Company introduces $75 wellness stipend that is so intentionally difficult to use that most employees give up

Author image for JR Atkinson
JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor
May 2, 2026 10:00 AM EDT

When convenience turns into inconvenience, something is deeply wrong. 

We have all had the experience of realizing that something that might seem convenient actually adds more time and stress to our days. I'm often having this experience with ticketing apps. Some concerts, plays, or events will force you to download an app in order to use their ticket. They claim that this makes for a more streamlined experience, but this is almost never the case. You end up in line, trying to connect to Wi-Fi so you can download the app, frantically trying to surrender your information so you can make an account and access the ticket that you purchased with your hard-earned cash. You realize that a simple email with a QR code, or heaven forbid a paper ticket, would have saved you a whole lot of trouble. There is a kind of convenience that is even more nefarious, though, and that's what this story is about. This company wanted to appear like they were making life better for their employees. Part of their benefits package was a wellness stipend which encouraged employees to hit the gym and be reimbursed for it. This is the kind of thing that companies love to advertise when they're recruiting. But the way it works in practice is much more important than how it can be advertised. One employee learned that the hard way, and figured out that this stipend might have never been intended for use in the first place. 

Nobody likes to do annoying paperwork, unless you're the kind of person who somehow thrives on it. But most of us don't like to be bogged down in the details of bureaucracy, especially when we don't deem the end result "worth it." It's so much easier to give up on this kind of stuff than it is to spend your precious time trying to bend to a system that doesn't want to be bent to. That's what happened here, and it spoke to a bigger issue about inconvenience in the workplace. Keep scrolling to read all the details of this faulty system and see what advice commenters had. 

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  • A frustrated businessman talks on the phone at his desk
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • My company introduced a "wellness stipend" but the process to claim it is so intentionally broken that most people just give up.

    last year our company sent out this big excited email about how they're investing in employee wellbeing. $75 a month wellness stipend, use it for gym memberships, meditation apps, whatever you want. sounded great
    via Efficient_Mind4383
  • to actually claim it you have to: upload itemized receipts to a portal that half the time just errors out, get your direct manager to sign off, then it goes to HR, then finance, and they only run reimbursement cycles on the 1st and 15th. miss the window? wait till next time, your problem
    via Efficient_Mind4383
  • i tried for literally 3 months straight. kept getting denied because my Planet Fitness receipt apparently wasnt "properly itemized." i eventually just gave up and used some extra money i had to pay out of pocket for it myself
    via Efficient_Mind4383
  • talked to people on my team and turns out barely anyone actually successfully claims it. like maybe 1 in 5 people. and yet this benefit is listed front and center on our Indeed page and our company LinkedIn
    via Efficient_Mind4383
  • my manager had the nerve to mention our "industry leading benefits package" in an all hands last week. nobody said anything. we all just sat there the broken process isnt an accident and we all know it. its a benefit that exists entirely on paper
    via Efficient_Mind4383

  • Commenters gave their sympathies and quips.

    wintermute24 So, do you feel well after that experience? See? You're obviously not fit for a stipend. /s
    via wintermute24
  • ITstaph Boss makes a dollar, you make a dime. That's why you submit your wellness stipend on company time.
    via ITstaph
  • A man looks frustrated behind his desktop
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • gadget73 Ours did something like this, had to participate in these various work team challenges, count your steps, physicals, etc to get points. Unless you hit the magic number of points you
    via gadget73
  • didn't get the discount and they made it so annoying and so involved that almost nobody could do it. They ended the program after a couple years due to lack of participation which I'm sure was the goal.
    via gadget73
  • BeMancini How is a gym membership receipt not itemized? It's either a gym membership or it isn't. Crooked.
    via BeMancini
  • favorthebold Oh, my company used to have that, until we were bought by another company. Ours actually worked great, and you could use it for all sorts of things, though it wasn't unlimited. They DID
    via favorthebold
  • want itemized receipts, but those usually weren't too hard to get. I used to turn in my vet receipts for it, just made sure to get them itemized every time. I'd say contact planet fitness
    via favorthebold
  • and see if you can get itemized receipts for what you're paying for. If you're just giving them, like, credit card receipts then the reason they probably can't accept that is that what if you bought a protein shake or a set of barbells at the gym instead of paying your
    via favorthebold
  • gym dues? The way the system worked for us is that there were sometimes restrictions on items, but not services. So like I mentioned with the vet receipts, they wanted those itemized so they could reject purchase of cat food if that was on there, and just pay for the vet visit.
    via favorthebold
  • Diamond_Sutra You should just spend 3 hours of work time per day doing nothing but processing the data/paperwork for this reimbursement. Tell your coworkers too. Portal down? Keep retrying, do NOT just go back to your work and "check later".
    via Diamond_Sutra
  • Maybe they'll streamline the process when they realize they are losing hundreds or thousands of dollars of productivity to pay out seventy five bucks...
    via Diamond_Sutra
  • personofshadow If they want to contribute to employee wellness, they could give them a raise
    via personofshadow
  • Pwompus As someone who regularly expenses stuff for work, this is honestly a pretty standard workflow (except the HR step seems unnecessary, but that's not a you problem, just seems like a PITA for them). The timing is
    via Pwompus
  • because it corresponds with pay cycles, so you get reimbursed when they are already doing a pay run. The issue seems like it might be with your receipts? Make sure it includes the what, the date and some proof of payment method and is not just a credit card receipt.
    via Pwompus
  • KangoHR When a company offers a wellness stipend but makes it hard to claim, people notice right away that the benefit looks better on paper than it feels in real life. In my experience,
    via KangoHR
  • employees care less about flashy perks and more about whether a company means what it says. The best reward programs are simple, easy to use, and built so people actually get the benefit without a fight.
    via KangoHR
  • ZayneDarmoset That's not a stipend then. Stipends are given regularly to employees with the intention the sum will be used towards a certain expense. What you've described sounds more like a convoluted reimbursement program!
    via ZayneDarmoset

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