Are you reviewing your employee mental health benefits? If you are a manager or HR professional, you know that this is a complex task. Although organisations increasingly invest in mental health benefits, many still struggle to make a significant impact.
For these benefits to truly enhance workplace well-being, they must seamlessly integrate into the broader organisational strategy. Read this article to find out how to choose the right mental health benefits that consider the unique needs of your employees.
Employee Mental Health Benefits Examples
Mental health benefits include various services to support employees. Here are some examples:
- Counselling Services: Providing access to professional counsellors and coaches who can offer support for various mental health problems.
- Mental Health Days: Allowing employees to take days off specifically for their mental well-being.
- Stress Management Programs: Offering workshops and mental health resources to help employees manage stress effectively.
- Access to Mental Health Professionals: Ensuring employees can easily consult with psychologists or therapists.
- Mindfulness and Meditation Sessions: Promoting relaxation and mental clarity, e.g. through meditation app subscriptions or wellness memberships.
Research shows the positive ROI of mental health support with advantages such as reducing absenteeism and increasing productivity. The advantages of offering mental health benefits in the workplace are numerous, benefiting both employees and employers. They also help HR professionals and managers to promote mental health at work.
Key Advantages For Employees:
- Increased access to mental health support
- Improved mental health, overall well-being and productivity at work
- Better team dynamics and job satisfaction
How Employers Benefit from Investing in Mental Health:
- Enhanced employee productivity and performance
- Reduced absenteeism and turnover costs
- Attract and retain top talent
Want to learn more about this? Read our latest article to find out why employers are investing in mental health benefits.
Challenges in Choosing the Right Employee Mental Health Benefit
Effective mental health benefits are vital for creating a healthy, productive, and engaged workforce. However, employers can’t simply offer any employee well-being benefit and expect positive results. The benefits that employers offer must provide high-quality care that genuinely supports employees’ well-being.
Finding the right option is key, but with so many choices available, it can be overwhelming. Traditionally, Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) have been the primary option for mental health support. Yet, they face limitations, such as:
- Privacy concerns arise when employees must access services through HR. This potentially leads to hesitation in reaching out.
- EAPs may offer outdated forms of support, content, and user experiences, making them less appealing and harder to use.
- Services of traditional EAPs can lack prevention, as they often don’t address mental health conditions and challenges of employees early on.
Many organisations are now choosing to enhance or replace EAPs with other employee mental health benefits. But even with different options, the lack of awareness and accessibility of mental health benefits remains a broader issue.
Less than 19% of employees actively use their mental health benefits. Low engagement often happens when employees feel overwhelmed. This can be due to the complexity of the system, lack of flexibility, or uncertainty about available benefits.
Kathy Pike, CEO of One Mind at Work, emphasises that effective mental health support is more than just adding more benefits. It involves selecting the right benefits and integrating them well into the organisation’s strategy and culture.
This brings us to the question: what to look out for in employee mental health benefits? Let’s take a look at some factors that make it easier to encourage employees to use given benefits.
Key Qualities of Effective Mental Health Benefits
Evaluating employee benefits can look different in every organisation. As mentioned, they benefit employees and employers especially when they’re aligned with the overall business goals and workplace well-being strategy.
You Can Look Out For:
Explore them in more detail below.
1. Easy Access to Mental Health Support
Employees should easily find a professional who can help with their challenges and is available when needed. Quality mental health benefits provide quick and easy access to professional support. This allows employees to start their well-being journey without delays.
OpenUp ensures easy and fast access to expert guidance. 90% of users find it easy to book an appointment and 87% were able to book an appointment in a timely manner.
2. Tailored Care for Diverse Needs
Mental wellness benefits must cater to a wide range of needs. This includes mental well-being challenges from preventing stress to navigating a personal conflict or dealing with grief. Some benefits also extend support to family members. This might include family counselling or adding close family members to the benefit.
The mission of OpenUp is to make mental well-being accessible to all. Our 360° platform for workplace well-being supports your entire workforce, and their families.
3. Personalised Guidance
Mental well-being support should be personalised, adapting to each individual’s needs. As employees progress and the role of managers evolves, they need personalised support. This helps them develop skills to manage their specific challenges, leading to better engagement and outcomes.
With a variety of themes and timely relevant topics, OpenUp addresses the well-being needs of a diverse workforce. We also recognise that managers play a key role in workplace mental well-being. OpenUp supports managers to enhance their leadership skills for building a high-performing team. They get the tools they need to foster resilience at work in the face of adversity.
4. Evidence-Based Treatments
Organisations should ensure that their employee mental health benefits include treatments proven to work through testing and research. This guarantees that employees receive care that is both effective and reliable, improving symptoms and overall well-being.
OpenUp offers evidence-based guidance. We use positive psychology and science-backed methods to help people grow their strengths and resilience. Blending these with lifestyle medicine and positive health practices, provides a well-rounded approach to overall well-being.
5. Delivering Insights and Outcomes
Quality mental health benefits provide data and insights into employee engagement and the impact of supporting employee well-being. Look for benefits that offer data and regular reports on what’s happening in your organisation.
OpenUp provides HR teams with confidential reports to better understand the needs of their employees. This gives insights into the well-being of their organisation (whilst maintaining the anonymity of each employee).
6. Culturally Responsive Care
A diverse workforce requires guidance from a team of mental health professionals who understand various cultural backgrounds. Offering mental health support in different languages makes it easier for global workforces to engage with it. Ensure your mental health benefits connect employees with certified experts who can address their unique experiences and needs.
Our certified psychologists and lifestyle experts understand different cultures and make guidance accessible to employees in their mother tongue. OpenUp offers 1:1 sessions in more than 35 languages.
7. Security Standards and Quality Assurance
Providers of employee well-being services need ongoing training and performance tracking to maintain high standards of care. Choose a partner that monitors their team’s performance and ensures consistent, evidence-based practices.
OpenUp is committed to the highest standards. Our team is highly qualified. This includes psychologists with Master’s degrees in Psychology and official registration. Lifestyle experts have specialised degrees in a relevant field such as lifestyle medicine, nutrition, exercise science, and naturopath. Each expert brings a minimum of 2 years of experience and goes through regular training and performance reviews.
With their expertise, we ensure the highest standards in every resource and interaction across our platform. Additionally, we protect all personal data we have and ensure it’s safe and secure. OpenUp is NEN7510 and ISO27001 certified. This means that we meet the legal requirements for information security within the healthcare sector.
8. Organisational Development Resources
Mental health benefits should extend beyond individual care to support organisational well-being. This includes resources for building a culture of mental wellness, promoting mental health, and fostering a supportive work environment. Such tools and resources are key drivers for success in implementing employee mental health benefits and beyond.
Launching OpenUp is easy and realised in no time, whether in a small or large organisation. We help our partners, like DEPT® Agency, to make conversations on mental well-being part of their work culture. Not only for onboarding, but all year round.
Finding the Right Mental Health Benefit for Your Employees
Choosing the right employee benefit for mental well-being can be tricky to navigate. It can be hard to assess the pros and cons of different mental health solutions. By taking an informed approach, you can ensure the maximum benefit for your employees and organisation.
Understanding the key qualities of effective employee mental health benefits is a good starting point. Asking the right questions can help you find a benefit that suits your organisation and its diverse workforce. For example:
- Who will be able to use the benefit?
- What kind of support does the benefit provide?
- What types of services are being offered?
- Does it address the specific needs of your workplace?
- Does it meet your employees’ needs and expectations?
- Which insights will you gain on usage and impact?
- How does it support the overall business and well-being strategy?
Curious if OpenUp is the right fit for your organisation? We’d be happy to discuss how we successfully offer mental well-being support for over 400,000 employees. Contact us to explore how our solution can enhance your workplace well-being strategy.
