Mental health has taken center stage for Top Companies. Here are some of the best benefits on offer

Deloitte has long prided itself on offering best-in-class resources to support its employees’ wellbeing. But in 2020, the company surveyed its employees and asked them what they were struggling with. The responses revealed a spike in mental health concerns, and the firm realized that it needed to start offering more specialized mental health care.

“It’s a very difficult environment to navigate [especially] when you’re in the most acute need,” said Melanie Langsett, Deloitte’s leader of rewards, recognition and wellbeing, “and that became increasingly difficult during the pandemic.”

While Deloitte has long had a consulting psychologist on staff, the firm decided it needed to do more. So early last year, it began building out a new Integrated Mental Health Services center. The team, which started with four people in early 2021, now has eight people. There are two more open positions.  

No meeting days. Four day workweeks. Vacation bonuses. Company-wide days off. These are just a few of the benefits that LinkedIn’s Top Companies — like Deloitte (No. 11), PwC (No. 32) and Walmart (No. 5), among others — are offering employees these days.

Like Deloitte, Cognizant (No. 33), the Teaneck, N.J.-based information technology company, has long prioritized mental health in the benefits it’s offered. But the pandemic created a “triple burden” of balancing work, home and school, said Kathryn Diaz, head of global total rewards and HR M&A.

“Wellbeing offerings have become a hot commodity (since the) start of the pandemic, so we’ve been diligent about selecting programs that are modern and innovative, but also proven,” she said in an email.

The vast majority of large employers began to bolster their mental health benefits in 2020, in the most acute phase of the pandemic shutdowns. But survey results from this year’s group of LinkedIn Top Companies reveal that the move wasn’t just a passing trend. 

Mental health has become one of the top priorities for the country’s largest employers, said LuAnn Heinen, vice president at the Business Group on Health, an organization that represents large employers on health and benefits issues. 

And this year’s Top Companies have only grown more sophisticated about the mental health benefits they’re offering, for employees and their dependents. These employers not only represent the best places to grow your career, according to LinkedIn data, but they’re also offering some of the best mental health benefits in their industries.

“If the Great Resignation has shown us anything, it’s the critical importance of our staff,” said Julie Stich, vice president of content for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, which tracks research and data on benefits for its members. “Employers want to make sure that employees are happy.”

It’s about more than happiness, though. As many as 76% of respondents to a 2021 survey on mental health at work from Mind Share Partners said they faced a mental health issue last year, and half of respondents said they’ve left a previous role at least in part due to mental health reasons.

Taking employee support to a new level

While many large companies had some form of employee assistance program prior to the pandemic, it’s now become standard to offer coverage for therapy sessions, wellness apps and financial counseling — increasingly through outside vendors. 

“There was more of a push to provide virtual care for mental health and substance use disorder,” Stich said. “And I think that’s here to stay.”

A number of Top Companies similarly mentioned that they’re working with a host of telehealth and wellness companies to provide resources for mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy and even sleep. 

But the most widespread benefit addition among LinkedIn Top Companies has simply been more time for employees to focus on their wellbeing. Nearly all (96%) of the Top Companies that responded to our survey said they’re offering paid mental health days, and two-thirds are offering company-wide days off. 

PwC has been offering $250 each time someone takes a full week of vacation during the 2022 fiscal year — which employees can get up to four times. And the New York-based firm also has introduced a leave of absence program, which allows employees to take off up to six months while still receiving 20% of their pay.

Emphasizing wellbeing, both in and out of the office

Many companies are trying to prevent burnout when employees are in the office as well. An increasing number of large employers are adding small mental health breaks throughout the day, Business Group on Health’s Heinen said, like capping meetings at 45 minutes to give people time to regroup before heading into the next one.

The pandemic also ushered in a new era of flexible work, and it’s still going strong. As many as 85% of Top Company survey respondents said they offer the ability to set your own schedule and 41% have four-day work week arrangements. One-third of respondents said they offer no-meeting days.

Realogy (No. 40) is among them. The Madison, N.J.-based real estate services company introduced a “Go Further Today” program to reduce email and meeting fatigue.

“We have absolutely no internal meetings on Fridays, encourage employees to make smart decisions about whether to accept or decline meetings, and embrace an ‘exhale, then email’ philosophy to help mitigate the pressure of email overload we’re all facing,” the company wrote in its survey response. “These are small but mighty changes that make a significant difference for our teams.”

Mindfulness apps and wellness days may not be enough for someone in the midst of a crisis. One of the biggest priorities for companies has been adding mental health benefits for children and adolescents, who faced a multitude of struggles during the pandemic, according to Heinen.

Bank of America (No. 8 on this year’s list) is one of those companies, and has been providing access to licensed social workers and psychologists for its employees’ 13- to 17-year-olds through its medical plans. Cognizant similarly offers behavioral health services for children through a company called Rethink. 

“Being pregnant or having a child became more complicated during the pandemic, so we invested further in our maternity program and partnered with organizations who specialize in child behavioral issues and educational support,” Cognizant’s Diaz said.

Navigating staffing shortages, stigma

Yet while more companies are offering mental health benefits, the challenge still remains access to care amid a shortage of mental health professionals. 

Like other clinicians, mental health providers are changing careers at a rapid pace, with job transitions last year increasing 42% over 2019, according to LinkedIn data. We define a job transition as moving to an entirely new role, not just a new employer.

And that’s prompting companies to get creative, Stich said.

One of those solutions has been adding mental health champions or peer-to-peer support groups. That’s a trend that’s also gaining steam throughout the mental health industry, with people drawing upon their lived experiences to help others, said Nathaniel Counts, senior vice president of behavioral health innovation at Mental Health America, in an interview last year. 

There are a number of ways they’re doing it. Walmart, for instance, has partnered with a company called Supportiv, which offers 24/7 access to peer support chat groups run by trained moderators. 

“If there’s one thing we’ve seen over the past two years, it’s more willingness to talk about these issues,” Stich said. But there are limits. “Even though the stigma is diminishing, there is some impact where employees are nervous to talk to their supervisor.”

Employees are more willing to open up to their peers; surveys show that they often view their colleagues as the most trusted sources of information in a company, Heinen said.

Deloitte initially wondered whether its professionals would be hesitant to use services from IMHS, given potential concerns about privacy. Instead, it saw the opposite, Langsett said, with employees glad to see that mental health had been destigmatized.  

And while she only gets topline numbers on utilization, “the engagement has been more than we anticipated,” she added.