A program goes wrong quickly when the CEO hears “burnout” as a personal weakness and a manager hears “wellbeing” as a yoga class. These definitions are short and plain, written for the meeting where a budget gets decided. Where we have a page on the topic, the term links to it.
Thirty terms from A to Z
- Absenteeism
- Time employees miss from scheduled work, usually counted as unplanned days off per person per year. It is easy to pull from payroll and tends to climb when workload, recovery or manager relationships slip. Our ROI calculator turns it into a cost.
Where this shows up in our work - Aggregate reporting
- Sharing survey and program results only as group totals, never as individual answers. We report only on groups of ten or more, so no one can be identified by team, shift or role, and employers never see individual health data.
Where this shows up in our work - Burnout
- The World Health Organization’s ICD-11 describes burn-out as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition, marked by exhaustion, cynicism about the job and reduced professional efficacy.
Where this shows up in our work - Caregiver support
- Practical help for employees caring for children, aging parents or a partner with a health condition: flexible scheduling, clear leave policies, manager awareness and short sessions on planning care. Without it, the load often stays hidden until it shows up as absence.
Where this shows up in our work - Change fatigue
- The weariness that builds when change arrives faster than people can absorb it: new tools, new structures, new priorities every quarter. A 2026 Henley Business School survey of about 2,900 UK workers found 61% felt unable to keep up with the pace of change at work.
Where this shows up in our work - Employee assistance program (EAP)
- A confidential, employer-paid service, usually run by an outside provider, that offers short-term counseling and referrals for personal, family, financial or work problems. Our coaches are trained to recognize when someone needs clinical support and to point them to your EAP.
Where this shows up in our work - Employee engagement
- How much people invest of themselves in their work: attention, effort and care about the result. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report found global engagement fell to 20% in 2025, a decline Gallup links largely to falling manager engagement.
Where this shows up in our work - Employee resource group (ERG)
- A voluntary, employee-led group built around a shared identity, life stage or interest, such as working parents, veterans or early-career staff. The ones that last have an executive sponsor, a small budget and a real channel into decisions.
- Executive coaching
- One-to-one work with a credentialed coach on how a senior leader thinks, decides, recovers and leads under pressure. Our executive coaches hold an ICF credential (ACC, PCC or MCC), and the work focuses on performance and sustainability, not therapy.
Where this shows up in our work - Financial wellbeing
- Feeling in control of day-to-day money and able to absorb a shock without panic. Workplace programs cover budgeting, debt, benefits and retirement choices. Our sessions are led by Accredited Financial Counselors who never sell financial products.
Where this shows up in our work - Five Essentials
- The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2022 Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being names five: Protection from Harm, Connection and Community, Work-Life Harmony, Mattering at Work, and Opportunity for Growth, with worker voice and equity at the center.
Where this shows up in our work - Frontline and shift work
- Work done on site and often on a rotating schedule, away from a desk: manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, hospitality, retail. Wellbeing programs for these teams have to run at shift change and in break rooms, at 5 a.m. as well as 11 a.m.
Where this shows up in our work - Hybrid work
- An arrangement where people split the week between a shared workplace and home or another location. It changes how connection happens: rituals, meetings and recognition have to work for the people in the room and the people on the screen.
Where this shows up in our work - Intent to stay
- A survey measure of whether employees expect to be working for the organization in a year or two. It moves earlier than turnover, which makes it a useful leading signal of whether the conditions of work are improving.
Where this shows up in our work - Job crafting
- Employees reshaping parts of their own role, with their manager’s support, to fit their strengths and interests better: changing which tasks they take on, who they work with, or how they think about the purpose of the work.
Where this shows up in our work - Leading and lagging indicators
- Leading indicators move first and point to what is coming, such as pulse scores, breaks taken or weekly manager check-ins. Lagging indicators confirm the result later, such as turnover or absence. A useful scorecard tracks both.
Where this shows up in our work - Listening session
- A facilitated, confidential group conversation, usually eight to twelve people from the same level or shift, about what makes work harder or easier. Managers are not in the room, and themes are reported without names.
Where this shows up in our work - Manager enablement
- Training, coaching and simple tools that help managers support their team’s wellbeing as part of ordinary management: workload conversations, recognition, noticing strain and knowing when to refer. Our six-session program for manager cohorts is called The Corner.
Where this shows up in our work - Presenteeism
- Being at work while unwell, exhausted or distracted enough that much of the day’s work does not get done. It is harder to see than absence, and it tends to grow where taking time off feels risky.
Where this shows up in our work - Psychological safety
- A shared belief within a team that it is safe to speak up, admit a mistake, ask a basic question or disagree without being punished or embarrassed. It is built in ordinary moments, mostly by how the manager responds.
Where this shows up in our work - Pulse survey
- A short, frequent survey, usually five to ten questions, run monthly or quarterly to track how conditions are changing. Pulses earn honest answers when results come back quickly and people see at least one thing change because of them.
Where this shows up in our work - Recognition
- Noticing and naming someone’s contribution, specifically and soon. The most useful recognition is about the work itself rather than a ceremony, and it comes from managers and peers as part of the week, not only at an annual event.
Where this shows up in our work - Recovery
- The time and activities that restore energy after effort: real breaks, evenings without email, sleep, and leave that is actually taken. In our language, work happens in rounds, and the recovery between rounds is part of the job.
Where this shows up in our work - Return on investment (ROI)
- The money a program saves or earns, minus what it costs, divided by what it costs. For wellness programs it usually rests on turnover and absence. Our calculator works it out from your own figures, with no assumptions about results.
Where this shows up in our work - Team building
- Activities that help a team work together better, from a half-day challenge to a recurring series over a quarter. It works when it builds a skill or a relationship the team actually needs, and when nobody is forced to perform.
Where this shows up in our work - Total rewards
- Everything an employer offers in exchange for work: pay, benefits, wellbeing support, flexibility, recognition, learning and career growth. Looking at it as one package shows where a wellness budget fits alongside pay and benefits.
Where this shows up in our work - Turnover
- The share of employees who leave over a year, often split into voluntary and involuntary, or first-year and overall. Each leaver brings hiring, onboarding and lost-time costs, which our ROI calculator estimates from your own numbers.
Where this shows up in our work - Value on investment (VOI)
- The benefits that matter but resist a dollar figure, such as engagement, manager capability, trust and intent to stay. Tracking VOI alongside ROI gives leadership the early signals that turnover and absence figures take a year to show.
Where this shows up in our work - Wellbeing
- How people feel and function across the parts of life that work touches: physical health, mental health, money, relationships and a sense of purpose. At work, it depends as much on workload and management as on individual habits.
Where this shows up in our work - Work design
- How jobs are put together: the tasks, hours, pace, autonomy, staffing and resources that come with a role. William Fleming’s 2024 Oxford study argues for changing work design rather than only training individuals to cope.
Where this shows up in our work
Missing a term you need?
Email hi@boxingceo.com and we will add it, or book a call to talk through how these ideas apply to your own teams.