Since the RAND Worksite Wellness Program Study was released, there has been much debate on both sides of the fence as to the interpretation of the message that should be taken from the report findings.  It's clearly not a black and white issue as some would lead you to believe. The first comer to the party — a Reuters article claiming worksite wellness "fails" — garnered most of the attention for its sensational position.

This was followed by an array of publications from the provider side using wellness research to defend their turf and the integrity of the industry itself. Like many things in life, this topic is far more complicated than a surface level "yes" or "no" answer to the question of whether the industry is "working" or not. 

Taking a deeper look at the findings of this report allow me to draw my own secondary conclusions. What I see is that outside all of the study limitations, the AVERAGE company looked at in this study isn't setting the world on fire with the success of their worksite wellness initiatives. Does this mean that we can make an umbrella statement that wellness doesn't work, can't work, won't work? Absolutely not. It may just signal an inflection point in the evolution of the (very young) wellness industry.