Why Every Company Should Invest in Mental Health Support

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which provides those of us working in Human Resources – especially Benefits – with a powerful opportunity to raise awareness and reduce the stigma that unfortunately so often comes with talking about mental health in the workplace.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past three years, it’s how important it is to normalize prioritization of our wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of our dependents. Economic turbulence, geopolitical instability and widespread job uncertainty are causing increased levels of stress, anxiety, and burnout. There has never been a more important time to support the mental health and wellbeing of our employees than now.

At Microsoft, we started on a journey years ago to better understand how we can better support our employees’ wellbeing more holistically. The path we’re building involves a combination of looking inward to examine our own culture and approaches, as well as outward to find the best partners to support our people. Insurance and employee assistance programs alone are not enough, we must recognize that everyone is on their own journey and provide flexible programs to help people find what works for them.

To commemorate Mental Health Awareness Month, I wanted to share an update on our learnings and the progress we’ve made to date knowing that we’ll continue to learn and improve as we go.

Culture is foundational. 

Reaching out and increasing awareness about services and benefits is important, but ultimately people need to feel comfortable using those services and benefits. It’s crucial to encourage people to be aware of their mental wellbeing, feel safe to admit when they’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges, or when they just need a break. 

This is a tricky problem for any company full of highly focused individuals, but the foundation is in building a culture that lets people know that mental wellbeing is a priority and that it’s OK to seek help. This cultural emphasis shows up in small ways like executives modeling their own time away to recharge, as well as more substantial investments like training for managers on how to support employees in being a “lighthouse” that doesn’t attempt to counsel but that steers colleagues and their dependents toward their benefits and support.  

It's also essential to establish a feedback loop so you can continually adjust. At Microsoft, we constantly listen through programs like an anonymous employee pulse survey that goes out to more than 2,500 employees every day and also seek thematic, anonymized input from our vendors as to what is working/not working. During more challenging times – whether inside or outside company doors— this proves to be even more vital so that an organization can gauge the impact on their employees.

The pandemic inflamed a preexisting condition. 

Long before the pandemic, mental health services were at a premium. For years there has been a shortage of mental healthcare professionals and an acute shortage of diverse counselors. The pandemic exposed this problem as demand spiked dramatically for mental health services, a trend which has only continued.  

One thing we hear consistently from employees is that wait times can be too long for a person in crisis. Getting scheduled with a mental health professional can take 3 to 5 weeks, if not longer. For short-term counseling, it can take upwards of 10 days. So, it’s a priority to streamline that process. In other cases, we also found that available counselors didn't meet the needs of our diverse employees.  

Offering people a wealth of choices allows them to connect with the right person or service and have the right plan. And on top of offering more choices, those services must be accessible. Efficiently restructuring the process of connecting with a professional and reducing barriers where possible can make all the difference when someone realizes they need to talk.   

People need help navigating their care. 

Most companies now are living in a hybrid, flexible world where everyone is on different schedules in different places – wellbeing offerings must be able to accommodate this need.

Along with delivering access no matter where employees are, we also want to offer information and resources to help people learn and make better healthcare decisions. Not everybody is ready to seek counseling right away. They may want to learn more, or think about lifestyle changes before jumping in.   

One solution that we identified was to provide a seamless engagement experience that can be accessed from anywhere and offers a broad offering of information where people can connect with experts to understand the kinds of care they might need. Offering resources for a certain level of self-directed care where appropriate can also help take pressure off the system.  

Choose the right partners to reach more people. 

Establishing cultural norms and reaching out to employees are cornerstones of our approach, but it’s also foundational to find the right partners who can really go deep and help people connect with their wellness programs.  

So, while we have agreements with organizations like Headspace Headspace and Happify HAPPIFY to offer that self-directed approach for employees, we also began rolling out a new, more comprehensive employee assistance program from Spring Health Spring Health last fall to provide more hands-on tools, resources, and support.  

Spring Health offers abundant choices of counselors, and the program is customizable and actionable to quickly access wellbeing resources. Employees can see pictures, demographic details, availability of counselors, and are able to schedule their appointment within the app in one to two days. We’re rolling these services out to employees in more than 100 countries, which will be completed by June 2023. 

Spring Health also offers a wide range of health-related content that employees can tap into, as well as a mental health assessment tool that creates a clinically validated care plan. Taking it a step further, they also offer a care-navigation approach where mental health clinicians help people choose an approach that’s right for them. Additionally, Spring Health offers support to HR staff or managers who may need coaching on ways to support employees’ wellbeing. 

Employees are responding to this comprehensive new service — in the first week post launch, we had roughly 4,000 people sign up and participation continues to grow. We’ve now launched to 25 countries and have over 33,000 people signed up. 

Support the whole person.  

It's no longer adequate for an employer to provide financial and physical wellbeing benefits. We have to consider the whole person on a physical, mental, emotional and financial level. All dimensions are connected. All of the approaches we’re taking today and are assessing for tomorrow, accrue to helping people be better informed and make better decisions about their holistic personal wellbeing. Holistic wellbeing enables people to do their best work, including improved innovation and creative problem solving.

Comprehensive mental health benefits are vital in communicating an organization’s support for an employee’s health, normalizing the stigma that may surround it, and to ensure employees have the resources they need in their wellbeing journey. As leaders, colleagues, and friends, we can’t stop asking ourselves, “what more can we do?” It’s on all of us to continue to engage in meaningful discussions around the best ways we can improve support of mental health at work and at home.