Dr. Seema Parmar holds a PhD in International Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a leader in Advisory Services at Cleveland Clinic Canada, a medical centre where physicians, wellness experts and management consultants help organizations improve employee health and manage organizational risk.
showed more than one in four Canadian adults suffered from depression, anxiety or another mental health issue last year, up from one in five in 2016. We are now seeing more and more Canadian companies take meaningful steps to support employee mental health, including scaling up the annual dollar amount they provide for mental health benefits. Canada’s five largest banks, for example, now offer at least $5,000 a year per employee for mental health care and a range of other benefits to support employee well-being.
While many corporate employee assistance programs support employees’ mental health needs, most EAPs provide a handful of sessions that are designed to provide crisis or short-term support. While this can be a useful resource to assist people in navigating stressful life situations, it is an inadequate substitute for the longer-term and personalized care required to treat diagnosable mental illnesses.
Employees with more mental health benefits, especially when coupled with education and support from their employers, can obtain guidance from different practitioners and experiment with varying treatment approaches until they find what works for them. This increases the likelihood that they will adhere to their treatment and their mental health needs will not impede their ability to succeed in and out of the workplace.