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Whether an employer is considering who to target, which solutions to invest in, or what programs to continue or stop, every decision about employee wellbeing initiatives should be driven by data, organisational health experts say.

In their new book, Healthy high performance: Unlocking business success through employee wellbeing, Mars (Europe) head of associate health and wellbeing Dr Monika Misra and organisational psychologist Sir Cary Cooper note that deciding to stop "less valuable" employee health and wellbeing programs is "not a common practice in the workplace".

They suggest this is a result of giving insufficient thought, at the planning stage, to a new initiative's goals and targets. But when no commitment is made to reviewing their effectiveness, programs that don't deliver any return on investment can (and do) run for years.

The authors say data "must guide all decision-making, from identifying health and wellbeing needs, to setting the strategy, to regularly reviewing the impact of investments made"...