Many organizations tend to excel at addressing the kind of employee health conditions that can be diagnosed and treated. If a team member announces they have a blocked artery or a broken arm, for example, most companies are well equipped to offer workplace accommodations or medical leave—often through traditional group benefits programs that are designed to help workers recover from acute medical issues. Mental health challenges are a different story.
It’s only in recent years that personal or professional discussions of issues such as anxiety, depression or other chronic mental health conditions have become more widely accepted. Admitting you need help is (thankfully) no longer taboo. Only now the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the mental health hurdles facing so many Canadians—a point that’s being amplified during Mental Health Week. A gap has emerged because many organizations’ group benefits programs are designed to address physical rather than mental and emotional challenges. That needs to change.
The workplace implications of ignoring employee mental health are simply too great, both from an organizational bottom-line perspective and, most importantly, for ensuring the health and wellness of the very workers who will drive Canada’s post-pandemic economic recovery.
COVID-19 and employee mental health wellness
To begin assessing the pandemic’s impact on our collective mental well-being—because it will take years to fully grasp the social, public health and economic implications of this Black Swan event—consider data released in March by Statistics Canada. The agency reported that roughly one in five Canadian adults surveyed “… screened positive for at least one of three mental disorders that were assessed: major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).” Everything from income loss and financial uncertainty to workplace burnout are factors that could contribute to the prevalence of these disorders—many of which were undoubtedly present before the pandemic’s onset. It’s important to note, however, that of the respondents who screened positive for a disorder, 68 per cent said their condition had become worse as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.
While 38 per cent of Canadians said they felt increased loneliness or isolation during the pandemic, financial challenges were reported as a major contributing factor to the onset of mental health issues. More than 40 per cent of Canadians who experienced financial difficulties also screened positive for one of the three mental health disorders that were assessed. Those who did not experience financial difficulties were far less likely to report a mental health disorder, with only 12 per cent screening positive for depression and 10 per cent screening positive for anxiety.
As we noted in an earlier blog the annual economic burden of mental illness in Canada is a jaw-dropping $51 billion, according to Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and fully 30 per cent of all disability claims in Canada are linked to mental illness. The challenge is costly and real, but it’s also one that employers can start addressing with the right strategy.
An opportunity for business
Mental Health Week is a chance for your organization to enhance its support for overall employee well-being. A good place to start is by reviewing and adapting your existing group benefits program. Does it strike the right balance between traditional coverage and the burgeoning focus on employee wellness and mental health that we now know is critical to driving company-wide innovation, improving productivity, reducing employee absenteeism, boosting staff engagement and retention—and more?
The reality is that while traditional plans may be a key part of your organization’s total compensation strategy—in part because they pay employee claims in a tax-efficient manner— COVID-19 and changing workplace practices have altered the benefits landscape. Many employees, especially Millennials, no longer have the same need for traditional coverage. That’s an opportunity for your organization to change the way it promotes employee wellness.
One option is to provide your workforce—especially if it’s diverse, multi-generational and has varied lifestyle needs—with access to a broader range of voluntary group benefits programs. That could include health spending accounts that offer taxable benefits or reimbursements for a range of non-traditional expenses such as daycare, meditation or mindfulness classes, gym memberships or pet insurance.
The goal is the same: easing employees’ overall financial anxiety and other mental health burdens so they can function better in their personal and professional lives. If that means making sure their arthritic golden retriever has the care it needs, so be it.
The virtualization of group benefits
Another important part of supporting employee mental health and wellness is through virtualized service delivery.
Most group benefits programs now offer access to virtualized services for physical or mental health care. The good news is that many of these offerings have been dramatically improved over the past year, as social distancing measures made in-person visits to health care professionals more challenging. Virtual service providers have stepped up and enhanced their platforms as a result.
Your organization could enhance its group benefits package by making virtualized online tutoring available through platforms such as Skooli, all to help ease the stress and anxiety of employees who are currently juggling work with home-schooling their children. You could provide virtual addiction counselling or access to online wellness libraries delivered by our partnered providers such as Trafalgar Addiction Treatment Centres or LifeSpeak, the latter as a way to offer high-quality health and wellness learning tools to staff.
As always, understanding your workforce and customizing your group benefits plan to their lifestyle needs—while building in the necessary flexibility so the suite of services they choose to access now can evolve over time with changes to their personal or professional circumstances—is the key to maximizing plan usage and supporting their mental wellness.
Managing the psychological fallout from COVID-19
As the Canadian Mental Health Association encourages in its messaging for Mental Health Week: It’s time to #GetReal about how you feel.
It’s also time to talk to your people, come to grips with how COVID-19 has impacted their lives and better understand how your organization can help alleviate that burden by providing the right group benefit options.
The Bridgewell Team
