Employees looking to provide mental health support to workers

In a recent Employee Benefits’ survey, 54 per cent of employers stated that mental wellbeing support was a key focus for them in the coming year, with 44 per cent planning to take action around this in the coming months. It seems that now is a great time for assistance providers to develop and promote new employee assistance programme (EAP) offerings to help tackle the growing mental health crisis.

A good time for market penetration

A lot has changed since 2019 came to a close, especially in working culture. Where once, work traditionally revolved around the 9-5 of an office environment, it now revolves around home – alongside everything else at the moment. As such, work/home/family boundaries have become blurred, and ‘switching off’ and transitioning from labour to leisure has become increasingly difficult. It’s no surprise that mental health issues continue to rise among employees, and so it is important that employees are supported by their employers.

Luckily, employers are also aware of this and willing to rise to the challenge. Currently, 30 per cent of businesses surveyed by Employee Benefits have introduced policies and/or benefits to support employees during the pandemic, and one-quarter are prioritising this over the next 12 months.

Mental health has not always been the biggest focus in the healthcare sphere, but having been placed under a spotlight by pandemic, it’s good to see that at least now it is a front of mind concern for many, including employers who are keen to maintain the health and wellbeing of their employees.

With many assistance companies promoting personalised approaches to healthcare that utilise the increased engagement with remote patient monitoring devices, as well as telemedicine, at the moment, Hospitals & Healthcare has no doubt that international health insurers and employers can work together to deliver mental health support services that are effective, both from a cost and a health management point of view.