🥂 Wellness for the well-off: How the soft life became a class divide at work

Happy Thursday, everyone.

I'm Frank Richardson, an organisational psychologist observing the workplace with curiosity and care. Each week, I share insights to help HR leaders better understand the people behind the processes and build cultures where both individuals and organisations can thrive.

Between legal shocks and missing perks, here’s what’s teeing HR off this week:

And speaking of gig worker rights, let’s dig into why the “soft life” is still a perk reserved for those with privilege.

The “soft life” started as a TikTok aesthetic: think long lunches, zero hustle, and perfect skin. But recently, it’s found a second home in corporate culture.

These days, the workplace version looks like this: no late-night Slacks, calendar-blocked “focus time”, mental health days with no questions asked, and a manager who says, “Don’t worry, we’ll circle back after your yoga retreat.”

Sounds dreamy. Sounds healthy. But also… like total class privilege.

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The “soft life” isn’t something you manifest. It’s something you inherit via job title, industry, education, and often a generous helping of luck.

If you’re in a well-paid, remote-ish, laptop-based role, you probably get a decent dose of autonomy and trust. You can log off early if needed, work around your energy levels, and say “not today” to a last-minute meeting… and no one bats an eye.

But if you’re a shift worker, early-career hire, or in a role that requires you to physically show up? Welcome to the “hard life” economy. Clock in, stay visible, don’t complain, and definitely don’t try to move your schedule around without manager approval and a blood oath.

According to SHRM’s 2024 Employee Benefits Survey, 63% of employers say they offer hybrid work. Sounds inclusive, until you realise that frontline and lower-income workers are often nowhere near those options.

Gallup data backs this up: frontline employees are the least likely to be offered flexibility, and the most likely to be burned out, disengaged, and resentful of the nice perks floating around upstairs.

And according to McKinsey, higher-income, degree-holding workers are far more likely to have flexible or remote jobs. Lower-income workers? Mostly stuck in rigid, high-stress environments with little say over their time.

So sure, the soft life is real. But it’s only being lived by the people who were structurally set up to access it in the first place.

But let’s get real, not every role can be hybrid. Nurses can’t work from home. A bus driver can’t push their shift to tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean we can’t design real, meaningful versions of flexibility and wellbeing for structured jobs.

Some examples include:

McKinsey shows that organisations which embed flexibility into frontline roles, see significantly better engagement and discretionary effort among employees.

Wellbeing isn’t about meditation mats in the breakroom. It’s about control, choice, and dignity. And everyone deserves that, regardless of their badge access level.

If your wellbeing strategy only works for your office staff, it’s not a strategy. At best, it’s a marketing campaign.

HR teams should:

Wellness shouldn’t feel like an exclusive club you need a MacBook and a marketing degree to get into.

The soft life isn’t just a mindset. It’s a structural advantage, and one that’s increasingly class-coded.

So no, not every job can be remote. But every job can be more human. And until we stop designing our cultures around convenience for the privileged, we’ll keep reinforcing the same quiet, insidious divide.

Softness is optional. Fairness isn’t.

If something here speaks to you, I’d love to hear it.

Until next week,
Frank

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