The onset of the pandemic pushed employers to pay attention to mental health support in the workplace, and after nearly five years, many employers have something to show for their efforts.
According to insurance company Aflac, 54% of employees are now confident that employers care at least moderately about their mental health, which is an improvement over last year when the number was at 48%. In addition, 47% of employees believe their organizations have improved how they address mental health needs in the last year. In other words, workers have an increasingly positive outlook about their employer’s role in their mental health, despite the political and economic stressors that have defined 2024.
“Employers are listening to employees who are saying that they’re overloaded at [work] and at home,” says Jeri Hawthorne, chief HR officer at Aflac. “They’re starting to offer more programs and services in a way that employees want to access them, and making the mental health conversation more mainstream and safer for employees.”
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Hawthrone notes that even beyond added mental health and wellness services, like therapy access and mediation apps, many employers are more open to workers taking PTO for mental health purposes or have even expanded their PTO. Flexibility also shows that companies care about their workers’ health. According to Aflac, fully in-person employees were less likely to say that their organization had improved on the mental health front: Just 40% of on-site workers reported improvement compared with 48% of remote and 58% of hybrid employees.
“Being remote or having a mix gives employees a sense of control and autonomy,” says Hawthorne. “I’m a working mom, and I have the ability to work from home two days a week. I may throw in a load of laundry on Tuesday if I’m working from home, and it takes 30 seconds out of my day, but it saves me some stress during my own time off.”
And workers still need all the stress relief they can get. While employers’ efforts haven’t gone unnoticed, burnout remains high. Nearly 60% of employees are facing moderate to high burnout, and three in four employees reported at least a moderate level of stress at work — a 5% increase from 2023, according to Aflac. The top three culprits of workplace stress are heavy workloads, long hours and insufficient wages, hinting that while more employers say they care about mental health, it doesn’t necessarily translate into a better working environment.
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Hawthorne is especially concerned about how healthcare costs add to employee stress, noting that the less affordable care is, the less likely employees will access preventative or early treatment to keep their physical health from worsening, which could affect their mental well-being. Aflac found that over half of employees reported that they could not pay $1,000 in out-of-pocket costs for an unexpected illness or injury.
“These external factors continue to have a negative impact on the mental health and overall well-being of employees,” she says. “And employers are having to make decisions about whether they should pass additional costs onto their employee population, or change their benefits, or actually decrease what they’re offering.”
Hawthorne predicts that small and midsized employers will have to make significant changes to their benefits, as healthcare costs are estimated to increase by 5.8%, according to HR consulting firm Mercer.
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Hawthorne advises all employers to consider an investment in mental health support as part of a strategy to lower healthcare costs. Poor mental health can lead to chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes and substance use disorders.
“If I have a healthier workforce, I’m less likely to have higher cost claims on my health insurance plan, and I’m less likely to have higher levels of absenteeism because people are healthier,” says Hawthorne. “You can get in front of the mental health crisis and try to proactively treat it.”
