Employers: Our employees’ mental health depends on us

It’s past time to take action on employee mental health. By 2030, mental disorders are projected to cause $16.3 trillion in cumulative loss in economic output. Mental disorders will affect between 25-50% of the world’s population at some point in their lives.

While employers share in the financial burden, employees globally are individually struggling with depression, anxiety, burnout, substance abuse, and more. As employers, we often tell ourselves that the reasons are personal or caused by global forces external to our organization (wars, politics, the COVID-19 pandemic) that impact us all. But whatever the causes behind individual mental health challenges—there are many—the reality is employees are struggling to access needed support and they need us to do something different. We need to do more.

As an underwriter 20 years ago, I saw the same issues with mental health stigma, clinicians dismissing concerns, and clinician demand outpacing supply. Yes, COVID-19 magnified these issues. But they aren’t new.

Employees’ poor mental health is not what we want for our people, and it also happens to be bad for an organization’s bottom line. Employers are in the best positionto drive a fundamental shift in how people access mental health support.

Employers spend on benefits employees don’t use

As many as 98% of organizations offer mental health support, and “protecting employees’ quality of life” is the main reason why. Employers spend billions of dollars on benefits like Employee Assistance Programs (EAP), therapy visits, and wellness apps every year.

Yet, the reality is they go underutilized and employers don’t know why.

In a recent Deloitte survey, more than two out of every three employees said they don’t use the full value of their benefits because they’re too time-consuming, confusing, or cumbersome. In their efforts to support individuals, employers and health plans have added point solutions and perks over time. With many disconnected benefits, pathways to care have grown fragmented, complex, and hard to understand.

I experienced this fragmentation myself recently as I held a phone in each hand, building a bridge between my health plan and a specialty pharmacy to resolve an administrative problem—a benefit complexity I understood solely based on my early career tenure at Cigna.

When navigating mental health benefits becomes this complex, people are unable to get the care they need. Two out of every three employees with a mental illness say that accessing care is a challenge.

With the best intentions, employers turn to new telehealth and digital tools that aim to simplify and encourage use. However, the saturated market and limited pool of clinicians don’t address the heart of the problem: We need to help employees improve their mental health.

We’re stuck in a loop where most employers provide complex, decentralized mental health offerings that few employees use. Our efforts skim the surface rather than improving mental health.

Employers are uniquely positioned to make a difference

Workplaces thoroughly sway employees’ mental health and well-being. Likewise, employees’ mental health—whether it’s strong or poor—affects their organizations. The relationship is a trade that makes supporting employees’ mental health the right thing to do.

It’s also a good business decision. Employees’ poor mental health causes productivity losses, plus increased absenteeism, turnover, and short-term disability. It’s one reason why 74% of employers committed to increasing spending or reallocating budget toward workplace mental health this year.

In many places, people rely on employers for care, and even make decisions based on it. Employees say that the way their organization supports mental health and well-being is a top factor in their decision to leave or stay.

Considering that the average employee will spend almost 100,000 hours at work in their lifetime, employers carry the greatest influence and the biggest responsibility for supporting mental health. We’re obligated to do something about it.

What can employers do?

Investing in mental health benefits works only when they actually improve employees’ mental health. Here are some steps we can take.

1. Transform the way mental health support is delivered by uniting decentralized, disparate mental health offerings. If we offer employees a single access point for all of them, we eliminate the confusion and noise that squelched uptake.
2. Build a culture that supports mental health. We can’t invest in benefits, unveil them, and then hope employees do the rest. We must align our leadership and demonstrate authenticity and humility in business practices.
3. Tailor mental health support to employees so care is personal and adaptable. Ask yourself: Do they have poor internet connectivity or non-office jobs? What issues might they have with care quality or provider availability?
4. Guide members to the right resources and tools that are appropriate for today’s employees. They may need support with topics such as work and home balance, imposter syndrome, or finances.
5. Evaluate vendors and solutions for clinical rigor, ethics, and expertise. It’s the way to cement trust while ensuring employees get the best support they can.
6. Communicate. Once you’ve built benefits and processes that employees understand, stay in touch with them and be ready to adjust your approach.
7. Measure. Set health goals, not investment targets, to understand how much your offering is helping. Conduct surveys, measure beyond clicks, and talk about it regularly.

Employers can win big if we get this right. When we care for employees’ mental health, the results go straight to our bottom line. Keeping employees mentally healthy leads to improvements in use, productivity, and retention—all of which can increase return on benefits investments.

Melissa Frieswick is president and managing director of Koa Health.