Why Investing in Wellbeing Saves Money
and How Organisations Globally and in New Zealand Not Investing Are Paying the Price
Make it stand out
In a world where businesses and educational institutions face mounting costs, the obvious solution often seems to be: hire more staff, train more, get consultants, and recruit more.
But what if the smarter move is not simply adding heads, but better supporting and building capability in the ones you already have — so they can tackle the root causes of stress, disengagement and drop-out?
In this blog we show how organisations are losing money because of poor wellbeing (for employees and students alike), and how investing in a strong employee/staff + student wellbeing system can deliver real savings and better outcomes.
The Problem: Hidden Costs of Poor Wellbeing
For Organisations (Workforce)
Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that depression and anxiety alone cause about 12 billion lost working days per year, with an economic cost of around US$1 trillion annually. (Mental health at work)
According to a recent award-winning article, improving global employee wellbeing could unlock up to US$11.7 trillion in economic value worldwide. (Wellbeing and Mental Health
Engagement matters: in the Gallup “State of the Global Workplace” report, global employee engagement dropped to 21% in 2024, with the decline tied to lost productivity costing the global economy around US$438 billion. (Engagement Recedes for the First Time in Four Years)
The global workplace wellness market is enormous (estimated at US$57.9 billion in 2023) and growing, yet many programs aren’t delivering the outcomes they promise (or any tangible outcomes). (65+ Critical Workplace Wellness Statistics of 2025)
Costly outcomes: One study found employee burnout costs employers between 0.2-2.9 times the average cost of health insurance and 3.3-17.1 times the average cost of employee training. (Employee burnout can cost employers millions each year)
For Students / Education & Training Providers
Across higher-education, the link between poor mental health/wellbeing and attrition is clear: for example, students receiving treatment for mental health problems are significantly more likely to drop out (in an Australian study: an adjusted increase of 4.3 percentage points). (Student mental health and dropout from higher education: an analysis of Australian administrative data)
In a survey of current and prospective students worldwide, 35% said they had considered leaving their programme in the past six months; of those, 54% cited emotional stress, and 43% mental health/poor wellbeing as the reason. (Mental Health, Stress Top Reasons Students Consider Leaving)
These drop-outs aren’t just individual losses, low retention, they represent wasted organisational investment, lost productivity, and lower return on national training/education efforts. (Consequences of Student Mental Health Issues)
For New Zealand Organisations and Education Providers
While global data demonstrates the immense scale of the problem, the same issues are being experienced and measured, here in New Zealand. Government research and official statistics make it clear that poor wellbeing is costing the country billions each year through lost productivity, rising absenteeism, and disengagement.
Workplace Impacts
·Mental distress is widespread: The Ministry of Health’s 2021–23 data show that 34.8% of adults experienced mild or greater symptoms of anxiety and/or depression in the past two weeks, up from 25% in 2016/17. (Ministry of Health – 2023 Mental Health Insights)
Absences are increasing. Stats NZ reported a sharp rise in the number of employed people away from work because of sickness, illness, or injury. 44,200 people were off work for a full week in March 2022, a 67% increase from the year before. (Stats NZ – More people away from work due to sickness)
Lost working days and productivity: Southern Cross Health Insurance and Business NZ’s Workplace Wellness Report 2023 found employees took an average of 5.5 days off per year, adding up to around 10 million working days lost and costing businesses an estimated NZ$2.86 billion annually. (Southern Cross/Business NZ Workplace Wellness Report 2023)
Burnout is widespread: A 2023 WorkSafe NZ psychosocial survey revealed that 72.5% of healthcare workers reported physical exhaustion, 67.7% emotional exhaustion, and 57.9% ongoing stress. (WorkSafe NZ – A Psychosocial Survey of Healthcare Workers)
Long-term impact: The government’s He Ara Oranga inquiry reported that 50–80% of New Zealanders will experience mental distress or addiction challenges in their lifetime, a figure that underscores the scale of the issue across both workforce and education sectors. (He Ara Oranga – Inquiry into Mental Health & Addiction)
Education Impacts
The same pressures show up in the education system. While national student mental-health cost data are still limited, local evidence indicates growing concern over disengagement, stress, and non-completions:
The Ministry of Education’s data show that school attendance fell to 46% of students attending regularly in Term 2 2023, the lowest on record, signalling increasing disengagement and potential future economic cost. (Ministry of Education – Attendance and Engagement Reports)
While some progress has been made on school attendance, these trends mirror global data showing that wellbeing-related stress and mental-health concerns directly contribute to student drop-out and reduced completion rates.
What This Means for New Zealand
Poor wellbeing among employees and students isn’t just a social issue; it’s an economic one.
With millions of working days lost and over a third of adults reporting mental-health distress, the costs of reactive management, rehiring, retraining, or handling drop-outs far outweigh the investment required to create an integrated Universal Wellbeing system.
The evidence shows that supporting staff and students early, identifying the root causes of distress, and embedding effective wellbeing systems across organisations not only improves people’s lives, it also protects the bottom line.
The Solution: A Universal Wellbeing System Approach
The evidence is clear, both globally and in New Zealand, that poor wellbeing has real financial, organisational, and human costs. The question every organisation, school, and tertiary/higher education institution should now ask is:
Would you rather keep paying recurring costs for absenteeism, turnover, and non-completion, or make a single structured investment in proactive prevention and early support?
A Universal Wellbeing System Approach provides that solution.
What a UNIVERSAL WELLBEING System Is?
A Universal Wellbeing system is a structured, evidence-based, proactive and custom system designed to identify, assess, and support the holistic wellbeing needs of people before problems become crises.
It includes:
Regular evidence-based wellbeing assessments (Universal Wellbeing Evaluation) that uncovers the root causes behind stress, disengagement, or performance decline.
Targeted organisational actions: workload management, improved communication, flexible working or study arrangements, and access to tailored support resources.
Measurable outcomes, trend tracking, risk identification, and ensuring support and interventions are working and appearing in pre-set measurements, not just guesstimates.
By combining early wellbeing screening with real-time insight, a Universal Wellbeing System prevents the pattern of “identify a problem → replace a person → repeat.”
The financial logic is simple.
Lower Absenteeism: Even a one-day reduction in average absence per employee saves thousands across an organisation.
Reduced Turnover: Recruiting and onboarding new employees costs 50–200% of the role’s salary. Supporting existing staff is far cheaper.
Improved Retention: In education, wellbeing-focused systems improve student completion rates and return and retention rates which lift institutional funding.
Higher Engagement and Productivity: Engaged employees and students perform better, achieve more, and stay longer, reducing hidden losses from underperformance or withdrawal.
A single, one-time investment in a Universal Wellbeing system can prevent years of recurring loss.
A New Model for New Zealand and Beyond
The New Zealand Treasury’s Living Standards Framework recognises that wellbeing is a key measure of national prosperity, not just GDP. That same principle applies to every organisation: productivity and performance are the outcomes of human wellbeing, not a replacements for it.
Investing in an integrated Universal Wellbeing System, whether in the workplace, school, or tertiary environment, transforms how outcomes are achieved. It shifts the focus from “cost of care” to “return on prevention.”
Real Impact Across Sectors
Corporate and Government: Reduced sick leave, lower staff churn, and improved engagement lead directly to cost savings and better service delivery.
Education and Training: Increased student retention, improved academic outcomes, and achieve better graduate employability plus lift institutional performance rating.
Health and Social Sectors: Reduced burnout among frontline workers means better client outcomes, higher workplace satisfaction, and less organisational turnover.
Community and Not-for-profit: Improved wellbeing leads to higher volunteer retention and more sustainable service delivery.
The Takeaway
The data from WHO to Stats NZ, all point in one direction: poor well-being is expensive. The longer organisations wait to act, the more they lose.
A Universal Wellbeing system turns those recurring losses into lasting gains, enabling healthier people, stronger teams, and more resilient institutions, and organisations.
Now is the time to move from recognition to action.
If your organisation or institution is ready to implement a proven, evidence-based Universal wellbeing system that saves money and supports people, contact us to explore how the Universal Wellbeing System approaches and the Universal Wellbeing Evaluation Tool can work for you.