In today’s fast-paced world, the mental health of employees is more than just a buzzword – it’s a fundamental pillar of organizational success. Yet despite growing awareness around the importance of mental health in the workplace, many organizations continue to grapple with outdated approaches to Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that no longer meet the needs of today’s diverse workforce.
Consider the story of Sarah, a dedicated team member in the marketing department of a global business. As the demands of her job increase, Sarah finds herself facing mounting stress and anxiety from caregiving as a new parent and balancing work-life demands. In search of support, she turns to her company’s traditional EAP, only to be met with a frustrating user experience, outdated resources on caregiving, and long wait times to get counseling and work-life support. Feeling isolated and overwhelmed, Sarah struggles to navigate the challenges of mental health on her own. She goes on short-term disability, incurring costs for the business, and eventually resigns due to burnout, impacting not only herself but also her team, and the organization as a whole.
Unfortunately, Sarah’s experience is all too common today. Traditional EAPs, while once considered a cornerstone of employee support, have not kept pace with the demands of a rapidly evolving workforce. Slow access to care, reactive interventions, clunky experiences, and a lack of proactive strategies leave both employees and HR leaders feeling disillusioned and disengaged.
The Old Approach Isn’t Enough
The problem is traditional EAPs focus on reactive measures over preventive approaches, resulting in organizations playing catch-up with the mental health needs of their workforce. This reactive approach fails to address the root causes of mental health issues, leading employees to rely more on their health plans, ultimately driving up claims and overall healthcare costs for the company.
Meanwhile, digital EAP alternatives remain out of reach for many organizations due to their high costs. With business models based on fees for service, these platforms are incentivized to move employees towards expensive clinical interventions, as opposed to more cost-effective preventive solutions. This reactive framework falls short in addressing the fundamental causes of mental health challenges and perpetuates a cycle of dependence.
This dilemma leaves organizations stuck between a rock and a hard place – forced to choose between outdated solutions or expensive alternatives that offer limited preventive care.
A New Era of Workplace Mental Health Care
At Journey, we believe there is a better way. We believe in a world where prevention is the cornerstone of mental health care. At the core of our philosophy is the firm belief that organizational culture must actively support mental health, fostering proactive approaches to address underlying issues head-on rather than merely reacting to them.
In this world, every employee feels valued and included, armed with personalized tools that fit their individual needs, paving the way for holistic mental health care. Resources are abundant, access is seamless, and support is readily available to all.
That’s why we created Journey Proactive EAP, a groundbreaking preventive mental health solution, designed with a proactive approach at its core. Our unique, holistic program focuses on prevention, ensuring employees receive the care they need, exactly when they need it.
The Power of Journey’s Proactive Approach
Our proactive strategy offers a multitude of benefits that differentiates us from traditional EAPs and digital alternatives:
- Consistent Engagement: We keep mental health top of mind for employees through regular interactions.
- Quick Access to Help: Employees are consistently reminded where and how to obtain mental health support promptly.
- Early Intervention: We prevent issues from escalating to critical levels.
- Cost Reduction: By addressing problems early, we reduce healthcare costs and avoid expensive medical claims.
How Our Comprehensive Proactive Approach Works
Our comprehensive approach integrates robust proactive digital resources, customized engagement strategies, concierge-level employee and HR support, and a global offering rooted in diversity and inclusion to create an experience that keeps mental health top-of-mind for every employee, everywhere.
Proactive Digital Resources
We leverage advanced digital technology to provide continuous support to employees. Our system reaches out to them during negative check-ins and offers targeted support for localized events such as natural disasters or mass shootings. Maintaining confidentiality, our team guides HR leadership to initiate the right support measures for the workforce.
Our platform includes a vast array of digital resources, such as:
- Diverse Self-Guided Courses: Covering a wide range of topics from strengthening relationships, mindful leadership, sleeping better, overcoming bias and more.
- Proactive Check-Ins: We meet employees where they work by integrating our tools into their everyday environments, including calendar integrations, Teams, Slack, Zoom, and more.
- Daily Emails: We remind employees of available resources and provide tips for better mental health practices.
- Recommended Resources: Enabling confidential communication and access to additional resources for issues like depression, anxiety, grief, addiction, suicidal ideation, and self-harm.
- Digital Scheduling: We provide fast access to clinical care with in-app digital scheduling.
- Custom Engagement Strategies
Our proactive digital approach is complemented by customized engagement strategies tailored to fit your employees’ unique mental health needs. Whether you operate in manufacturing, retail, technology, or any other sector, we adapt our plans to engage your employees effectively that has resulted in a remarkable 30% average EAP engagement rate. We accomplish this by creating innovative ideas and working closely with HR leadership to assess key mental health topics of interest using proprietary techniques. One example is our demographic assessment using anonymized employee census data, such as adding or reducing dependents, title changes, or address changes. Our strategies allow us to provide targeted resources and services that cover topics like caregiving, grief, promotions, and moving, ensuring your employees receive the support they need when they need it. This tailored approach has proven to enhance employee mental health and well-being to drive overall organizational success.
Concierge-Level Employee and HR Support
We provide fast access to concierge-level support from a Masters-level clinician for all employees to ensure high quality experience. While traditional solutions typically take 21 days to offer clinical help, our approach minimizes wait times to an average of just 3 days. Employees can schedule appointments online with Masters-level clinicians who have at least 5 years of clinical experience, available worldwide. In addition, we also provide high-quality concierge-level support for HR and leadership teams to ensure the success of your mental health programs without adding extra workload. Our services include detailed reporting, guidance on engagement strategies, and crisis support, so HR teams don’t have to manage these topics alongside their other responsibilities. This high level of support guarantees that your organization can effectively implement and enhance its mental health initiatives.
Global Offering Rooted in Diversity and Inclusion
We are committed to ensuring that our mental health support is inclusive and accessible to everyone, no matter where they are in the world. Our products and services are available worldwide, covering 190 countries and offering counseling in over 100 languages. Journey’s counselors include 40% providers of color and 12% LGBTQ+ providers in the US. Our digital resources are translated into 27 languages and feature culture-specific content. This global accessibility ensures that all employees, regardless of location, can quickly receive the help they need without the long wait times.
Transforming Workplace Mental Health
Organizations across a wide range of industries from manufacturing to retail to technology are already seeing the transformative impact of Journey’s unique proactive approach to workforce mental health. Teams no longer have to settle for outdated solutions that aren’t serving the needs of their workforce. From increased employee engagement to meaningful healthcare savings, Journey is leading the charge towards a healthier and more productive workplace.
Embrace the next era of workplace mental health care with Journey Proactive EAP, and together, let’s create a workplace where mental health isn’t just important—it’s woven into the fabric of our culture.
Welcome to the Prevention Revolution. Welcome to Journey.