Stop asking Finance for budget.
Start bringing them a return.
A free playbook for HR and benefits leaders who are tired of fighting Finance for every wellness dollar. Walk into your next meeting with the math, the offer, the objection handlers, and a one-pager you leave on the CFO's desk.
- The wellness leakage math — published, sourced, and ready to quote.
- The ROI benchmarks that survive Finance scrutiny (J&J, Harvard, SAS).
- The offer funded through the payroll structure you already run — and how we're paid.
- The exact conversation script plus the 5 CFO objections and how to handle each.
Send me the playbook.
Free. No call required. Read it in 20 minutes.
One email, one PDF, one spot on the Thursday newsletter.
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Built for three people in the room.
CHROs & VPs of People
You've pitched wellness before. You know the math should work. You don't have the ammunition to make Finance care. This playbook gives you the numbers and the script.
Benefits & HR Managers
You're the one calculating the actual cost of unhealthy work. You need data your CFO will respect — not benchmark surveys your predecessor used. This playbook is that data.
CFOs & CEOs
If your HR team just handed you this playbook, start at "The numbers worth leaving behind" — the figures are on one page. The rest is the receipts.
The spine.
You are not a cost center.
The reframe. Why every benefits proposal that opens with a cost dies, and what to bring instead.
The leakage you already have.
Turnover, healthcare acceleration, presenteeism, absenteeism. Every number sourced (SHRM, Gallup, Mercer, IBI, CDC Foundation).
Does wellness actually work?
Johnson & Johnson $2.71 per $1 over ten years. Harvard meta-analysis 6:1. SAS Institute, four decades.
Why now: the policy tailwind.
1978 to 2026. Medicare begins paying for digital therapeutics; the CMS ACCESS Model opens in July 2026.
The offer that fixes it.
Activating the frozen 80%. The platform, a wearable of their choice, and year-round care support.
How it is funded.
The two plan documents in CFO language, and the per-enrolled-employee math worked through line by line.
How we are paid.
No implementation fee, and no invoice until cumulative net savings exceed the program fees.
Bring Finance in early.
Why co-owning the number beats selling it, plus the opening line and the order to walk it in.
The five objections.
Each one with a tested response. Keep this page open during the meeting.
How it rolls out.
Four to six weeks from agreement to the first payroll cycle. About three hours of your team's time.
From the Alively program.
Why this playbook exists.
This playbook is a companion to Wellness at Work — M. Andrew McConnell's second book, forthcoming from Matt Holt Books / BenBella in Fall 2027. It condenses Chapter 5 (the cost of unhealthy work) and Part II (the business case for workplace vitality) into a tool HR leaders can actually use in a 30-minute Finance meeting.
Andrew is the co-founder and CEO of Alively. A WSJ bestselling author (Get Out of My Head: Creating Modern Clarity with Stoic Wisdom), former McKinsey management consultant, bronze medalist representing Team USA on the USA Open Water Swimming National Team, and TEDx speaker. He hosts The Home of Healthspan podcast.
Alively is delivered in partnership with 360 Advantage, the third-party administrator for the §125 Cafeteria Plan and Self-Insured Medical Expense Benefit Plan structure. Employees connect a wearable of their choice — WHOOP, Oura, Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin, Ultrahuman — or claim one if they don't already have it.
Ready to walk into your next Finance meeting differently?
Send me the playbook. Read it in 20 minutes. Print the one-pager. Keep the meeting.
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