Why wellness should be in your budget
By Ali Stajniak
If you lead people, you lead their health. In manufacturing, the health of your workforce shows up in quality, incident rates, sickness and mental health days and overall employee burnout. Fund your employee wellness properly and you get the opposite: happier more engaged employees, fewer errors, fewer injuries, more engagement, and steadier production.
The business case (not the wellness poster)
Employee mental health concerns from burnout to depression and anxiety drain the global economy of roughly US$1 trillion a year in lost productivity largely from presenteeism (people at work but not performing) and absenteeism (mental health and sick days). Figures from the World Health Organization indicate that every US$1 invested in treatment for depression and anxiety returns about US$4 in improved health and ability to work.
Closer to home, Canadian research has tracked real return on investment (ROI) from workplace mental-health programs. Analyses of Canadian employers show positive returns when organizations invest in leadership training, early intervention, and psychological support.
Engagement is the other half of the equation. When employee engagement drops, output, quality, and safety often follow. Inversely, highly engaged teams consistently show lower absenteeism and higher productivity, outcomes that manufacturers feel directly on the floor.
And then there’s fatigue and burnout—constants in 24/7 operations. The National Safety Council reports that 97 per cent of workers have at least one fatigue risk factor, and fatigue is directly linked to more errors, more injuries, and more missed work.
Wellness isn’t a perk
Safety is non-negotiable. Sleep, stress, and musculoskeletal resilience determine reaction time, decision-making, and injury risk. Targeted programs, including fatigue management, nutrition, mobility/strength routines, and mental-health access will lower near misses and incidents on the floor.
Talent math has changed. A credible wellness strategy improves attraction and retention because it communicates, “We run a high-performance, high-care environment.” To the newest generations entering the workforce, this matters more than an extra dollar per hour.
The cost is already on your books. Absenteeism, modified duties, short-term disability, and preventable turnover are not fixed costs; they’re the result of not having systems in place that prioritize and support employee wellness.
What the future of corporate wellness looks like
A wellness plan that works isn’t a fruit basket in the staff room or a team building day once a year. It is a well-designed operating system that fits your shifts, your constraints, and your risks:
– Leadership micro-skills, and mental health first aid: Equipping supervisors to spot risk early, hold better one-on-ones, and route people to support without stigma
– Regular, ongoing access to fitness facilities or a budget dedicated to enable the behaviour. Ongoing access to support in this area, in person or virtual, will reduce workers compensation claims and improve stamina for repetitive and awkward tasks.
– Food that fits the floor: Realistic nutrition for night and rotating shifts, hydration plans, and high nutrient vending/meal setups that promote wellness.
– Confidential mental-health access: Rapid triage to virtual counseling, psychological safety training for leaders, and peer resource visibility.
– Fatigue and shift-work protocols: Sleep education, schedule design consults, and employer flexibility to schedule for employee work life balance.
– Measurement that matters: Track leading indicators (near misses, first-aid-only incidents, schedule adherence, participation), not just a monthly step count.
If your current “program” can’t demonstrate impact on safety, quality, or schedule stability within a quarter, it’s not a program, it’s a marketing poster.
The payoff
Bottom line: corporate wellness isn’t about putting a ping-pong table in the break room or buying pizza once a month. It is about investing in your employees’ health and wellbeing by providing an environment for wellness and access to professional guidance in order to move the company needle.
When organizations invest in mental health and practical, job-specific wellness, they see meaningful returns in fewer injuries, steadier attendance, and better performance. With engagement slipping worldwide and fatigue driving costly errors, underfunding wellness in 2026 is a strategic risk.
If you’d rather outsource the heavy lifting, that’s an entirely fine option! Let the experts take care of your employee wellness plan this year and watch your team engagement rise. You’ll see the payoff in in your accounts and, more importantly, in your people.
Ali Stajniak is Founder of Podium Executive Club, a luxury fitness and co-working facility in Regina. She has spent the past decade helping people, from executives to athletes, bridge the gap between physical health and personal or professional success.