We spend a lot of time talking about wellbeing at work: mindfulness programmes, gym memberships, flexible work policies, EAP hotlines, and engagement surveys. These things matter, but they’re often just well-intentioned attempts to fix issues that were baked in long before a person’s first day.
The truth is, employee wellbeing doesn’t start with yoga classes or mental health days. It starts with how you hire, or more precisely, with the paradigm behind the way you hire.
The hidden foundation of wellbeing
Every personal relationship begins with an intention. Are you looking for a one-night stand, a friendship, or a long-term partnership? Your intention shapes how you show up, how you communicate, and what you’re prepared to give and expect to receive.
Work is no different.
But here your intention falls into one of two main categories: extraction or expansion. If you see work as inherently unpleasant, employment as a transaction, and people as a means to an end, you’re operating with the intention of extraction, and it leads you to act in a very transactional way. But if you know humans are hard-wired for connection and contribution, you see a working relationship as the beginning of a partnership built on mutual benefit and collaboration. Your intention is expansion.
Your intention shapes your actions during recruitment. Your actions during recruitment shape the type of employment relationships you build. And the type of employment relationship you build has a profound impact on engagement, productivity, retention, and ultimately wellbeing.
Why wellbeing starts with hiring
If you start the relationship the right way, so much suffering can be avoided. But most organisations still recruit like it’s 1999 and don’t realise this is causing so many people and performance problems.
Here’s how it usually goes: Jobs are created with lists of tasks, expectations, and responsibilities. A rate of pay is set, and it’s assumed suitable people will apply because they “need a job”. Candidates are expected to jump through hoops, “prove themselves”, and accept a one-sided dynamic.
Companies share polished mission statements, role titles, and job descriptions but never reveal the day-to-day realities of taking on the role. Things like team dynamics, a leader’s profile, or the “way we do things around here” are never shared or considered relevant when it comes to hiring.
The message is implicit but clear: work is labour and you’re lucky to do it and get paid. “We hold the power.” And the race to use AI to do all this faster and cheaper is only going to make things worse.
It would be fine if the end goal was to fill a spot on a production line, but it’s not. Most roles you’re hiring for need discretionary effort, good judgement, and strong communication. To do this, they don’t just need to follow orders and tick tasks off a list. They need to work well with their manager and team, understand the business, be comfortable with the way things are done, and have traits that match the work the role requires.
During recruitment we talk about tasks, responsibilities, hours, and pay. We use big vague words and fake smiles, tell people about our “great culture” and that we’re “values-led”. But then day to day, things aren’t what we said they would be. As Steve Simpson so brilliantly puts it, the “unwritten ground rules” become clear, and this newly hired person finds themselves feeling let down, confused, frustrated, and sometimes even unable to do the jobs they were hired to do.
Is it really any wonder so many people burn out, disengage, or quietly withdraw from effort altogether?
You can’t fix a broken arm with a plaster
Most businesses are trying to solve these problems downstream with “initiatives” and “perks”. But if the real problem is upstream, no amount of downstream effort will fix things.
When you look at things this way, do rooftop yoga, team-building events, and discounted gym memberships feel like they could solve wellbeing problems? In the context of work, the upstream problem is a lack of true alignment between what the business wants from people and the way they go about trying to get it.
This leads to attracting the wrong people for the wrong reasons and setting up unhealthy employment relationships doomed to make people feel stressed, anxious, and disengaged, and to erode productivity.
Most businesses are trying to employ people when they really need to be enrolling people. They might not sound very different, but the intentions, actions, and outcomes are poles apart.
From employment to enrolment
An upstream paradigm shift changes everything. Just like we moved from the industrial age to the information age, it’s time for a shift in our thinking about work.
Enrolment thinking is expansive. It’s about partnership and recognises that wellbeing is a by-product of the way people feel about working for you. This isn’t about cushy work schedules or free lattes; it’s about alignment on goals, principles, contribution, and reward. It’s where you know value comes from innovation and that people want to work.
In this paradigm, you know the most powerful thing you can do to build a great team is to hire them in a way that sets up healthy working relationships so your people will thrive and your business will reach its goals.
Employment thinking, on the other hand, is about extraction. It’s about getting people to do things they don’t want to do but keeping them “well enough” to do them. It’s where you assume people don’t want to work, so to incentivise them we add events or arrange discounts for them on gym memberships.
The result is a vicious cycle of fatigue, frustration, and turnover. In this paradigm you show up as a cog, you do what you’re told, work is inherently unfulfilling, and true recognition is lacking. Some try harder to get the recognition they crave, and when they never do, they burn out. Others quiet quit or take another job.
The ripple effects of “Hiring Wellbeing”
When you recruit differently, it’s a domino effect; everything downstream changes for the better.
Engagement: People feel seen, valued, and connected from the start. They’re not just doing tasks, they’re contributing to something.
Productivity:Intrinsically motivated employees don’t need constant pressure. They self-manage, innovate, and collaborate naturally.
Retention:When people choose a company because they get to become the version of themselves they want to be, they feel aligned with the team’s energy and want to stay.
Culture:A culture of enrolment fosters trust, autonomy, and psychological safety, the real drivers of wellbeing.
Profit: When you hire the right people for your business the right way, you unlock their full potential for creativity and innovation. Along with a healthy culture and higher retention rates, the outcome is higher profits.
In other words, recruitment done right isn’t a cost. It’s one of the most powerful investments you can make in the wellbeing and performance of your people.
The invitation
If your organisation is serious about wellbeing, engagement, and performance, look upstream. Re-examine the paradigms that underpin how you think about talent. Redesign your approach to hiring.
If you make this shift from employment as a transaction to enrolment as a mutually beneficial relationship, you’ll be amazed at the downstream benefits.
Because when you hire wellbeing, you don’t just get healthier, more productive people, you build a healthier, more profitable business.
Introducing Meqa (One of my favourite allies in this space)
Meqa describes herself as a Growth Strategist. She works with Founders and CEOs to teach them how to turn the way they hire into the way they win. She helps them rethink the way they hire and lead so they can reach their full potential by helping their people reach theirs.
A strategist by background and a human-behaviour geek at heart, Meqa explores the shift from employment to enrolment, from managing people as resources to engaging them as partners. Her work sits at the intersection of art, science, and modern business, reminding us that real wellbeing begins long before someone’s first day.
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