Your Employee Engagement Survey Shows Low Well-being Scores—Here’s What to Do Next

Seeing low well-being scores can feel discouraging, but they’re actually valuable insight. Think of it like a compass pointing to where your mental health efforts should go next. They signal that it’s time to iterate and adjust your strategy as your workforce and their needs change.

Delta Air Lines, for instance, regularly gathers employee feedback on well-being—also called “employee listening”—through a flourishing index, quarterly engagement surveys , and qualitative interviews, using what they learn to shape their broader strategy.

The goal is to take that feedback and turn it into meaningful, lasting improvements that strengthen mental health across your systems, culture, and everyday practices.

Here’s how to get started.

Start by engaging a cross-functional group for innovation and accountability

Improving well-being can’t fall on one person or one function. Too often, it lands on a single HR manager or middle manager who doesn’t have the influence to shift policies or practices. Mental health at work touches every aspect of how an organization operates, from policies and workload to communication and culture.

Start by assembling a cross-functional group that is owned by leadership, driven by HR (or similar functions), and that gathers input from employees at different levels and departments across the organization. This kind of shared ownership helps ensure that mental health efforts don’t exist in isolation, but are integrated into broader priorities—like engagement, retention, and organizational performance.

At Mind Share Partners, we often help organizations do this by establishing what we call a cross-functional “steering committee” (sometimes called a “well-being committee”). We’ve seen this model drive real progress. One hospitality company we partner with, for example, started by reviewing its well-being survey results with leadership, then formed subcommittees on psychological safety and mental health to carry ideas into action.

Segment Feedback: Identify What’s About the Individual vs. the Work Experience

When reviewing survey results, it helps to separate feedback into two clear categories:

1. Individual well-being needs: These are the tools and resources employees can use on their own to support their mental health, such as therapy benefits, mindfulness programs, meditation apps, or employee assistance programs.

   
   

2. Workplace experience issues: These are stressors that stem from the work environment itself—things like heavy workloads, limited flexibility, unclear communication, lack of psychological safety, or workplace issues such as harassment or job insecurity.

   
   

The distinction between the two matters. Historically, many organizations jump straight to individual solutions like meditation apps. But more often than not, the real drivers of burnout and poor mental health at work originate from the workplace—in its systems like policies, day-to-day practices, and communications.

According to a report from Mind Share Partners and Qualtrics, workers rated good work-life balance and flexibility as the most helpful factors for supporting mental health at work, followed closely by feeling safe and open to talk about mental health. While individual tools can help employees cope, it’s the systems-level changes that prevent burnout and create mentally healthy workplaces.

Choose a set of strategies that address the work experience

Focus on culture-centered approaches to address employee feedback. Strategies that include awareness-building, upskilling, and mitigating risk factors in the workplace deliver strong returns over time. At Mind Share Partners, we’ve created a framework for the modern workplace that outlines key cultural elements that support mental health. Below are some top strategies rooted in this framework.

People, Practices, and Systems: Key Strategies

• Make mental health a leadership priority. Leaders set the tone by modeling well-being, sharing mental health stories, and ensuring work systems, capacity, and expectations are realistic and don’t exceed actual human limits. Hyatt, for example, includes executive storytelling as a pillar of their well-being strategy.

  
  

• Empower managers as the bridge to proactively support well-being. Managers can have an impact on employee mental health comparable to a therapist or doctor. Upskilling managers isn’t just to communicate top-down messages, but to listen, gather insights, and surface feedback upward. Managers are often closest to the employee experience and can spot early signs of stress or disengagement. That’s why investing in manager training is one of the most effective steps an organization can take.

  
  

• Review and reset daily work norms. Workplace practices—like how teams communicate, collaborate, and handle urgency—can subtly shape mental health. Leaders and managers must work together to create lasting positive change. Get our free checklist on creating mentally healthy work norms.

  
  

• Ensure benefits and policies are inclusive and explicitly support mental health. Benefits and self-care resources should be comprehensive, inclusive, and responsive to the diverse needs of the workforce. Company policies should likewise protect employees’ autonomy, mental health, and livelihood—covering areas such as time off, leave, and flexible work models—to create a workplace where well-being is supported at every level.

For deeper guidance, download our framework here.

Communicate Transparently and Keep the Feedback Cycle Going

After an engagement survey transparency should always be a priority. Let employees know what to expect next—even if you don’t have all the answers yet. Share who is reviewing the feedback, what themes emerged, and which areas you’re prioritizing for action. Employees need to see that their voices are heard and leaders can build trust through ongoing communication and follow-through. Connect the dots for them and show how the actions being taken are directly addressing their feedback.

Remember that collecting feedback on employee-wellbeing shouldn’t be a once-a-year exercise. Between annual engagement surveys, organizations can use short pulse surveys—three to five questions—to keep a real-time sense of employee sentiment, and use it to measure progress and adjust as needed. For guidance on what questions to include, see our previous blog.

A regular cycle of “gather, communicate, act, and repeat” helps organizations stay accountable and continuously improve. Don’t be afraid of feedback. Low scores for well-being aren’t a setback—they’re an opportunity.  It’s a sign that employees are invested in the organization and want to see it improve.

---

About the Author

Carrie Grogan, Lead Principal, Client Services, Mind Share Partners

As lead principal for client services at Mind Share Partners, Carrie Grogan leads impact-focused advising for companies and leaders on how to create a mentally healthy workplace. She facilitates Mind Share Partners’ workplace training and leads strategic projects to reduce stigma and increase belonging so organizations and employees can thrive. Carrie brings deep culture change experience from across industries, including Fortune 500 companies and local nonprofits.