The Power of Prevention
Stress may seem like an inevitable part of work, but when left unchecked, its impact extends far beyond individual well-being. What starts as manageable pressure can quietly escalate into poor health, costly health claims, and turnover. The good news? With the right preventative measures, businesses can break this cycle—protecting both their people and their bottom line.
In a recent webinar, our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Lydia Roos, discussed how the traditional approach to health isn’t working–for individuals or businesses. Here we share Lydia's thoughts on how companies that take a proactive approach to stress and health don’t just create healthier employees–they create healthier bottom line.
What is Preventative Health and How Does It Differ from Traditional Healthcare?
Traditional healthcare takes a reactive approach to treating individuals who are already in poor health. There are a couple of barriers to getting care - individuals need to be sick enough to warrant care, and for those that have health insurance, the cost of the deductible can discourage people from seeking care, even when it's clear they need it. Individuals have to pay out of pocket for at least a portion of the deductible if not the entire cost, which is commonly around $5,000 - a significant cost when compared with a person’s salary. As a result, we see people delay seeking help until their health is in crisis, in turn leading to worsening health and increasing cost as their case becomes more complex.
So traditional healthcare models mean that we wait for a problem to escalate into a chronic health condition or crisis before addressing it. This is detrimental to everyone—the individual, the health system, and businesses who are then managing an employee who is in a health crisis. This reactive approach is not only costly, but it also results in a less resilient, less productive, and less stable workforce.
Preventative health takes a proactive stance by intervening earlier. It consists of three levels:
- Primary Prevention: Keeping healthy people healthy through lifestyle support, stress management, nutrition, and regular physical activity. This is what we call health maintenance, which often requires more effort than we expect. As we age, we naturally become less healthy, and we need support to engage in the health behaviors and stress management necessary to prevent health deterioration.
- Secondary Prevention: Detecting early signs of decline through screenings, mental health assessments, and early medical interventions to prevent progression. Think of this as catching and addressing a problem before it escalates.
- Tertiary Prevention: Managing existing conditions or diseases to minimize complications through a combination of medication, health behavior changes, mental resilience techniques, and structured support systems.
Let’s take a look at what a reactive approach looks like in practice, compared to a preventive approach.
Amy, a dedicated employee, starts feeling some early signs of negative stress at work. Initially manageable, it escalates over time, leading to fatigue and brain fog, her work performance declines, and she starts disengaging. Her frustration starts affecting her workplace interactions, creating tension with colleagues. Her underlying autoimmune condition flares up due to chronic stress, requiring expensive medication and leading to more missed work.
Eventually, Amy reaches her breaking point and takes a leave of absence. When she returns, she struggles to reintegrate, and ultimately, she leaves the company. The cost to the business is significant - across productivity loss, sick days, turnover, and higher insurance premiums. The business also loses a skilled employee, incurring hiring and training costs, and not to mention the disruption to the wider team that affects overall morale and performance.
Now, imagine a workplace that has preventive measures in place. Instead of waiting for burnout, the company has proactive health benefits to track and support stress resilience. Amy receives early insights into her well-being, with assessments that pinpoint stress factors she may not have been aware of. She’s provided with tailored, evidence-based strategies, including recovery techniques, stress-management exercises, and workload adjustments.
Her company also recognizes that stress is not just a personal issue—it’s a business risk. Her manager, trained to identify early signs of stress, engages in regular check-ins, ensuring workload balance and supporting her well-being proactively. As a result, Amy builds resilience, maintains productivity, and avoids costly medical interventions. She stays engaged in her role, doesn’t consider leaving, and doesn’t need to make a health claim.
The long-term impact of this approach is significant. Not only does Amy thrive, but the company benefits from reduced turnover, lower healthcare expenses, and a workforce that is healthier, more engaged, and more productive. Prevention-first strategies have massive downstream effects, ultimately saving businesses significantly in unnecessary costs.
How does stress fit into this picture of health and prevention?
Stress is not just one factor in health—it is often the determining factor that shifts a person from well-being into illness. The body’s stress response, designed for short-term survival, triggers the release of adrenaline and cortisol, diverting energy to essential functions while suppressing processes like digestion, immune response, and tissue repair. While this response helps us perform under pressure, our modern work environment keeps stress levels elevated for prolonged periods, leading to widespread physiological disruptions.
Chronic stress has been linked to eight of the ten most prevalent and costly chronic diseases, including obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes. At a cellular level, it accelerates aging, increases inflammation, and disrupts metabolic processes, making the body more vulnerable to illness. Moreover, stress impairs dopamine pathways, reducing motivation and making it harder to maintain healthy habits, which in turn exacerbates poor health outcomes.
The consequences of chronic stress extend beyond individual health, impacting workplace productivity, engagement, and operational efficiency. Preventative health strategies must therefore prioritize stress resilience, much like maintaining a car to prevent breakdowns. Proper sleep, exercise, and nutrition are not just perks—they are biological necessities that help the body repair and build resilience against stress. By integrating these principles, organizations can support employees in developing long-term resilience, ultimately improving both health outcomes and workplace performance.
Why Aren’t More Companies Taking a Preventative Approach?
Two main barriers exist:
- The Reactive Mindset: Many organizations remain stuck in crisis management, too busy addressing immediate issues to invest in prevention. They often view well-being initiatives as "nice-to-have" rather than essential business strategies.
- Intangible Benefits: Companies accustomed to reactive care struggle to see prevention’s impact in the short term, despite the fact that long-term data shows that high employee well-being correlates with better stock performance, higher profit margins, and greater investor confidence. When we look at ROI, the potential is clear. Recent research shows that companies ranking in the top 100 for employee well-being outperform the S&P 500 by 11%.
To overcome these barriers, companies need:
- Executive Buy-in: Senior leaders must champion well-being as a strategic imperative.
- Measurable Metrics: Linking prevention programs to tangible business outcomes, such as reduced claims, lower attrition, and improved engagement.
- Integrated Solutions: Embedding well-being into everyday work, not as an add-on but as a core business function.
The return on investment is clear: preventative health strategies reduce critical risks to businesses in healthcare claims, absenteeism, disability costs, and turnover while enhancing creativity, focus, and motivation. Shifting to a prevention-first strategy isn’t just beneficial—it’s essential for long-term business success, ensuring a healthier workforce, greater productivity, and sustainable financial outcomes.
What Might a Blueprint for a Prevention-Driven Strategy Look Like?
A prevention-driven benefits strategy must integrate both individual and systemic approaches to improve employee resilience and well-being. This means empowering employees with personalized, scientifically validated tools to measure and manage their stress while also shaping an environment that encourages long-term engagement and health. Measurement is crucial—without tracking stress and resilience, organizations lack the insights needed to intervene before burnout occurs. Tools like the WONE Index provide real-time data on workforce resilience, helping businesses understand the root causes of well-being challenges and implement evidence-based recovery and resilience strategies. Valid measurement also strengthens the business case for prevention by demonstrating ROI to leadership, ensuring sustained investment in proactive health initiatives.
Beyond measurement, a prevention-first strategy requires a strong foundation of healthcare and preventative resources. Companies that combine comprehensive health insurance with evidence-based prevention programs achieve significantly better outcomes than those relying on either approach alone. Prevention must also be embedded into company culture through leadership policies and operational structures that reduce unnecessary stress. This includes re-evaluating meeting practices, performance metrics, and workplace policies to ensure they support sustainable productivity rather than driving burnout. From stress management training to leadership development focused on psychological safety, the solutions are vast—but success depends on partnering with experts who can guide organizations in making meaningful, measurable changes. Simply put, if stress isn’t proactively addressed, businesses risk both financial loss and long-term damage to workforce health.
Key Takeaways: Why Prevention is a Business Imperative
- Traditional healthcare is reactive, while prevention is proactive—helping employees stay healthy and resilient before issues escalate.
- A preventative approach reduces business costs by lowering healthcare claims, absenteeism, and turnover while increasing productivity and engagement.
- Workplace stress is a major but often overlooked business risk—leading to long-term health issues, decreased performance, and high organizational costs.
- Barriers to prevention include a reactive mindset and difficulty measuring short-term ROI, yet companies investing in well-being outperform competitors financially.
- Leaders must integrate prevention into business strategy by embedding well-being into work culture, leveraging data for risk mitigation, and ensuring executive buy-in.
Shifting to a prevention-first model isn’t just a wellness initiative—it’s a business necessity. Organizations that prioritize employee health build stronger, more resilient workforces that drive sustainable success.
