Employees have greater freedom than ever to be more selective about which employers they choose to work for, and a key factor for many is how well a company supports their employees’ mental health.
The impact of the pandemic has taken a toll on workers’ emotional well-being and caused many employees to rethink how they work and who they work for. Since the start of the pandemic in March of 2020, four in 10 adults say they have experienced symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders, according to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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In the past, employers have taken a reactive approach to mental health solutions, offering apps, EAPs and other benefits to combat a decline in the emotional well-being of their workforce, but that tactic needs to change, says Omar Dawood, president of BetterUp Care, the personalized mental health guidance and support arm of professional coaching company BetterUp.
“When employees see employers that are holistically taking care of them, that are investing in their physical and mental health and being proactive about it, they're going to those employers,” Dawood says. “So it has a profound effect on retention and a profound effect on how we build our workforce and how we support our workforce.”
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Dawood recently connected with Employee Benefit News to discuss how BetterUp Care is guiding employers to help their employees, and why it’s time to rethink your EAP in 2022.
How should employers be thinking differently about mental health support?
The pandemic was challenging for everyone and from a mental health perspective, it highlighted that all of us were caught flat-footed. It also put in focus that for the last four or five decades, employers have been investing in very reactive offerings, like employee assistance programs and other digital health offerings that were really designed for the vast minority of people who have labeled conditions of stress and anxiety. Those programs are very stigmatized and they weren't forward-looking. The pandemic really highlighted that we actually need to better prepare ourselves, because around the corner — while it may not be pandemic level stress and anxiety — there’s going to be something else.
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What do employees want from their mental health benefits?
Employees don't want to use a mental health or behavioral health benefit just because it's going to improve their clinical health scores. They want a benefit that actually ties into something that matters to them. That could be learning to be a better parent, or a better spouse, or be able to communicate better at work so you are more productive and more likely to be promoted.
What actionable steps can employers take to improve employee mental health and their lives?
We have to think about where employees are in their journey. In our own research, we saw that during the pandemic — and this is continuing — about 55% of employees at any company around the world say they are in this kind of languishing, stuck phase; they’re not sick, but they’re not themselves either. That's because they are struggling with some level of underlying stress and anxiety. What employers can do is first listen to your employees, either through assessments or through different communication channels and really find out where your employees are. A lot of employees aren't going to just raise their hand and say, ‘Hey, I'm not doing well.’
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Another thing is to lead by example. We’ve found that managers are really not yet fully equipped to be able to handle and navigate employees’ needs, especially from a mental health perspective. When we come in and work with companies, the first thing we actually do is work on manager enablement. How does a manager recognize stress and anxiety in the workplace? How can they have that dialogue and exhibit vulnerability with their own employees? Once they understand how to do this, only then can they actually start to actually help their own employees and get everyone into a better place. We've seen various manager trainings that employ some really, really key fundamental aspects of communication and handling check-ins and the importance of doing that on a regular basis.
