Our weekly roundup of employee benefits news

November 22, 2024 12:00 PM

Employees — Caucasian woman team leader mentor teach staff multiethnic workers at corporate group briefing explain work results analyzing financial report together, planning project, brainstorming process concept

This week, we had a variety of stories focused on mental health including senior reporter Deanna Cuadra's article about the finalized mental health parity rule and what it means for employers.

November is National Adoption Month, and editor Lee Hafner highlights some of EBN's top adoption benefits stories.

And contributing writer Keith Button explores a new trend in hiring.

Read these stories and more in our weekly news roundup.

Compliance and coverage: A look at the finalized mental health parity rule

Healthcare compliance is rarely an employer's favorite topic of conversation — but it's a conversation they won't be able to avoid over the next few years.

The Biden administration finalized a rule that expands the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act, a law that prohibits health plans from placing restrictions on mental healthcare coverage that they wouldn't place on other types of medical care. The new requirements center on ensuring employers and insurers strengthen their coverage of mental health providers and services, likely pushing many health plans to expand their mental health care networks altogether.

While most of the rule goes into effect January 2026, it's clear employers will still have their work cut out for them, notes John Reade Jr., a partner at Duane Morris and part of the law firm's employee benefits and executive compensation practice group.

Adoption benefits are a vital part of family-building support

Family-building benefits are table stakes for employers, and they are not complete without adoption support.

But a lengthy legal process, high associated costs and travel time make the adoption process complicated and, therefore, out of reach for many. Meanwhile, over 100,000 children are waiting to be adopted in the U.S. alone, according to AdoptUSKids.org. Employer-sponsored adoption benefits can break down some or all of these barriers and put this option back on the table.

Access to family-building platforms that help employees navigate the adoption process and financial assistance to offset fees and travel expenses are some of the main ways employers are meeting the needs of prospective parents. Expanded parental leave benefits that include paid time off for foster and adoptive families are also becoming more popular.

Looking to hire? Tik Tok, Reddit and Spotify are the hot new job sourcing sites

Expect to see YouTube and Meta's Instagram and Facebook as the dominant social media sites for recruiting advertising videos in 2025, with Tik Tok, Reddit and Spotify drawing an increasing level of interest from companies seeking job applicants, according to a recruiting ad agency executive.

Meanwhile, companies in hiring mode are losing interest in advertising on X, formally known as Twitter, mainly because advertisers don't want their brands associated with polarizing or disagreeable content, says Neil Costa, founder and chief executive officer of the HireClix ad agency.

The goal of the social media campaigns is two-fold: To find new sources of candidates beyond Indeed and LinkedIn, which are currently the most popular job boards, and to present branding messages describing the companies and their cultures, Costa says. "Given how much time people are spending on social media sites, we want to get the brand and then particularly the jobs in front of them where they can have some brand recall," he says.

What's on the minds of American workers

Many Americans are struggling right now.

Almost 30% of U.S. workers reported feeling a lack of interest, motivation or energy within the 30 days prior to taking the 2024 Work in America Survey: Psychological Safety in the Changing Workplace. The research was conducted online from March 25 to April 3 by Harris Poll for the American Psychological Association (APA) and included the responses from more than 2,000 U.S. working adults.

A quarter said they had trouble focusing, and the same percentage noted that they had experienced emotional exhaustion within the last month. Twenty-three percent of respondents said they didn't feel motivated to do their best and the same percentage said they had a desire to keep to themselves. Others reported feelings of loneliness and being ineffective at work.

The impact of tech on mental healthcare

It's hard to imagine a world where tech isn't a key part of mental health strategies — especially in the workplace — whether it is through apps or virtual appointments. But the reality is that the development of those tools, and their subsequent popularity, is fairly recent.

Telehealth visits for mental health accounted for almost 37% of visits since 2020, according to an analysis of healthcare visits from Epic Systems. This is notable when overall telehealth visits made up less than 6% of overall medical appointments, meaning that people are getting accustomed to, and might even prefer, telehealth visits for mental health.

"The pandemic also coincided with a growing global mental health crisis largely driven by a shortage of quality mental health providers," says Jenna Glover, chief clinical officer at Headspace, a mental health platform. "For mental healthcare specifically, the growth of virtual care has provided a level of access and affordability that wasn't previously available and I don't see that changing as we move forward."

Everything about this company's culture fosters employee mental health

Ron Marhofer Auto Family's approach to employee mental health is straightforward: Offer a culture grounded in inclusivity, trust and connection, where people feel like they belong.

Despite this being easier said than done, the company has figured out how to do it very, very well.

"It starts with, from day one, creating open dialogue with our team members to make sure that we have relationships with everybody, that they know we're here to support them, and that we have them and their families best interest at heart," says Robert Hamer, the company's CHRO. "We incorporate that into decisions we make across the board."