If your business operates like many companies today, you offer employees a wide range of healthcare benefits. Ideally, those benefits help meet everything from routine dental and vision needs to more urgent medical care. But one increasingly common offering remains surprisingly underused: mental health benefits.
According to research from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), just six in 10 employees said they knew how to access employer-sponsored mental health resources despite a large majority of employers offering them. The gap doesn’t come from a lack of need, however, since 38% said work demands had negatively affected their mental health over the past year.
So why aren’t employees using mental health benefits the same way they might use other preventive healthcare services?
In recognition of World Mental Health Day on Oct. 10, here are three common barriers that may keep employees from using mental health benefits or employee assistance programs (EAPs), and ways executives, managers and human resources leaders can help address them.
Employees Don’t Know the Benefits Exist or Understand How to Use Them
Based on the NAMI surveys, 57% of employees reported receiving no training about available mental health resources at their workplace, which speaks to the larger issue around awareness and access. Even if an employee is told once during onboarding or open enrollment that an EAP is available alongside a long list of other benefits, there is a good chance the information gets lost in the mix or feels too complicated to act on right away.
Employees may need regular reminders about what resources exist, how to access them and when they might be useful. Even when mental health benefits are available, employees may not understand what an EAP covers, how it differs from their health plan or where to begin.
How to address it: Audit your onboarding and open-enrollment processes. Are mental health benefits and EAPs visible and clearly explained? Is it easy to understand where employees should go for help? Does the process make taking action feel simple and intuitive?
If the gaps are difficult to identify internally, consider a brief employee survey about the benefits experience. If responses reveal confusion or low awareness, it may be time to communicate these resources more clearly and more often throughout the year, rather than only during enrollment.
Workplace Stigma Still Shapes the Mental Health Conversation
Over the past decade, conversations about mental health have become more open and approachable, encouraging more people to seek support. The widespread availability of workplace mental health benefits reflects some of the progress being made.
But greater awareness in general does not mean every employee feels comfortable bringing mental health into the workplace.
For employees, work is also where performance, promotions, raises and professional relationships are at stake. Some may worry that using mental health resources, requesting time for an appointment or acknowledging that they are struggling could change how a manager or colleague perceives them.
How to address it: Look beyond the benefits packet and consider what your workplace culture communicates about mental health. Does leadership actively reinforce that taking care of mental health is supported? Are employees able to step away for healthcare appointments without feeling they need to justify themselves? Do managers know how to respond appropriately when an employee asks for support?
Leadership does not need to make mental health a constant topic of conversation. But when employees see that using available resources is treated as a normal part of their health maintenance, asking for help can feel far less stigmatized.
Employees May Not Trust Their Information Is Private
Even when mental health resources are available, uncertainty about confidentiality can create another barrier.
For instance, an employee might feel uncomfortable talking to a therapist about workplace stress when their employer helped provide access to that session. Others may wonder whether a diagnosis, prescription or counseling appointment could somehow become visible to their manager.
Those concerns can persist even when individual clinical information is protected.
How to address it: Clearly explain what information is private, what the employer can and cannot access and how the specific EAP or health plan handles confidentiality. Privacy protections can vary depending on the program and provider, so employers should work with their benefits partners to communicate those policies accurately.
Do not assume employees already understand those boundaries. A straightforward explanation of confidentiality can provide the reassurance someone needs to actually use the benefit.
Supporting Mental Health Supports Your Business, Too
Why should this matter to a business focused on deadlines, performance and year-over-year growth?
Because employee well-being and business performance are closely connected. Gallup research has found a positive relationship between employee well-being and engagement at work. When employees have access to resources that help them manage their mental health, the benefit can extend beyond the individual to the team and organization around them.
Employees will always have their own reasons for using or not using the benefits available to them. The goal isn’t to push everyone toward the same resources. It’s to make sure employees know those resources exist, understand how to access them, feel empowered to use them and trust that they can do so privately.
If there is a significant gap between the mental health benefits your company offers and how often employees use them, it may be worth looking beyond the benefits themselves. Consider how they are communicated during onboarding and open enrollment, how often employees are reminded of them and, perhaps most importantly, what your workplace culture signals about using them.
You might learn that the barrier is not access at all.
Jessica Patriquin, PMHNP-BC, is vice president of psychiatric services at Denova Collaborative Health, Arizona’s largest outpatient behavioral health provider. A board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, she has practiced since 2018 and has experience in addiction treatment, medication-assisted treatment and tele-mental healthcare.
