Health Update: Companies Are Getting Corporate Wellness All Wrong, Expert Says — Here’s One Solution – What Experts Say

Employee wellness isn’t just about having healthy snacks in the office, argues executive and athlete performance coach Sam Neame. It’s about accessibility and giving people the time to take care of core pillars of wellness, including rest, fitness and nutrition

Sam Neame thinks companies are going about corporate wellness all wrong.

He realized this while working as a stockbroker in London — what he thought was his dream job — as he found his health steadily deteriorating.

“After about three to four months, I realized I have no energy, I’m not exercising as much and I don’t have time to eat well, and my mind was just running all the time,” Neame told Athletech News. “I really struggled with it to the point where I was concerned.”

“My fundamental health needs weren’t being met,” he said.

Neame did a deep dive into what those needs are and how to meet them, leading him to a major career switch and landing him where he is now: a performance coach for executives and Olympic-level athletes, with a sharp focus on how wellness can support high-level success.

When it comes to corporate wellness, though, Neame sees a major gap in how companies are looking after their workers to ensure a thriving business.

“There’s a much larger issue, and that is the mental and physical well-being of employees,” he said.

The Cost of Burnout

Neame pointed out that if companies disregard employee wellness, they’re only hurting themselves. 

Burnout can lead to quiet quitting, absenteeism and worsened mental health, he said, which puts a strain on both the healthcare system and the business.

A 2025 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine quantified the cost of burnout in the U.S., estimated it to be somewhere between $4,000 and $21,000 per worker per year. For a company of 1,000 employees, that’s a loss of $5 million annually.

“These organizations are running these amazing companies, but they’re running their people into the ground,” Neame said.  “What people don’t get is that the only way that you can actually work efficiently is when you rest — taking that day off, taking the afternoon off, if you can, taking the evening to really look after yourself.”

Neame’s argument makes sense: if you don’t have the time or energy to look after yourself, it’s difficult to perform at your best.

“What if we were to look after someone as a real human, to give them all they need, to fill their needs bit by bit?” Neame asks. “How would that help the company perform?”

Redefining Workplace Wellness Means Redefining the Workday

So, what would this reimagined concept of workplace wellness look like? Neame has a few ideas, some potentially more radical than others.

In his eyes, wellness isn’t just about having healthy snacks in the office, it’s about accessibility and time to take care of core pillars of wellness, including rest, fitness and nutrition. 

In that sense, the relationship between work and wellness really begins before the workday starts. 

“Companies need to invest more in their employees having the possibility to reach their goals in the morning — their personal well-being goals,” Neame said.

While many leaders and employees think success arrives from working more, Neame actually thinks the opposite. C-suite executives and top leaders might tense up upon hearing Neame’s remedy for that: starting the workday later — as late as 10:30 or 11:00 a.m.

“If you have a great morning, you are far more likely to hit whatever you have to do that day in a quicker time than spending 9 to 10 hours sitting down in the same space,” he said. “I never believe that you need to be in an office 9 to 5.”

Neame pointed out that even if companies have an on-site gym, it’s not very useful if their employees don’t have the time to use it, let alone the ability to take a full lunch break. 

He noticed a distinct shift with the explosion of work from home, where employees seemed to thrive with more flexibility in their days — especially in their mornings, when Neame says is the ideal time to prime the mind and body for the day ahead: to sleep in, get in a workout, eat a proper breakfast and take care of their families, leaving them fresher and less scattered when they sit down to work.

Ideally, Neame would like to pilot approaches like shorter workdays and even workweeks — a six-hour workday, a four-day workweek to see how productive employees could be in that condensed period, and with more time to take care of themselves and spend time with loved ones.

Convincing the biggest brands and companies to adopt this approach is likely difficult, Neame recognizes. But he thinks reframing the issue as essential to growth and profit could be the way to go.

“Maybe it isn’t about optimizing well-being,” Neame hypothesized. “Maybe it’s about optimizing revenue for some companies, and maybe then they’ll listen.”