Why Workforce Health Innovation Is Now a Business Imperative: Insights from the Harvard Medical School Consortium

Across industries, organizations are contending with persistent challenges: escalating health care costs, increasing rates of chronic disease, and widespread employee stress and burnout. These pressures are not only eroding the bottom line through lost productivity, absenteeism, and rising insurance premiums, but are also raising critical questions about companies’ ability to remain competitive and support their most valuable asset—their people.

Recognizing these trends, Harvard Medical School Corporate Learning has established the Future of Workforce Health consortium, a new initiative convening leading employers, health care innovators, and researchers to accelerate progress in employee health and well-being. For this article, I spoke with three leaders from the consortium to share their perspectives on how organizations can navigate today’s health care landscape and build a resilient workforce for the future.

The Business Case for Innovation in Workforce Health

“Workforce health is an absolute imperative for organizational strategy. It should be a board-level priority, directly tied to competitiveness and societal well-being,” says Ranil Herath, advisory board member for the Future of Workforce Health consortium.

Herath, a growth-focused executive and board leader with over 20 years of experience across higher education, technology, and health care, notes that health care costs are climbing faster than wage growth and inflation, placing sustained pressure on employers. These costs are driven not only by expensive new treatments, but also by productivity losses from chronic disease and burnout—issues that experts warn are reaching crisis proportions in many organizations.

For Melanie Rosenwasser, chief people officer at Dropbox, the relationship between employee well-being and business outcomes is clear. “We’re all being impacted by these larger trends,” Rosenwasser says. “Gaining perspectives from the brightest minds in research, and representation across industries and companies, can help provide a well-rounded view of the current state—and what we, collectively, can actually do about it.”

Rosenwasser emphasizes that traditional, standalone wellness programs are no longer sufficient. Instead, she believes companies need practical, evidence-based models that are informed by research and can be adapted rapidly in real-world settings. “Ideally, it’s about taking the learnings and the diverse insights to help inform how we intentionally iterate and adapt our model to better serve our employees,” Rosenwasser explains.

Addressing the Hardest Challenges—Together

When it comes to finding solutions for escalating costs and persistent health challenges, organizations are actively exploring new models that emphasize transparency, preventive care, and employee empowerment. Rather than relying solely on conventional health benefit designs, companies are beginning to pilot approaches that offer employees greater access, more choices, and the technology to make informed decisions about their health care.

Alexandra Coonce, chief people officer at Sidecar Health, emphasizes the importance of empowering employees to take a more proactive role in their health. “With our unique health plan design, we provide transparent pricing and incentives for people to make informed decisions and engage in health care in a new way,” she says. By removing common obstacles and offering straightforward incentives, Coonce observes that organizations can help drive better outcomes—such as lower emergency room utilization, improved management of chronic disease, and higher engagement in mental health visits and routine wellness practices.

Coonce also highlights the importance of learning from how different industries and organizations address these longstanding issues. “It’s such a diverse set of companies. Getting an opportunity to learn from lots of different ways people are doing this—I think that’s what’s going to speed up our progress and help us find the right solutions, not just for our company, but for employees across the country,” she says.

Moving Beyond Silos: The Power of a Collaborative Forum

One of the central tenets of the Future of Workforce Health consortium is that no single organization can solve these complex issues alone. “Many companies have robust wellness programs, but siloed, one-off efforts often fail to achieve lasting impact,” Herath explains. “Employers need evidence-based, vendor-agnostic pilots grounded in research and scalable playbooks across industries.”

The consortium was created to break down these barriers and encourage a free exchange of ideas. As Rosenwasser puts it, “Perhaps it’s through experimentation or pilots, introducing this research into our own companies, or participating in studies. There are several ways we can engage, where the outcome is addressing these larger issues that are universally plaguing us all.”

Participating companies are invited to contribute to strategic discussions, set priorities, and shape programming such as virtual education sessions and an annual in-person summit at Harvard Medical School. Part of the forum’s unique value is fostering benchmarking, peer learning, and engagement with world-class researchers at Harvard Medical School and from across Harvard University—creating an environment in which innovative approaches can be quickly tested, refined, and scaled.

Setting a New Standard for Workforce Health

The urgency of this work cannot be overstated. Chronic disease, stress, and burnout are not just individual issues—they drive significant operational costs and threaten long-term business resilience. Employers are facing mounting pressure to deliver high-impact solutions, all while managing their own cost structures and seeking not to transfer burdens onto employees.

“It’s still early days, but that is the hope and the goal of addressing our workforce health,” Rosenwasser says of the consortium’s future impact. “That there will be a clear application to Dropbox and our employees."

Coonce echoes this sentiment. “We’re excited to share what we’re learning and to add a new kind of model for the health care system as we engage in these conversations,” she says.

A Call to Action for Corporate Leaders

As organizations strive to create healthier, more resilient workforces, the need for innovation and collaboration has never been greater. The Future of Workforce Health consortium stands at the forefront of this effort, bringing together Harvard Medical School’s research expertise and the practical experience of leading employers to shape the next era of workforce health.

“In the end,” Herath concludes, “our ambition should be to make workforce health an absolute imperative, one tied directly to competitiveness and societal well-being.”

For senior HR executives, that means the time to invest in evidence-based, collaborative health innovation is now—not only for employees’ well-being, but also for the future of your business.

Interested in learning more about the Future of Workforce Health consortium? Connect and explore how your organization can be part of this initiative.