Why workplace health investments often fail to land

Most companies today invest in mental health, resilience training, and employee wellbeing. At the same time, employees are being trained to use more and more digital tools. Hardly anyone has recognized how closely those two things are connected.

Employers mean well. Currently, 91% of HR decision-makers plan to invest more money in their employees' mental health (Wellable Employee Wellness Industry Trends, 2024). They also seem convinced by the measures implemented: 70% of leaders believe their offering works, but only about one third of employees confirm an actual improvement in their wellbeing. That is a perception gap of almost 35 percentage points. While there is broad awareness of how relevant health in the workplace is, there is clearly a major discrepancy between how effective these measures are perceived to be by employers versus employees.

This gap is not abstract - it has measurable consequences. In Switzerland, the share of stressed workers has risen from 18% to 23% over ten years, and for the first time since measurements began, more than 30% report emotional exhaustion (BFS / Gesundheitsförderung Schweiz, 2022). Today, 82% of employees are considered at risk of burnout - not burned out yet, but at risk of becoming so (Mercer Global Talent Trends, 2024). Among Gen Z and Millennials, burnout now peaks at age 25, which is 17 years earlier than the population average. Investments are rising, and exhaustion is rising too. Something is missing in the equation.

The solution? Digital tools are often brought in to counter mental health problems. A meta-review by PMC, "Digital Wellness Programs in the Workplace" (2025), found that the vast majority of reviews (93%) focused on the effectiveness of digital tools for health programs. Researchers examined meditation apps, activity-tracking wearables, and positive psychology websites. But what is barely studied is digital media in the workplace itself as a direct factor of digital wellbeing. Yet there is ample empirical evidence that technostress - a form of stress caused by using or adapting to information and communication technologies - is measurable and has far-reaching effects on productivity and health.

From digitalization, we keep expecting productivity gains only - emails are faster than letters, Teams chats are faster than emails, Copilot writes answers faster than humans. But can it really be more efficient if we receive 117 emails and 153 Teams messages per day (Microsoft's Work Trend Index, 2025)? Quite the opposite. Research repeatedly shows that technostress measurably lowers productivity, and companies that fail to manage digitally induced stress do not realize the expected productivity gains from digitalization (Nastjuk et al., 2023). If people are expected to be productive, they first need to be healthy.

And this is the core problem. Our health suffers significantly when digital media takes up too much space in everyday work. Systematic reviews show that "techno-invasion" (the expectation to remain reachable outside working hours) and "techno-overload" (too many digital tasks at once) are the most frequently cited stressors in digitalized work environments (Pothuganti, 2024). Accordingly, there is also substantial evidence linking technology to exhaustion symptoms. Information overload, digital communication burden, and the fear of missing out in digital work environments are all independent risk factors for exhaustion and burnout (Soomro et al., 2025; Marsh et al., 2024).

For children, we now broadly agree on the risks and dangers of excessive digital consumption - yet we still expect working adults to spend several hours a day on screens, constantly monitor multiple communication channels, attend back-to-back virtual meetings, and regularly complete IT trainings for new software. You can take a tablet away from a child - employees can hardly protect themselves.

What this requires is not another tool. It requires a shared understanding of what digital stress does in day-to-day work - and a leadership culture that does not merely preach digital balance, but actually models it. That is exactly where we come in: through consulting, workshops, and practical implementation of measures that fit your company.