WellbeingROI

The cost of poor wellbeing in your business — and the case for fixing it

Sector · headcount · date

estimated annual cost of poor wellbeing part-modelled — method inside

Assessed against the HSE Management Standards and aligned to ISO 45003. Every pound figure in this report traces to a published source or is labelled as modelled.

What this report tells you, in one page

Where the money is going

Adjustment: each of the eight drivers is weighted to the costs the evidence links it to. Your answers scale each component by up to ±35% weightings modelled, evidence-informed. Full method and references at the back.

Your position against the HSE Management Standards

UK employers with five or more staff already have a legal duty to assess work-related stress risk (Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999). The HSE has confirmed increased enforcement on psychosocial risk, with around 14,000 proactive inspections planned for 2025/26 and psychosocial risk treated alongside physical risk. ISO 45003:2021 is the international standard for psychological health and safety at work. This register supports and evidences your engagement with that duty; it is not, by itself, a completed stress risk assessment, which requires employee consultation.

The first six rows are the HSE Management Standards. Recognition & Reward and Health & Energy are additional evidence-based drivers included for completeness — they are not HSE Standards and carry no regulatory weight, but they move your costs.

Your 90-day roadmap, built from your three weakest drivers

Each driver below shows what it's worth per year (the modelled reduction in your leak if it reached a healthy 75/100), a week-by-week plan, the measure of progress, and where to get support. Give each one a named owner on day one.

What acting is worth — and what waiting costs

A paragraph for your next board pack

Copy it as written or adapt it — the numbers are yours, the sources are cited in this report.

How you compare — and what your number does not include

Deliberately not counted

This report prices only absence, presenteeism, disengagement and wellbeing-attributable turnover. It does not count: safety incidents and their investigation costs; agency and overtime cover for absence; recruitment drag and employer-brand damage; grievance and tribunal exposure; or the documented link from workforce wellbeing to customer satisfaction, revenue and firm performance (De Neve & Ward, 2025). Every one of these runs in the same direction. The true figure is likely higher than the one on the cover.

Every number, sourced or labelled

The evidence base

1. Keep Britain Working review (Mayfield, gov-commissioned, November 2025) — £120 lost profit per sick day; sickness absence at a 15-year high, costing employers ~£85bn/yr.
2. Oxford Economics — £30,614 average cost to replace an employee earning £25k+ (conservative, older figure).
3. Deloitte (2024), Mental health and employers — £51bn annual cost to UK employers; £4.70–£6.30 return per £1 invested.
4. HSE (2024/25) — 964,000 work-related stress, depression or anxiety cases; 22.1m working days lost; HSE Management Standards.
5. ISO 45003:2021 — Psychological health and safety at work.
6. CIPD / Simplyhealth (2025), Health and Wellbeing at Work — 9.4 days average absence; sector figures.
7. Fleming, W. (2024), Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre — individual-level interventions show no benefit across 46,336 UK workers; organisational change does.
8. De Neve, J-E. & Ward, G. (2025), Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters, HBR Press — wellbeing drives productivity, retention and firm performance.
9. Milligan-Saville et al. (2017), Lancet Psychiatry — manager mental-health training RCT; ~£10 returned per £1 spent.
10. Gallup / Workhuman (2024) — recognition and retention; McKinsey UK (2024) — disengagement segmentation.
11. World Wellbeing Movement / Oxford (2026), Work Wellbeing Playbook 2.0 — evidence review of 4,000+ intervention studies.

Disclaimer: figures are evidence-based estimates for decision support, not audited accounts or legal, financial or health-and-safety advice. Modelled elements are labelled throughout. This report supports your engagement with the HSE Management Standards; it does not constitute a completed stress risk assessment or guarantee regulatory compliance. HSE and ISO 45003 references are for identification only and imply no affiliation or endorsement. To the fullest extent permitted by law, WellbeingROI accepts no liability for loss arising from reliance on this report; nothing excludes liability that can't be excluded under the law of England and Wales.