For decades, Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) have been the cornerstone of workplace mental health support. Many organisations introduced them for the most honourable of reasons - to ensure employees had somewhere to turn during times of personal or professional difficulty.
But as conversations around mental health have evolved, so too have expectations about the kind of support employers should provide. Today, despite the best intentions of EAPs, many organisations are increasingly asking an important question… Is a traditional EAP enough to support the mental health needs of a modern workforce?
Will the UK’s lagging workplace productivity ever improve sufficiently using such a system? The evidence would suggest not.
The role EAPs were designed to play
EAPs were originally created to provide confidential counselling and advice services to employees experiencing significant personal challenges. In practice, this usually means access to a limited number of therapy sessions delivered via telephone or short-term counselling.
For employees in acute distress, this type of support can be incredibly valuable. Having a professional to speak to during a difficult period can make a meaningful difference.
However, the model itself is fundamentally reactive, and implicit in it is a cap on access. Support tends to begin once a problem has already reached a level where counselling or therapy is required, and ends before the employee has recovered. For many organisations, this creates a huge gap between the everyday mental health challenges employees experience and the type of support available to them.
Stress, poor sleep, anxiety, burnout and low mood are common experiences in working life. Yet most employees will never reach the point where they feel counselling is necessary, or they may feel uncertain about whether their situation is serious enough to justify overcoming the barriers and stigma around using the service.
This dynamic is reflected in low utilisation rates. Despite being widely offered as an employee benefit, most EAPs see engagement from only a small percentage of the workforce each year. For employers trying to support the wellbeing of their entire organisation, this raises an important challenge: how do you support the other 95%?
The shift toward preventative mental health support
Over the past decade, there has been growing recognition that mental health support in the workplace should not begin only when someone reaches crisis point.
Just as organisations increasingly invest in preventative physical health initiatives, from fitness programmes to nutritional support, mental wellbeing also benefits from early, everyday interventions.
Preventative mental health support focuses on helping individuals develop the skills and habits that protect their wellbeing before problems escalate. This might include learning how to manage stress more effectively, improving sleep, regulating emotions, or building resilience during periods of pressure.
When employees have access to these tools, they are often able to address challenges earlier and more confidently.
Where Thrive fits
Thrive was built around this preventative model.
Rather than positioning mental health support solely as a response to crisis, Thrive provides employees with ongoing access to clinically proven tools designed to support day-to-day mental wellbeing, and encourage individuals to monitor their mental health in the right way - without obsessing on it.
Through the Thrive app, employees can check in with how they are feeling, access guided activities designed to support stress, anxiety and sleep, and receive personalised recommendations based on their needs. Over time, these small, consistent interventions help employees develop healthier coping strategies and build resilience.
Importantly, this type of support is designed to be used regularly, not just during periods of difficulty. By normalising everyday engagement with mental wellbeing tools, organisations can reach a far larger proportion of their workforce than traditional reactive services alone.
Complementing, not replacing, the EAP
Whilst some employers are beginning to question the need for an EAP, for many employers, the most effective approach has been rather than choosing between an EAP and preventative support, combining both.
An EAP can continue to rapidly provide valuable short term counselling for the group of employees experiencing milder issues with low complexity and risk, while more specialist interventions like Thrive help address the broader spectrum of mental health needs across the workforce.
Research suggests that around 60% of anxiety and depression cases sit outside of the capabilities of EAP's short term approaches due to their severity levels, with moderate to severe cases having a significantly larger impact on sickness absence and economic activity.
In combination, Thrive and EAP can provide mental health interventions which significantly increase the scope of mental health services delivered to employees - providing multiple pathways into treatment via more traditional communications or using technology, and allowing both services to occupy positions in a mental health ecosystem designed to move people seamlessly into the right service for their needs.
Supporting the workforce before crisis
Workplace mental health is no longer just about responding when something goes wrong. Increasingly, organisations are recognising the value of helping employees maintain their wellbeing before challenges escalate.
By combining preventative support with traditional services like EAPs, employers can create a more complete and accessible mental health ecosystem, one that supports employees not just in moments of crisis, but throughout their working lives.
If you’d like to learn more about how Thrive works alongside existing benefits to support the mental health of the whole workforce, please book a call with our team today.
