Episode 163: Designing Anti-Inflammatory Workplaces with Specialist Jaqueline Oliveira-Cella

Ashish Kothari:

Welcome to The Flourishing Edge, the podcast where we share weekly tips on making flourishing your competitive edge. I’m Ashish Kothari, your host, and each week we’ll dive deep with flourishing experts, changemakers, and executives to share best practices that can help you unlock higher performance through science-based interventions.

Let’s step together into the edge of what’s possible and live, work, and lead with more joy, health, love, and meaning.

Hi Jacqueline, it is so lovely to have you on our Flourishing Edge podcast.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Happy to be here. Long overdue, but timely.

Ashish Kothari:

You bring such a unique perspective, Jacqueline. You’ve been an actuary for over 25 years and have studied health and wellness from many different angles. One topic that has really come to the forefront—especially in the last five years—is flourishing.

This goes far beyond illness and what keeps people sick. It’s about how we help people truly flourish. From your perspective, why does flourishing matter? If you were talking to a CEO, how would you help them think about flourishing as a strategy worth investing in?

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Leveraging my actuarial background, the first thing that comes to mind is how we measure risk. Typically, we look at risk by body part or outcome—disability, death, longevity, and so on.

But there’s a risk that often gets overlooked: the culture, the container, the organization where people work. Whether that organization enables people to be their best selves—or not—has a profound impact.

Imagine two companies with similar demographics. In Company A, people are enabled to create, to flow. Managers act as coaches and uplifters, helping close learning gaps and making people feel that they matter.

In Company B, the pressure is high, leadership is rigid, and creativity is discouraged. Performance is expected as an obligation, and recognition comes only after results.

Company A enables flourishing. People connect meaningfully, perform at their best, and contribute fully. Company B pushes people toward burnout, illness, or out of the organization altogether.

We’re at a critical moment in the U.S. Healthcare costs are rising. CFOs look at benefits spend and workforce risk, but the invitation is to look beyond hiring and benefits alone and examine the systems people are placed in. Those systems determine whether people thrive or operate in survival mode—driving higher costs, lower performance, and greater health risk.

Ashish Kothari:

That’s such an important point. If costs are rising, leaders need to look at culture as an untapped lever—moving from reactive protection to true prevention.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Exactly. Benefits—health, wealth, and well-being—are important. When well designed, they provide protection and remedies. But if you combine those benefits with an environment that allows people to flourish—an anti-inflammatory environment—you amplify their impact.

When you look at health risks—cardiovascular disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal pain, gastrointestinal issues, cancer—many are increasing in severity or utilization. How we live and work can either exacerbate or alleviate these risks.

There’s strong evidence that feeling present, supported, and able to flourish correlates with reduced chronic stress and fewer chronic conditions.

Ashish Kothari:

So instead of only providing resources after people are sick, leaders can redesign how work gets done to prevent illness in the first place.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Yes, and I want to make a caveat. When people hear “preventative,” they sometimes say, “Why invest if the employee may leave in three years?” But shifting the container—creating an anti-inflammatory workplace—has immediate effects.

You feel it in the very next meeting. People leave meetings feeling seen, energized, and supported. That impact is far more immediate than many long-term health interventions.

Ashish Kothari:

You’ve led global benefits and well-being at organizations like Colgate, Aon, IBM. What do companies most often get wrong when designing employee benefits and health programs?

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

There’s a lot to unpack, but a key issue is that benefits are often passive. People don’t even know what exists. Communication focuses on benefits instead of needs.

Design thinking matters here. Start with the problem you’re solving and who it impacts. During COVID, we created a mental health task force and spoke directly with different employee groups. We redesigned benefits and communication to address real needs. Even in the middle of the pandemic, engagement increased.

Another issue is design inequity. I recently saw a “best practice” where employers increased employee costs for repeated ER visits. The wrong question is, “How do we discourage ER use?” The right question is, “Why are people going to the ER in the first place?”

Access to primary and specialty care can take weeks. Penalizing behavior without fixing systemic gaps only worsens outcomes.

Ashish Kothari:

That really highlights two levers: listening deeply and designing benefits that are equitable, accessible, and affordable.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Yes. Many frontline employees can’t even afford their portion of benefits. Leaders often don’t realize this.

Health equity starts with listening—surveys, interviews, understanding unmet needs. Then you layer in market trends and business strategy. From there, you prioritize changes based on cost, feasibility, and impact.

Ashish Kothari:

One area where you’ve been leading new thinking is anti-inflammatory workplaces. How did that framing come about?

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

I was at a global women’s health summit focused on food as medicine. As we explored hormones, gut health, and mental health, inflammation emerged as the common thread.

Inflammation happens when the body is overworked fighting threats. In organizations, inflammation shows up when people are constantly fighting stress, fear, or unsafe systems.

Anti-inflammatory workplaces reduce chronic stress and allow energy to be redirected toward creativity, connection, and performance.

Ashish Kothari:

That framing makes the connection between stress, physiology, and performance unmistakable. Workplaces can either amplify suffering or enable flourishing.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Exactly. Gallup data shows declining engagement and massive productivity losses. Trust in managers has dropped significantly. Managers are cultural multipliers, yet many are promoted without training.

Training managers to coach, rewarding collaboration, creating space for reflection—these are critical levers in building anti-inflammatory systems.

Ashish Kothari:

Reflection itself is such a powerful intervention—creating space to respond rather than react.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Yes, moving from pressure to presence. That’s why I developed the SAFE protocol—to help individuals create a pause in high-stakes moments.

SAFE stands for:

Set intentions,

Acknowledge facts, emotions, and needs,

Frame and reframe,

Evaluate next steps.

It’s about emotional intelligence, clarity, and agency.

Ashish Kothari:

And you’ve made SAFE available through a custom GPT.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Yes. Anyone with a ChatGPT account can access SAFE under GPTs as “SAFE Leadership and Daily Reflections.” It’s designed to be private and equitable.

So far, it’s been used in healthcare, executive coaching, HR, and even sensitive situations like domestic violence support. It’s not a replacement for human connection, but it’s a powerful reflective tool.

Ashish Kothari:

Jacqueline, thank you for creating and sharing this work. I deeply appreciate your leadership, generosity, and friendship. You are truly advancing the field of flourishing.

Jacqueline Oliveira-Celia:

Thank you, Ashish. That means a lot.

Ashish Kothari:

Thank you for joining me on The Flourishing Edge. If today’s conversation inspired you, share it with someone ready to flourish. Subscribe, leave a review, and keep growing into your fullest potential.