Companies that still promote employee health with a bowl of fruit in the office and a weekly lunchtime yoga session are missing a growing share of their workforce. This is the conclusion of an analysis by the German trade publication Haufe Arbeitsschutz, based on insights from Johannes Füß, Senior Vice President at EGYM Wellpass. Now that hybrid working has become the norm, traditional, office-bound health measures simply no longer reach a substantial share of employees. According to the article, a fundamental overhaul of corporate health policy is needed, with interventions that are individualized, digitally accessible, and actively communicated.
The underlying figures, drawn from the German study “The Future Fit Employer” by EGYM Wellpass, underscore the urgency. Of German employees, 57 percent work predominantly in sedentary jobs, and 40 percent report an increasing mental workload. Notably, almost half of respondents (49 percent) are not even aware of the health offerings their employer provides. Moreover, the psychological burden is distributed unevenly: 44 percent of female respondents report work-related psychological effects, compared with 51 percent among Generation Z.
To close this gap, the article sets out a series of concrete recommendations for HR departments. Rather than a centralized, office-bound offering, it advocates decentralized health networks that give employees access to sports facilities locally, close to where they live. Digital mental health tools, such as meditation apps and online group courses, should complement the physical offering. Fixed communication rhythms, such as monthly wellbeing surveys, along with subtle digital reminders, for example daily calendar notifications for movement breaks, should help sustain engagement. In addition, the article recommends training team leaders as health ambassadors, sharing colleagues’ experiences anonymously via the intranet, and structurally embedding health into the onboarding process for new employees.
For EHS professionals, this development is relevant because the classic separation between physical working conditions at the workplace and wellbeing policy becomes blurred once part of the workforce works outside the office on a structural basis. Prevention policy designed exclusively around a physical location then no longer aligns with the actual working context of many employees, while risks such as prolonged sitting and psychosocial strain are in fact harder to observe and measure in a home-working environment. This makes the reach, communication, and low-threshold accessibility of preventive measures a topic that belongs as much to occupational safety and health management as to HR policy.
It should be noted that both the cited figures and the recommendations relate specifically to the German labor market and originate from German research; the extent to which these findings can be transferred to other countries was not examined in the source article.
Source: Gesundheitsförderung im Homeoffice, 4 September 2026, https://www.haufe.de/arbeitsschutz/gesundheit-umwelt/gesundheitsfoerderung-im-homeoffice-tipps-fuer-hr_94_694610.html
