Inclusive wellbeing means designing for the bodies that actually come to work, across different ages, abilities, conditions and life stages, rather than for an imagined average employee. Programmes built for the average fit almost no one.
Menopause shows the gap clearly. A January 2026 Benenden Health survey of 2,000 UK working women aged 40–65 found 28% had considered quitting because of symptoms, and 7% already had. Nearly half (47%) had changed how they work to cope. Yet 40% didn’t know of any workplace policy, and 63% still found menopause awkward to discuss at work.
“Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.”
Vernā Myers
In wellbeing, there’s a third step: being able to dance. A step challenge assumes mobility. A standing-desk rollout assumes a particular body. A policy nobody knows about assumes the document is the support.
Inclusive design starts by asking who each intervention quietly excludes. Then it fixes the environment rather than asking individuals to adapt. The adjustments are often small and cheap. What’s expensive is losing experienced people because nobody asked.
Wellbeing that works for every body isn’t a niche. It’s the only version that works at all.