlighted the danger of collecting data without first defining the measure of success. Without that link, those responsible for wellbeing can find themselves continually having to justify their budget and even their role.
There was also a powerful practical example of what happens when wellbeing data is translated into the language of the board.
At Rolls-Royce, analysis conducted by Dr David Roomes of musculoskeletal health among its 20,000 UK employees estimated a £50m annual cost. That gave a request for £1m investment in an MSK intervention considerably more weight than a generic argument about the importance of wellbeing. It also demonstrated why a headline statistic about the cost of poor mental health to “Britain PLC” is often less persuasive than showing executives what a particular issue is costing their own organisation.
The lesson is simple: make the data relevant to the decision you want someone to make.
In practice: use a maturity matrix to find the story in the data
One global drinks manufacturer described an approach based on assessing maturity across different areas of health and wellbeing, both within the business and across its global footprint.
The attendee had piloted the approach across 17 countries, looking at wellbeing maturity alongside measures such as sickness absence and annual leave utilisation to explore where the data correlated – and, importantly, what that might tell the organisation about where to focus its attention.
The value of this approach is that a maturity matrix can provide a common framework for comparing very different markets without assuming they should all have exactly the same approach.
It can also help move the conversation from “how much wellbeing activity do we have?” to “where are we mature, where are the gaps and what do the outcomes tell us?”
Global should mean consistent principles, not identical provision
Perhaps the most useful discussion centred on a common problem for multinational employers: what happens when a global strategy meets very local realities?
One participant from a major international airline highlighted the challenge of supporting employees in countries where the organisation may have only one or two people. A wellbeing initiative that works brilliantly for a large UK workforce – particularly one built around team participation – may make little sense for a lone employee in Mauritius, Morocco or Algeria. Nor will every location have the same budget or access to providers.
The response was not to abandon the idea of a global strategy, but to rethink what “global” means.
A global framework can establish principles and guardrails, while allowing local teams to determine what is culturally appropriate, available and valuable. Trying to impose exactly the same intervention everywhere can be counterproductive if the service is unavailable, culturally inappropriate or simply irrelevant to the people it is intended to support.
One panellist described this as a bottom-up process: the centre sets the guardrails, but local enthusiasm can determine what actually comes to life.
That distinction feels important. Consistency of intent does not require uniformity of delivery.
In practice: establish a global minimum standard
A global technology company shared another practical model: rather than trying to replicate every element of its wellbeing provision in every market, it has established a global minimum standard of cover.
The approach recognises a fundamental reality of global organisations: the same programme cannot necessarily be delivered everywhere, but there should still be a baseline below which provision does not fall.
This creates a useful distinction between minimum standards and maximum uniformity – giving local markets room to adapt while ensuring employees have access to a consistent foundation of support.
Don’t underestimate the power of the person who cares
One of the freshest insights from the discussion was the value of informal, locally driven activity.
A panellist gave the example of an enthusiastic employee who organised a regular rugby league in their office. It wasn’t labelled a “wellbeing intervention” and hadn’t necessarily been designed centrally as part of the wellbeing strategy. But it got people moving, created social connection and contributed to a sense of community.
The lesson was that employers can sometimes do more good by nurturing these organic sources of connection rather than trying to control or replicate them centrally.
The role of the central function, then, may be less about designing every intervention and more about creating the conditions in which good things can happen – while ensuring that local activity still sits within appropriate health, safety and quality guardrails.
That balance matters because, as another panellist cautioned, not all wellbeing is good wellbeing. A global framework still needs enough governance to prevent inappropriate products, services or initiatives being introduced simply because someone locally has enthusiasm for them.
Personalisation is not a nice-to-have – it is a trust issue
The case for local adaptation goes beyond cultural sensitivity.
One panellist argued that employers can lose trust very quickly if they get health-related support wrong. If a service isn’t accessible, appropriate or relevant to the people it is intended to support, employees may disengage – potentially for good.
That makes personalisation a strategic issue rather than simply a matter of employee preference.
The challenge is particularly acute when employers are operating across cultures where attitudes towards health and wellbeing vary considerably. In some societies, health and exercise are deeply embedded in everyday life; in others, people may have much more immediate priorities.
This means that the message, route into support and type of intervention may all need to vary, even when the underlying organisational principle remains consistent.
There was also a useful warning against taking personalisation and measurement too far. As one medical professional observed, there is a risk of becoming so focused on tracking every possible metric that the technology itself becomes counterproductive.
Sometimes the answer really is to move more, sleep better or make a sensible change – rather than commissioning another test, buying another device or collecting another data point.
The challenge is therefore not simply to personalise, but to personalise intelligently.
Equity doesn’t necessarily mean giving everyone the same thing
The conversation about local differences raised another important question: how can employers make benefits equitable without making them identical?
The answer discussed was to start with the purpose of the benefit, rather than assuming the same solution must work everywhere.
Local stakeholder input is crucial. Employers can ask what people in a particular market actually need, explore what is available locally, assess providers and consider issues such as tax efficiency. Only then should the case be made for investment.
There was also recognition that not every employee will engage with every aspect of a wellbeing strategy – and that this is not necessarily a failure.
People have different interests, cultures and lifestyles. A successful strategy may therefore offer a range of routes into better health rather than expecting universal participation in a single programme.
The important thing is to understand who the strategy is designed to reach, what problem it is solving and whether it is delivering the intended outcome.
Don’t just engage the already healthy
That point leads to perhaps one of the most important challenges for employers.
The most engaging wellbeing initiatives can sometimes be most attractive to the people who are already engaged with their health.
One panellist questioned whether highly participative programmes risk disproportionately attracting the “healthy” employees while failing to reach those at greatest risk – such as sedentary workers or people in physically demanding roles.
This creates a useful test for any global wellbeing strategy:
Are we measuring engagement, or are we measuring impact?
A programme with high participation may look successful while failing to reach the people for whom intervention could make the greatest difference.
That is another reason why employers need to combine participation data with workforce risk, health and business data.
Making the case for psychosocial risk – globally
One of the more challenging questions raised in the discussion was how organisations persuade stakeholders in countries where psychosocial risk and job design are not yet part of the mainstream business conversation.
The issue is becoming increasingly prominent in the UK, where the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recognises factors such as workload, lack of control and the design of work as psychosocial risk factors, and its Management Standards explicitly focus on the underlying causes and prevention of work-related stress.
Australia provides an even more developed example. Under the model WHS framework, employers have specific duties to manage psychosocial risks, including considering the design of work, job demands, systems of work and how psychosocial hazards interact. The model laws have been implemented in most Australian jurisdictions, although Victoria has its own occupational health and safety framework.
For global employers, however, the challenge is that the language and expectations can be much less developed in other markets.
The roundtable discussion suggested that measurement could be the bridge.
Rather than trying to persuade stakeholders that psychosocial risk is inherently important, employers can demonstrate what it is doing to their organisation.
One attendee noted that when an organisation is in survival mode, the conversation quickly becomes about protecting productivity and driving growth. That makes the link between psychosocial risk, job design, burnout and performance potentially powerful.
Could higher burnout be associated with poorer performance? Are particular job designs creating avoidable risk? What happens to absence, retention or productivity when workload or autonomy changes?
These are questions that can potentially move the discussion away from “wellbeing versus performance” towards “what conditions enable sustainable performance?”
That may be particularly important in markets where psychosocial risk is not yet established as a board-level issue.
Don’t just take the heart out of DE&I – take the thinking with you
Another useful insight was the opportunity to borrow some of the thinking that has developed through diversity, equity and inclusion.
Global DE&I strategies have had to grapple with the tension between common organisational principles and very different local cultures, histories and expectations.
The same thinking can be applied to health and wellbeing: establish the heart, head and mind of the organisation’s approach centrally, but create enough flexibility for local teams to make it meaningful in their own context.
The objective is not to impose a single definition of healthy work. It is to create a shared ambition while allowing local ownership to make that ambition real. This was also a reminder that, where possible, it makes sense to align health and wellbeing strategy with inclusion.
Technology can scale globally – but human contact still matters
Technology inevitably has an important role to play in global health and wellbeing strategies.
Digital tools can provide consistency, reach employees across multiple markets and make certain forms of support more accessible. They can also generate data that helps organisations understand engagement and outcomes.
But the panel and roundtable discussions also reinforced an important limitation: technology can scale support; it cannot replace human connection everywhere.
Local relationships, trusted colleagues, managers and culturally relevant human contact remain essential, particularly when employees are dealing with complex or sensitive health issues.
For global employers, the question is therefore not technology or human support, but where technology can provide scale and consistency and where local human connection is indispensable.
Health and wellbeing needs to be broader than a set of benefits
Another theme running through the conversation was the danger of defining wellbeing too narrowly.
One panellist described wellbeing as encompassing everything from the moment someone wakes up to when they go to sleep: health, belonging, community, support through bereavement and managing chronic conditions, alongside more traditional wellbeing interventions.
Technology can help make some forms of support more accessible and scalable, but the underlying strategy needs to start with what the organisation is actually trying to achieve.
This also has implications for benefits design.
Rather than assuming that one universally popular benefit will meet everyone’s needs, employers can think about how their overall benefits architecture gives people different ways to support their health – including options that may be more relevant to different cultures, circumstances and lifestyles.
Towards a set of best-practice principles
The discussion did not produce a neat checklist – and perhaps that is part of the point.
A successful global health and wellbeing strategy cannot simply be lifted from one organisation and replicated elsewhere. But the conversation did point towards a number of principles that could provide useful guardrails for employers:
- Start with organisational need: connect workforce health to business strategy and define the outcomes that matter.
- Measure what matters: focus on meaningful outcomes rather than activity and participation alone.
- Make data useful: curate and interpret the data you have rather than simply collecting more of it.
- Create global guardrails, not global uniformity: establish clear principles while allowing appropriate local adaptation.
- Design for culture and context: understand what health, wellbeing and support mean to different populations.
- Apply the DE&I lesson: combine shared global principles with local insight and ownership to create genuine buy-in that aligns with inclusion strategies where possible
- Build local ownership: identify and nurture the people who can make healthy behaviours and connections part of everyday working life.
- Keep quality and governance centrally anchored: local flexibility should not mean a free-for-all.
- Establish a global minimum standard: consistency does not mean identical provision, but employees should have a baseline level of support wherever they work.
- Look beyond the already engaged: test whether your strategy is reaching those who have the greatest need.
- Connect health to sustainable performance: use evidence around burnout, job design, productivity and performance to demonstrate why workforce health matters to the business.
- Use technology for scale, but keep human connection: digital provision can extend reach, but local relationships and human contact remain fundamental.
- Think holistically: consider health, wellbeing, belonging, financial circumstances, community and life events as interconnected rather than separate interventions.
The challenge for global employers is therefore not to create a single, perfectly standardised wellbeing programme. It is to build a coherent system that is locally relevant, evidence-led, clinically robust and trusted.
As geopolitical uncertainty, economic pressure and changing expectations continue to shape working lives, that may be the more sustainable definition of a truly global employee health and wellbeing strategy.
This feature draws on the panel and closed-door roundtable discussions at a Make a Difference Leaders Lunch hosted by PwC and sponsored by Personify Health.
Make a Difference Leaders discussions matter. They create space for those responsible for culture, health, wellbeing, benefits and employee experience to learn from one another in real time, test ideas honestly and share solutions that rarely emerge within organisational silos. You can find out more about Make a Difference Leaders and apply to join here.
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