There’s a 15-percentage point gap between the wellbeing support employers believe they provide and the support employees experience.
This is one of the headline findings from Epassi UK’s Great Employee Benefits Study 2026.
82% of employers believe they provide dedicated support for employee wellbeing. Yet only 67% of employees say they feel supported. That gap matters. Because it suggests that many organisations may be making decisions about workplace wellbeing based on what they believe they are providing, rather than what people are experiencing. And those are not necessarily the same thing.
Most organisations do not set out to create poor employee experiences. Quite the opposite. They invest in employee assistance programmes, wellbeing platforms, health assessments, gym memberships, mental health support, flexible benefits, and more. From the organisational perspective, support exists.
But employees experience work from a quite different vantage point. They experience whether they can indeed access that support; if it is relevant to them; whether they have the time to use it, and, most importantly, does the everyday experience of working for the organisation support their wellbeing?
That distinction may explain some of the other gaps revealed by the research. 74% of employers say they encourage employees to be physically active, while only 53% of employees say they experience that encouragement.
Meanwhile, 75% of employees say fitness benefits matter when choosing an employer, yet only 41% currently have access to them. And almost half of UK employees are not using all the benefits available to them.
So, instead of asking: What wellbeing benefits do we offer? We should instead ask: Do our people experience our benefits to be relevant and supportive?
Provision is not the same as wellbeing.
Organisations can now buy anything designed to improve employee wellbeing. Apps. Platforms. Coaching. Counselling. Meditation. Fitness programmes. Health checks. Resilience training. Many can be genuinely valuable. But their existence tells us little about whether people are in fact well at work.
An employee may have access to a meditation app while carrying an impossible workload; they may have an employee assistance programme while working for a manager they are frightened to challenge. They may receive resilience training while having little control over how their work is organised; or they may be encouraged to talk about mental health while working in a culture where they feel unsafe to do so.
The benefit exists. And yet the employee may still quite reasonably say: “I don’t feel supported.” That is not necessarily a contradiction. The organisation is measuring provision. The employee is describing experience.
This is why I have long believed that workplace wellbeing strategies too often begin with the wrong question. We ask: How can we help employees manage stress? We should of course instead ask: What is causing the stress?
Because if the answer is excessive workload, poor job design, inadequate resources, lack of autonomy, bullying, unfairness, constant organisational change, or unsustainable leadership expectations, no wellbeing programme can compensate indefinitely.
That does not mean abandoning wellbeing benefits. Support people when life is difficult. Give them access to resources that help them care for their physical and mental health. But do not mistake helping people cope with unhealthy conditions for creating healthy conditions. These are two vastly different things.
It is also important to note the distinction reported about pay. 67% of UK employees say they are more likely to commit to their work when their employer invests in wellbeing rather than simply increasing salary. Among Gen Z, this rises to 72%. 37% say they would be prepared to trade some salary for better benefits.
That does not mean pay has suddenly become unimportant. Fair pay remains fundamental. But it does suggest that people increasingly place a value on the wider experience of work. How they are treated matters, how work fits into their life, and whether their employer appears genuinely interested in their wellbeing. This all matters.
Another important finding concerns artificial intelligence. 73% of employers believe AI will improve employee wellbeing. Only 53% of employees agree. Employers see greater efficiency, reduced administration, better access to information, and less repetitive work.
Meanwhile, employees are wondering if it will increase expectations, and if the time saved will simply result in more work? Will their roles disappear, and will what they know and contribute still be valued?
That last question may become increasingly important. Recent research undertaken by Transamerica Institute in which 44% of more than 6,000 employees surveyed worried that their skills ‘won’t be needed anymore’.
Feeling needed is connected to our sense that we matter. And at precisely the moment when organisations may need more of our uniquely human capabilities; judgement, creativity, curiosity, empathy and connection, technological change may leave some people questioning the value of what they bring.
Those human qualities do not flourish simply because organisations need them. They depend upon the conditions in which people work. People rarely do their best thinking when exhausted or overloaded. Creativity struggles where there is no space to think. Collaboration suffers where trust and connection are absent.
Then, one of the great ironies of AI is that the more sophisticated our technology becomes, the more important our human working conditions will become, and as AI becomes more capable, human flourishing becomes more valuable – not less.
The solution is not another survey followed by another wellbeing initiative. It begins with listening. Not asking employees whether they know where the wellbeing portal is but asking what helps them flourish at work … and what gets in the way.
Are workloads realistic? Do they have sufficient autonomy and resources? Do they feel respected and valued? Do they trust their manager? Can they speak honestly without fear of consequences? Do the benefits provided reflect the lives they are living?
And then, crucially, organisations must be prepared to act on what they hear.
Because the most important lesson from this research is not that employers need to provide more. It is that they need to understand better.
The real wellbeing gap is not simply the gap between what employers offer and what employees want. It is the gap between organisational intention and human experience.
And as technology transforms the workplace, understanding that human experience will become more important than ever. Because organisations cannot expect people to bring their best judgement, creativity, empathy, and humanity to work while creating conditions that steadily diminish them.
Until we close that gap, organisations will continue investing in wellbeing while wondering why their people do not feel as well supported as they believe they should.
