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So what is this obsession in corporate culture with enhancing health and happiness?

There鈥檚 always been debate over whether a happy worker is more productive, but a more interesting question is how employers are now intervening to 鈥渕ake things better鈥�. In the last decade or so, they鈥檝e suddenly become interested in employee happiness and are designing workplaces to make the physical space itself increase happiness. One company built .

But most interventions involve the employees themselves. BP gave each employee a Fitbit. It was a gift and using it was optional, but increasing numbers of companies are now insisting you use these things. At a hedge fund in London, the traders have to wear them, plus record things such as their diet and sleeping habits, and then the employer correlates that with their trading activities. At one Swedish utility company, if you don鈥檛 go to the gym as part of your working week, you get paid less.

Does the research on any of these interventions stand up?

There is a lot of research showing that if you exercise regularly, you鈥檙e likely to be happier, or that after doing exercise you might find certain cognitive tasks a bit easier. But does it actually make employees more productive and efficient? There鈥檚 not much good data to answer that question. The measures that employers use to assess such things are rarely what you鈥檇 call scientifically robust. They鈥檒l often use employee satisfaction measures.

鈥淭he beatings will continue until morale increases.鈥� That sort of thing?

Exactly. A study about employer health interventions showed they have very low take-up, and that even when people do adopt them, they don鈥檛 work that well. In particular, corporate weight-loss programmes aren鈥檛 effective. The truth is that we don鈥檛 really know what happiness does or doesn鈥檛 do for us in the workplace, nor are we quite sure how to define it. Nevertheless, to make us happier and more productive, companies want to monetise happiness using untested research with untested results, and with methods that might actually make us less happy.

If health interventions are not particularly effective, why are firms introducing them?

One of the big trends we鈥檝e seen over the last couple of decades has been the extension of workplace control from the traditional nine-to-five to the 5 am to 9 pm because of smartphones and extended informal working hours. Management wants to understand what鈥檚 happening in the rest of their employees鈥� lives and begin to track and control it. Health is part of that.

So this is all about companies squeezing everything they can from their staff?

That鈥檚 one aspect. The second part is a cultural shift 鈥� what psychologists or philosophers would call category mistakes. Employers are starting to equate physical fitness with corporate competence. It鈥檚 this idea that if you鈥檙e slim and running marathons, you鈥檙e going to be a fantastic CEO. From 2001 to 2011, the proportion of , and you can be sure those marathons are featuring on their CVs. Give employers a choice of two CEOs with exactly the same skills and they鈥檒l almost always choose the slimmer one. Your hobby can no longer be the community garden or whatever you鈥檝e been doing. You have to be running marathons.

What about the job prospects for the rest of us?

There鈥檚 a lot of nervousness around what jobs might be replaced by computers 鈥� especially in so-called knowledge work. We have this myth of the knowledge economy that arose following the decline in manufacturing in Western nations. Manufacturing jobs needed to be replaced with something else, so we had the rise of the knowledge worker: insurance jobs, auditing, any job in which intellectual labour replaced physical labour.

But there鈥檚 a mismatch in the economy between what is actually needed and what people want from their knowledge job. The reality is that most jobs in these so-called knowledge companies 鈥� consultancies and that sort of thing 鈥� are routine and boring. You can learn the skills in a few days. You didn鈥檛 need to spend years at university. These jobs have been dubbed 鈥渂ullshit jobs鈥�.

Is that the academic term?

In a sense. In 2013, anthropologist David Graeber wrote a short article titled 鈥溾��. It struck a nerve and was shared by millions of people around the world. Graeber says a bullshit job is one that the employee thinks is meaningless and the world would be better off if it didn鈥檛 exist. Off the back of that article, , in which 37 per cent of respondents said their job did not make a 鈥渕eaningful contribution to the world鈥�. The article chimed with a lot of people who really think,

Was there a link between the rise of the knowledge economy and the rise of such jobs?

Absolutely. So many knowledge economy jobs are bullshit jobs. And, crucially, these are also the ones that are now being automated away. A estimated that 47 per cent of current jobs in the US are at risk of becoming automated, and most of those likely to be replaced are things like auditing and insurance jobs 鈥� classic knowledge roles. The ones that won鈥檛 be computerised are jobs like masseuse, life coach and personal trainer.

So that explains this new economy built around self-enhancement, happiness and the body?

Yes, that鈥檚 one way of creating new forms of employment when knowledge-economy work is in decline. We are transitioning to the body economy. It鈥檚 also simply capitalism: what do you do when all other sources of growth have been exhausted? You turn to people鈥檚 private lives and you begin looking into their bodies and psychologies. You turn their minds and bodies into something you can sell.

Another factor here is that the major employment and societal trends we are seeing make people feel very vulnerable, like they lack control. But they still feel they can make a tangible difference to their body. This vulnerability is symptomatic of a collective, culture-wide nervous breakdown.

鈥淲hen people are asked to attend to their happiness, they just end up feeling more anxious鈥�

Are things at work really that bad?

Think about it. The jobs are disappearing, the ones that are left don鈥檛 feel rewarding, and our performance is increasingly being measured using things that aren鈥檛 in our job description. And we鈥檙e encouraged to constantly monitor our own happiness, by employers asking that question or monitoring it on a regular basis. This actually makes it likely we will start feeling less happy. A lot of the happiness literature has been ignored on this: studies show that when people are asked to attend to their happiness, they just end up feeling more anxious.

Well, I鈥檓 a bit depressed now.

Sorry.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭he road to hell is paved with corporate wellness鈥�