IGNITE Program · In partnership with Benny Button
The Wellbeing Edge
Understand the real wellbeing of your people, not the assumption.
Most organisations offer a wellbeing programme. Very few measure what their people are actually experiencing. Start with the data, then respond to the real need.
The opportunity
$1 trillion lost. $11.7 trillion waiting.
The wellbeing crisis and the wellbeing opportunity are the same story. The commercial case is measured, published and quantified by some of the most rigorous institutions in the world.
World Health Organization, 2024
McKinsey Health Institute, 2025
S&P Global CSA, cited by McKinsey Health Institute, 2025
McKinsey global survey, 42,000+ respondents
The strange silence in the boardroom.
Boards routinely track financial risk to two decimal places, while the human system that generates the financial performance goes unmeasured. That is one of the largest strategic blind spots in the modern enterprise.
Talent already votes with its feet. Younger and higher performing talent segments place materially more weight on wellbeing when they choose where to work. Employers who take an integrated view of leadership behaviour and employee wellbeing are likely to be better positioned for talent, retention and sustainable productivity.
“The goal is to create healthier conditions in which people and organisations can perform sustainably, not to optimise employees as machines.”Paul S. McLean, Founder & CEO, IGNITE Performance
Diagnose before you prescribe
A programme everyone follows is not the same as support people need.
A major 2024 UK study of more than 46,000 workers across 233 organisations found that, on average, participation in several commonly offered individual level wellbeing initiatives was not associated with improved employee wellbeing. Those initiatives are not inherently ineffective. Their impact depends on quality, relevance, uptake and the conditions around them. That is why measurement comes first.
Fleming, Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, 2024. Cross-sectional; association, not causation.
Prescribe first
Roll out a standard wellbeing offer to signal support. Hope it lands. Find out later, if at all, whether it met the real need.
Measure first
Ask your people, anonymously and regularly. See the patterns across work and life. Then direct leadership attention and investment to the actual need.
Measure
Start with the Benny Button Wellbeing & Performance Check-in: a real-time, anonymous view of how your people are experiencing wellbeing and performance.
Understand
Dashboarding and AI-supported insights highlight changes, themes and the factors employees report as influencing their wellbeing and performance.
Respond
IGNITE helps leaders turn those insights into conversations, decisions and everyday behaviour, so support matches what people actually need.
The Benny Button partnership
Wellbeing and performance, measured through eight evidence-based factors.
Mention IGNITE to receive your FREE Wellbeing consultation.
Wellbeing & Performance Check-in
A real-time, anonymous team Check-in that helps leaders understand how their people are experiencing wellbeing and performance across work and life.
- Supports regular, data-informed conversations as part of a leader's operating rhythm
- Helps teams recognise emerging patterns and respond with timely, practical action
- Dashboarding and AI-supported insights highlight changes, themes and influencing factors
- Cadence shaped together by IGNITE, Benny Button and your organisation
Wellbeing Profiler
A science-backed assessment based on Benny Button's eight evidence-based factors.
- A personalised wellbeing and performance snapshot for each employee
- Aggregated team and enterprise views
- Scope, cadence and purpose shaped collaboratively with IGNITE and Benny Button to fit your context and operating rhythm
Official Benny Button Wellbeing Profiler factor names. Descriptions are high-level orientation only; each factor contains more specific indicators. Full architecture at bennybutton.com/profiler.
The next level of human and organisational performance
The Enhanced Human Operating System.
A proposed IGNITE framework that brings Emotional Intelligence, wellbeing and performance measurement, and leadership development together. Emotional Intelligence shapes how you lead. Wellbeing fuels you to lead. Considered together, they give leaders a richer basis for conversation, reflection and action.
Emotional Intelligence
A behavioural capability measured by the EQ-i 2.0 Inventory: 5 composites, 15 subscales and 30+ years of psychometric validation. How leaders perceive, express, regulate and use emotion.
Wellbeing & Performance
Overarching outcomes measured by Benny Button's Wellbeing Profiler and Check-in, across psychological, behavioural, relational, work and performance dimensions.
Why together
EI helps leaders translate wellbeing awareness into constructive everyday behaviour. A supportive wellbeing context helps sustain behavioural change.
Capability without capacity plateaus. Capacity without capability drifts. Together they compound.
The proposed relationships illustrated are IGNITE interpretations offered to stimulate discussion. They require further evaluation before being treated as a validated integrated measurement framework.
Illustrative global evidence
Organisations already seeing the value of connected approaches.
These organisations have publicly reported outcomes from integrated leadership, cultural and wellbeing approaches. Each one's approach, tools and context are different.
Surfcoast Shire Council
Australia, public sector
AHRI Award
Worked with Benny Button on an integrated wellbeing and leadership initiative. Recognised with the AHRI Martin Seligman Health & Wellbeing Award (2021), Australia's peak award for workplace wellbeing outcomes.
AHRI, 2021
SAP
Germany, global software
€90 to 100M
Operating profit associated with a 1-point change in its Business Health Culture Index, which fuses wellbeing, EI leadership behaviours, engagement and health, reported to shareholders annually.
SAP Integrated Report
On
Global, apparel and footwear
11.6x ROI
An integrated health intervention combining behavioural coaching and wellbeing infrastructure: $2.9M annual value, 5% presenteeism improvement and 30% reduction in voluntary attrition.
McKinsey Health Institute case study, January 2025
Johnson & Johnson
USA, global healthcare
$2.71 per $1
Return on its Health & Performance programme across around 120,000 employees, with $250 million in healthcare savings over a decade.
Berry, Mirabito & Baun, Harvard Business Review
Aetna
USA, Fortune 100 insurer
62 min / week
Productivity gained per participant (around $3,000 per employee per year), with a 28% reduction in stress and 20% improvement in sleep quality.
Harvard Business Review
Unilever
Global, consumer goods
2:1 to 3:1
Productivity return on investment from the Lamplighter programme (10+ years, around 30 countries), with reduced absenteeism and improved health risk profiles.
Lamplighter reports; BMJ reviews
Outcomes are associations documented in the sources cited, not causal guarantees of similar returns. Except where stated, these organisations should not be assumed to have used EQ-i 2.0, Benny Button products or the proposed IGNITE Enhanced Human OS framework.
The board-level case
A shared vocabulary for the size of the opportunity.
| Metric | Benchmark | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Return per £1 invested in workplace mental health | £5.30 average (Deloitte UK, 2024) | Best documented interventions return £11+. |
| Per-employee upside from improved health | US$1,100 to US$3,500 / year (McKinsey Health Institute, 2025) | 17 to 55% of average annual pay in value. |
| Productivity uplift from wellbeing approaches | 10 to 21% (McKinsey Health Institute, 2025) | Enough to reshape margin trajectories. |
| Productivity of happier employees | 13% higher (Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre) | Wellbeing shows up in output. |
| Turnover in culture-of-health firms | 11 percentage points lower (Mercer) | Retention is one of the largest capital savings. |
Illustrative annual value range for a 500-person organisation, applying the McKinsey global per-employee range. This is a benchmark, not a forecast. Actual value depends on your workforce, location, baseline, priorities, implementation quality and measured outcomes.
How IGNITE works with you
Prepare. Learn. Perform.
IGNITE's leadership methodology, developed over a decade of executive coaching, leadership development and organisational transformation, gives the Enhanced Human OS a practical shape inside your organisation.
Establish shared context
Executive briefing, then the Wellbeing & Performance Check-in begins. EQ-i 2.0 profiles for the leadership cohort, with the Wellbeing Profiler where you want the deeper view.
Illustratively weeks 1 to 6
Leadership immersion
Structured, wellbeing-informed learning. Managers build skill in using Check-in insights as conversation starters, not as diagnoses.
Illustratively weeks 7 to 12
Embed into rhythm
Cohort coaching, targeted workshops and executive 1:1s. Wellbeing and performance insights inform business reviews and regular reflection.
Illustratively month 4 onward
Scope, cadence, product involvement and intended outcomes are shaped collaboratively by IGNITE, Benny Button and your organisation to fit your purpose, workforce and operating rhythm.
White paper · Executive Edition 2026
Read the full case.
The Wellbeing Edge is a strategic field guide for CEOs, CHROs, People & Culture and Wellbeing leaders. Every number in it is traceable to a primary or peer-reviewed source.
- The $1T cost and $11.7T opportunity, sourced
- Why disconnected initiatives can underdeliver
- The Enhanced Human Operating System framework
- The Benny Button measurement architecture
- Six global case studies and an illustrative 90-day and 12-month approach
An invitation to every organisation
Measure your real wellbeing. Start with data, not assumptions.
No doctor prescribes before they diagnose. Yet most wellbeing support is prescribed before anyone has measured what people actually need. IGNITE and Benny Button invite you to start the other way round.
- Talk with IGNITE & Benny ButtonA free consultation to explore your context, priorities and what you want to learn.
- Run the Check-inIntroduce the anonymous Wellbeing & Performance Check-in with your teams, at a cadence shaped together.
- See the real pictureReview what your people report across work and life, then decide where support will make the difference.
Email paul@1gnite.me · WhatsApp +65 9761 1923
The Enhanced Human Operating System is a proposed IGNITE framework. Benny Button's Wellbeing Profiler and Wellbeing & Performance Check-in are independently owned Benny Button products. IGNITE and Benny Button work collaboratively with client organisations to shape the approach, scope, cadence and intended outcomes. Reference to Benny Button does not imply endorsement of every claim or element of the IGNITE framework. The two measurement models are considered together to inform leadership conversation and are not technically integrated.
Sources: World Health Organization, Mental health at work fact sheet (2024); McKinsey Health Institute, Thriving Workplaces (2025) and Working Nine to Thrive (2024); Deloitte UK, Mental health and employers (2024); Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre; Mercer; S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment; SAP Integrated Reports; Berry, Mirabito & Baun, Harvard Business Review; Unilever Lamplighter reports and BMJ reviews; Fleming, Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre (2024); MHS Assessments, EQ-i 2.0. Full references in the white paper.