Mental Health Benefits for Employees

Protecting Your Workforce, Protecting Your Business

One of the most important things to understand about your employees is that they are ultimately an investment - one that will help secure the future success of your organization. That investment needs to be protected and when it comes to employee benefits like healthcare, you need to go beyond the idea that physical health is the beginning and end of the story.

Especially given everything going on in the world right now, mental health benefits are equally important. This is true for a wide range of different reasons, all of which are worth exploring.

The Importance of Mental Healthcare in the Workplace

Most people find their jobs to be stressful by their very nature. Having said that, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there was a significant increase in the number of employees who suffered from depression on average.

People who suffer from mental health-related issues like depression tend to be more distracted than others. The quality of their work goes down and they become less productive in general. They take more sick days, which ends up costing a business money - not to mention the potential reputational damage that can be caused if work output for clients declines.

This is why a focus on mental health benefits for your employees is so critical. Even going beyond the fact that treating people with care and showing them that you value their mental health is the right thing to do ethically, offering these types of comprehensive services can go a long way towards making sure that they're able to function at their best at the exact same time. If you are a small group employer, not all health plans offer comprehensive services or include the services below, and some standalone options are only available for large groups. This is why having a benefits broker, like AEIS, that has already done research on this topic is so important. They can help guide your company and find the solutions that fit the needs of your specific employees the best. 

Types of Mental Healthcare Benefits

Overall, there are a few different types of mental healthcare benefits that businesses can choose to offer to their workers depending on the situation. Many of them are focused on not only helping people to deal with the existing issues that they may have, but to also develop the types of coping skills necessary to prevent new ones from developing and moving forward. These types of mental healthcare benefits include, but are certainly not limited to, the following.

Counseling Services

Counseling services, as the term implies, are very similar to traditional therapy. It's a collaborative form of mental health treatment where an employee has the chance to sit down with a trained professional who is equal parts caring and neutral. Not only will they have the time to work out any issues that develop in the workplace, but also those that impact their productivity as well - like issues stemming from their relationships or other areas in their personal lives. Employers can sometimes work with a third party to offer limited counseling services to employees after a communal event that affects their employees’ mental health, such as layoffs or a coworker’s passing. 

Stress Management Services

Again, most employees consider their jobs to be a fairly consistent source of stress. The more they're able to deal with these stressors, the less likely they are to develop issues like anxiety that will ultimately negatively impact the quality of their work and their overall wellbeing.

Stress Management Services can include things like the following:

• Acupuncture, which can relieve both physical and mental stress depending on the context
• Mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques that people can use to relieve stress in the moment
• Problem-solving therapy, which can be useful both on the job and in their personal lives.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Psychotherapy, which many people also refer to by terms like talk therapy
• Meditation Apps
• And more

These are just a few examples of the types of Stress Management Services that are available. Offering a wide variety of different Stress Management Services to employees allows people to choose the ones that work best for them and that can help address whatever it is they are trying to deal with in their lives.

Virtual Services 

With Covid-19, we have seen an increase in the number of people using telehealth for mental health issues, including depression or anxiety. According to KFF, before Covid-19, telehealth represented less than 1% of therapy visits, now it represents 36% of outpatient visits for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Virtual services can be embedded in an employee’s medical insurance or employers can add standalone options for their employees. Additionally, virtual services can be more cost effective for employees and they can usually set an appointment within weeks, versus in-person service, which can have a waitlist of months. 

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

EAPs, otherwise known as Employee Assistance Programs, can be a great way to help employees deal with the issues they may be facing at little or not cost to them. It's very similar to the types of Stress Management Services outlined above, but it provides a comprehensive array of treatment options that people can embrace should they believe that this will help them in both their personal and professional lives.

However, it's pivotal to communicate the fact that these types of programs are available at all. Many employees may not even be aware that EAPs exist or that they have access to them, thus causing them to fail to take advantage of what could be a legitimate resource to help them improve their lives moving forward. Should you choose to offer EAPs for your business, make sure that all employees know why they're important, what they offer, and how they can best take advantage of them.

Benefits for Employers and Employees Alike

By far, the biggest reason why employers should offer these types of mental health benefits to employees comes down to the fact that it's the right thing to do. Whenever possible, we should all do our part to help our colleagues. Having said that, happier and healthier employees tend to be far more productive on average - which increases the quality of the work they're able to accomplish and ultimately improves the core foundation of the business at the same time.

Not only that, but when employees understand that their employers value their mental health every bit as much as they do, they tend to be more invested in the environment. Company culture improves in a way that motivates everyone to "give their all" to the proceedings. The more work you put into your employees, the more work they're willing to put back into the business and accomplishing your goals - which in and of itself is the most important benefit of all.

So if you'd like to learn more about the major advantages of mental health services and what they can potentially bring to your business, or if you're interested in talking to a professional about these and related matters in a bit more detail, please don't hesitate to contact the team at AEIS today.