Key Insight: Discover how proactive digital outreach can multiply EAP engagement and catch issues earlier.
What's at Stake: Rising presenteeism and productivity losses could cost employers billions without early intervention.
Expert Quote: Stephen Sokoler: Employees rarely ask for help — proactive contact provides a sense of safety and support.
Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review
A proactive approach to
"When people are in need, oftentimes they don't know where to turn; our vision gets narrowed and we can't see what support is available," says Stephen Sokoler, founder of EAP platform Journey. Companies can create a customized plan for interacting with employees, enabling them to reach out regularly through digital messaging and checkins.
The result is 30%
"The reason most EAPs miss the mark is that it's human nature to not ask for help until it's too late," Sokoler says. "[Traditional] EAPs were built to wait until employees raise their hand, but they don't do this, so they suffer in silence. They delay getting care, issues escalate, things snowball, and then a person is on the verge of burning out, or ends up in urgent care, or worse."
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The impacts of poor mental health on the workplace
According to Gallup, almost a fifth of employees rate their mental health as fair or poor, and are absent from work four times as often — 12 days as opposed to 2.5 — as employees who report their mental health as good, very good or excellent. Added up, these missed days are projected to cost $47.6 billion in lost productivity.
Even when present, employees whose mental wellness is suffering tend to be less creative, engaged and motivated, and suffer from higher rates of depression and burnout. In fact, according to the CDC, suicide rates among working-age adults have increased approximately 33% over the past 20 years.
When employees do not have access to, or are not communicated with about available mental health resources, they are less likely to get the help they need and they, their family, their community and their company pay the price, says Sokoler. Gallup's data found that 33% of employees did not know if they had mental health support and services through their workplace, and 24% said they did not.
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Proactive support makes a difference
Actively reaching out to employees and putting resources at their fingertips helps remove these barriers, Sokoler says. Journey's digital touchpoints include things like daily emails, check-ins through a company's preferred app, such as Zoom, Teams or Slack, on-demand courses and monthly awareness campaigns. The platform's technology can be personalized by including information such as employee demographics, dependents and more, allowing it to make contact when it detects any changes.
"If you see the number of dependents have gone up or down, you know that either the person married, or maybe they had a baby, or maybe there was a death, or maybe there was a divorce," Sokoler says. "We don't have to know what happened, we don't want to overreach, but we do want to say, 'Hey, we're here for you.'"
Employees also have access to live support with Journey's diverse team of trained clinicians. The combination of its digital capabilities and expert live support means employees always know that there is a supportive community close by, and they are not going through things alone, Sokoler explains.
For HR and benefit professionals, the platform provides concierge-style support, including reporting, predictive analytics that help to identify risks and crisis support. Employers can elect to adopt Journey Proactive EAP, or bring its Journey Live program in to run alongside their existing traditional EAP.
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Making mental health more than a benefit option
Benefits are just the start; success in creating holistic mental health support comes down to culture, says Sokoler. Mental wellness should be part of a company's core values, and leadership should be trained on its importance as well as good ways to demonstrate and communicate it to their teams.
"We have to make sure that we're reducing stigma so people can talk about mental health openly in the workplace," he says. "For example, if I broke my arm and I couldn't do my job, I wouldn't feel any stigma about saying, 'Hey, I broke my arm. I can't do my job.' But if I'm suffering from really debilitating anxiety, or I'm really stressed about something going on at work or at home, that's not a thing that is safe to say in a lot of company cultures."
Given all the challenges employees are facing in their personal and professional lives, it's more important than ever for workplaces to acknowledge and commit to the mental health and wellness of their employees. This means a focus on proactive, preventative care, says Sokoler.
"We've never lived in a time like this; it's not good enough to simply react," he says. "If you're catching things sooner, you're going to have better outcomes. It just makes good business sense to make this investment."
Read more about mental health and wellness efforts in the workplace:
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