🥂 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.

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This week in workplace whiplash 🌀

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

• ♿ Disability discrimination now 1 in 6 workplace disputes
  New Acas data shows that 16% of workplace disputes now involve disability discrimination, up sharply from previous years - often tied to mental health and neurological conditions.
  👉 HR Review

• 🛻 Congress considers “lite” benefits for gig workers
  A new GOP-backed proposal would let companies offer gig workers perks like health and retirement support…without making them actual employees.
   👉Vox

• 🏥 One in three employees don’t use their health benefits
  A UK survey finds 33% of workers don't claim their employer-paid health perks, due to confusion, delays, or lack of awareness - missing a key wellness opportunity.
  👉 HR Review

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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✨ Soft for some, stressful for others

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.

💡 Frontline flexibility is possible

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:

• Shift-swapping apps (e.g. When I Work, Shyft) that give staff more autonomy over their schedules

• Micro-break flexibility so workers can control when they take rest

• Compressed or predictable rosters to support parents and carers

• Task variation and input into workflows to reduce burnout

• Advance scheduling and opt-in overtime, as surprise shifts are not wellness, they’re chaos.

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.

🤝 What HR needs to watch

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:

• Stop measuring flexibility by policy. Measure it by who actually uses it.

• Ditch the one-size-fits-all approach and start designing for job reality.

• Ask frontline workers what flexibility would look like for them, and build from there.

• Train managers to spot power dynamics that limit access to perks (even unintentionally).

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

💬 Final thoughts

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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