Meeting The Need for Mental Health Benefits at Work

September 2024

In recent years, we have seen a surge in mental, emotional and behavioral health struggles among the U.S. employee population. This trend poses a variety of challenges in the workplace, including decreased productivity, increased absenteeism and presenteeism, heightened turnover and declining employee well-being. As a result, many employers are looking to enhance their benefits packages with offerings to better support employee mental health, while carriers are introducing new solutions to meet this demand.

Quantifying the Need

Recent LIMRA research shows that 75 percent of workers have experienced a mental or behavioral health challenge at least “sometimes” during the past year, while 37 percent have struggled with these issues “often.” Workers are most likely to report challenges related to anxiety, stress and depression (Figure 1). However, significant portions of the workforce also grapple with relationship, marital or family conflicts, grief or loss, alcohol or substance abuse, and other challenges. Alarmingly, more than 1 in 10 workers say they had thoughts of suicide sometimes or often during the past year, while only three-quarters “never” thought about suicide.

The mental health crisis is hitting some demographic groups harder than others. In particular, younger workers seem to be struggling more than their older colleagues: 62 percent of Gen Z employees have experienced a mental health challenge often in the past year, compared with only 19 percent of Baby Boomers. In addition, workers who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community are twice as likely to report frequent mental health struggles compared with non-LGBTQ+ employees (67 percent versus 33 percent). Other groups that report heightened challenges include Hispanic employees, lower-income workers, part-time workers and those with lower job levels.

Interest in Mental Health Offerings

Given the scope of these challenges, it is not surprising that most employees are interested in having their employers provide benefits or resources to help them cope with mental, emotional or behavioral health issues. Forty-nine percent of workers are “very” or “extremely” interested in these benefits, with another 27 percent “somewhat” interested. Only 11 percent of employees profess no interest at all in receiving mental health benefits from their employers, with Baby Boomers most likely to take this view.

As expected, interest is highest among workers who are personally struggling with mental health challenges. These workers are also least likely to feel their employers are invested in their mental well-being, suggesting that the mental health benefits currently offered by their employers may be missing the mark.

Employers looking to introduce new mental health offerings will want to prioritize those benefits that provide the greatest value to employees. Workers express the most desire for paid time off to cope with stress or mental health issues (Figure 2). This suggests an interest in “mental health days” — however, this need might also be addressed by disability insurance under some circumstances. Employees also voice significant interest in benefits that provide access to free or discounted counseling/therapy sessions or to have mental health appointments covered by their health insurance with no cost sharing. Taken together, this implies that employees are primarily looking for help with the time and the cost of dealing with mental health struggles.

There is also some moderate interest in the types of mental health support that can be provided by traditional supplemental health insurance benefits. Roughly 3 in 10 workers are interested in offerings that help pay for treatment at an inpatient or outpatient mental health or substance abuse treatment facility, such as a hospital indemnity plan might do. One-quarter are interested in benefits that provide a lump-sum payment upon the diagnosis of a mental or emotional health condition, such as a critical illness product might provide. While employees are open to these features, it is worth keeping in mind that these are not the most top-of-mind mental health benefits that workers are seeking.

In addition, only 28 percent of employees are looking for education about mental or emotional health issues through the workplace. When looking to enhance mental health benefits, educational resources are often the easiest offerings for employers to bring in. However, employers that choose to offer only educational benefits are unlikely to meet the full scope of their employees’ needs.

An Opportunity for the Industry

Employers have a valuable opportunity to help improve the mental health of the U.S. workforce through expanding the mental health resources they provide. Beyond enhancing employee well-being, doing so is also likely to boost productivity and business outcomes by helping workers perform at their best. However, it is essential to ensure that workplace mental health offerings are truly meeting employee needs. Benefit carriers can help by connecting their customers with relevant, high-value mental health solutions, both through their own in-house offerings and partnerships with relevant third-party mental health service providers.

About the Research

LIMRA’s BEAT study (Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker) is an annual survey exploring employee attitudes toward workplace benefits and general employment issues. The 2024 research surveyed more than 4,000 U.S. employees in January 2024. Read the full report here.