Tips on how to promote wellness in the workplace

Promoting wellness in the workplace requires a holistic strategy that combines accessible resources, consistent communication, and a supportive culture. To truly improve employee wellbeing, organizations should normalize mental health conversations, encourage work-life balance through flexible policies, and actively distribute wellness reminders across all employee communication channels.

You know that sinking feeling when your CEO announces another “employee wellbeing initiative“? Meanwhile, your inbox fills with burnout complaints and engagement surveys show people feel more disconnected than ever. 

Your employees are your greatest asset, but they’re also human. Between deadlines, meetings, and the general hustle of life, burnout is a very real risk. According to Appspace research, 85% of employees say their organization could do more to improve their experience. Meanwhile, 82% struggle to connect with colleagues. These aren’t just failures of your wellness program; they’re the result of real communication gaps.

That’s why building a culture of health isn’t just a “nice-to-have” – it’s a business essential. But how do you move from “having a wellness program” to actually getting people to use it? It starts with how you talk about it.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to reframe employee wellbeing as a communication challenge. We’ll help you identify the channels and tactics that move the needle, then build measurement frameworks that prove your impact without stepping on HR’s toes.

What is employee wellbeing?

Remember when “employee engagement” was the buzzword everyone threw around but nobody could actually move the needle on? Wellbeing is different. It’s what engagement was trying to be before it got watered down by consultants and survey fatigue.

Employee wellbeing goes way beyond free gym memberships and tele-therapy apps. It’s about creating an environment where people feel genuinely supported, connected, and able to thrive at work, not just survive. It’s the foundation that makes everything else possible: better performance, lower turnover, and teams that actually want to show up.

Here are the six pillars of employee wellbeing:

• Career wellbeing: Growth opportunities and meaningful work
• Social wellbeing: Strong relationships and connections with colleagues
• Financial wellbeing: Fair compensation and financial security
• Physical wellbeing: Health support and work-life balance
• Emotional wellbeing: Mental health support and psychological safety
• Community wellbeing: Sense of belonging and shared purpose

Why is wellbeing important in the workplace?

It’s simple: happy, healthy people do better work. When you prioritize physical and mental health, you aren’t just checking a box for HR compliance; you’re building a foundation for success.

• Increased productivity: Gallup found that employees with high wellbeing are 23% more productive. When people aren’t burnt out or stressed about basic needs, they have the mental bandwidth for innovation and problem-solving.
• Stronger culture and retention: A supportive environment fosters trust and reduces turnover. Our 2025 report on workplace experience found that 92% of employees say having genuine connections with colleagues is crucial to their experience. And the experience doesn’t meet the bar, people start browsing job postings elsewhere.

This isn’t just feel-good fluff anymore; it’s a competitive advantage. Companies that treat wellbeing as a strategic initiative outperform those that don’t.

How internal comms shapes employee wellbeing

The old model where HR “owned” employee wellbeing while everyone else stayed in their lane? Those days are long gone.

Employee wellbeing has quietly become part of an internal comms manager’s role. Today’s distributed workforce needs wellbeing support that reaches them where they actually are. That would be in their inboxes, on their phones, and at the digital displays they pass every day. But according to our 2025 report, 69% of employees say their organization delivers inconsistent messaging across channels.

That kind of inconsistency isn’t just annoying. It actively undermines the wellbeing initiatives your organization is investing in.

Internal communications directly shapes the employee experience in three critical ways:

• Messaging cadence and clarity determines whether people feel overwhelmed by constant notifications, or get left in the dark about the resources they should be tracking.
• Visibility of wellbeing resources means the difference between employees actually finding mental health support or giving up after clicking through five broken links.
• Tone and accessibility of content signals whether your organization genuinely cares about people or just checks compliance boxes. Employees can tell the difference immediately.

This responsibility hits differently depending on your sector. For example:

• Education: Campus-wide communications about safety alerts, schedule changes, or policy updates through digital signage and intranets either help students and faculty feel informed and connected, or add to campus stress and confusion.
• Healthcare: Shift schedules, policy changes, and critical updates need to reach frontline workers who can’t always access desktop systems. Poor mobile communication is a direct pathway to isolation and burnout.
• Manufacturing: Safety updates, shift changes, and company announcements to factory floor workers reveal why only 29% of frontline workers feel like they belong at their organization. Most feel forgotten because corporate communication never actually reaches them.

These aren’t abstract problems; they’re communication challenges that show up in your channels every single day.

How to improve mental health and employee wellbeing in the workplace

Now that we’ve established why employee wellbeing is a problem internal comms can help solve, let’s talk solutions. 

The good news is you don’t need a massive budget or six months of stakeholder buy-in to start making a difference. The platforms you’re already managing – your intranet, digital signage, mobile apps, and content publishing workflows – can become powerful wellbeing tools with some strategic tweaks.

3 easy employee wellness tactics

Want a quick win? Here are a few easy-to-deploy tactics that you can start using right now:

1. Communicate clearly: Use your intranet and digital signage to make sure benefits and support resources are visible and accessible.
2. Check in regularly: Use informal 1:1s to ask “How are you?” before asking “How’s the project?”
3. Lead by example: Leadership should openly take time off and respect boundaries.

5 quick messages that encourage employee wellbeing

Sometimes, people just need a nudge. Here are five ready-to-use messages you can publish to your channels to remind your team to prioritize themselves.

1. The “disconnect” nudge

• Headline: Unplug to recharge.
• Body: You can’t pour from an empty cup. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Remember to disconnect fully when you log off today. No emails, no notifications—just you time. You’ve earned it.

2. The benefits reminder

• Headline: We’ve got your back (and your health).
• Body: Did you know your benefits package includes access to mental health support and counseling? It’s confidential, free, and there for you whenever you need it. Check the employee portal for details.

3. The “walk and talk” encouragement

• Headline: Take a breather.
• Body: Feeling stuck on a problem? Step away from the screen. A 10-minute walk can reset your brain and boost your mood. The work will still be there when you get back, and you’ll be better equipped to handle it.

4. The gratitude check

• Headline: What went right today?
• Body: It’s easy to focus on stressors. Take two minutes to shout out a colleague who helped you this week, or write down one win you’re proud of. Positive vibes are contagious.

5. The open door invitation

• Headline: It’s okay to not be okay
• Body: Feeling overwhelmed? You don’t have to power through it alone. Reach out to your manager or HR partner. We’re here to support you, always.

5 long-term strategies for connection and wellness in the workplace

But improving employee wellness long-term goes beyond just band-aid fixes. It requires consistent, ongoing effort. Here are five broader-scope strategies for increasing connection and employee mental health.

1. Create content that actually connects people

• Normalize vulnerability by publishing real employee stories about stress, caregiving challenges, or recovery journeys.
• Give managers templates for empathetic internal messaging that acknowledges what people are actually going through.
• Crowdsource peer advice and wellness habits. People trust recommendations from colleagues way more than corporate-sponsored content.

2. Turn your intranet into a wellbeing hub

• Feature rotating employee stories that tackle real issues like burnout, work-life balance, or managing difficult seasons.
• Link directly to pulse surveys, mental health resources, and peer support information.
• Make everything easy to find, navigate, and act on – not just another compliance checkbox.

3. Add wellbeing touchpoints to your content publishing rhythm

• Incorporate small wellness messages into your existing channels – weekly newsletters, leadership updates, even policy announcements.
• Reinforce healthy habits without launching new initiatives.
• Look for natural moments to embed recognition or stress tips without disrupting the flow.

4. Deploy digital signage that supports, not overwhelms

• Run monthly campaigns on topics like stress relief, break reminders, or hydration.
• Display real-time prompts that feel timely and helpful – not generic or patronizing.
• Spotlight employee recognitions tied to mental health awareness or seasonal wellbeing themes.

5. Use mobile apps to nudge instead of nag

• Push wellness check-ins that feel caring, PTO reminders for people who struggle to disconnect, and prompts that encourage small positive actions.
• Promote optional, opt-in content like movement breaks or journaling prompts.
• Keep it supportive rather than invasive. People should want to engage, not feel surveilled.

The tactics we’ve outlined here work best when they’re integrated and consistent across your organization. Platforms like Appspace help internal communications teams create these connected experiences without needing separate vendors for each channel.

Whether you’re publishing employee stories to your intranet while simultaneously pushing wellness reminders to digital displays, or sending coordinated mobile notifications that link back to resources on your intranet, the key is making sure your wellbeing communications feel seamless and intentional rather than scattered and overwhelming.

How to measure employee wellbeing

You’re not trying to become a wellbeing expert overnight, and you don’t want to step on HR’s toes. But if you’re going to make employee wellbeing part of your communications strategy, you need to know whether it’s working.

Start with quantitative metrics:

• Pulse surveys on wellbeing communication. Embed short, anonymous employee surveys directly in your intranet or mobile app. Focus on how people feel about communication and connection rather than broad wellness questions.
• Click-through rates on wellbeing content. Compare engagement with wellbeing-focused content versus standard company announcements. This tells you what actually resonates with your audience.
• Open-text feedback fields. Add “emotional temperature” questions to regular feedback forms. People can share what’s genuinely on their minds without structured survey constraints.
• Content engagement patterns. Track engagement rates on employee stories or peer advice content versus typical corporate communications. Authentic content usually performs differently.

(For more metrics, check out our full guide on using KPIs to measure the employee experience.)

But numbers only tell part of the story. Qualitative feedback often reveals what’s really happening:

• Anonymous story collection. Set up tools that let people share experiences without revealing identity. You’ll quickly learn what’s actually helping people versus what feels performative.
• Sentiment analysis from existing channels. Monitor patterns in how people talk about work and each other in internal forums, chat tools, or comment sections on intranet posts.
• Department liaisons and informal check-ins. Regular conversations with employee resource groups or department representatives can give you the real temperature of different teams without formal surveys.

Remember to be careful. Measuring wellbeing isn’t about surveillance or creating more data points to judge people. Your goal is understanding whether your communications are making people feel more supported, not tracking individual wellness metrics. 

Keep it light-touch, keep it voluntary, and always be transparent about how you’re using the feedback you collect.

Make a real impact on employee wellness in your workplace

You’re not going to solve systemic workplace issues with better email subject lines, and you can’t cure burnout with digital signage reminders. But you can help people feel seen, heard, and supported through the way you communicate.

Creating a culture of respect and wellness doesn’t happen overnight. Consistent communication is the key to making it stick. 

Start small. Launch one wellbeing-focused campaign this month. Publish one authentic employee story. Open one feedback channel. Send one genuinely supportive nudge through your existing platforms. And before long, that momentum will build, until you’ve helped create a happier and healthier workplace.

Ready to turn your communications platforms into employee wellbeing tools that actually make a difference? Try Appspace free and see how integrating your communications can change your approach to workplace wellness.