Employee Mental Health Benefits: Types, ROI and How to Roll Them Out

Employee mental health benefits are services an employer pays for so that employees can get professional psychological support quickly and confidentially, before problems turn into sick leave or resignations. The most common options are an employee assistance program (EAP), therapy coverage through health insurance, a digital mental health platform with 1:1 sessions, mental health training for managers, and paid mental health days. The best benefit for your company is the one employees actually use, so access, language coverage and communication matter as much as the offer itself.

What are employee mental health benefits?

Employee mental health benefits cover any support an employer funds to protect and improve employees’ psychological well-being. They range from crisis support to prevention and personal development. Most companies combine several of them:

For a broader overview of formats beyond benefits, such as workshops and prevention programs, see our guide to workplace mental health programs.

Why should you offer mental health support as an employee benefit?

Mental health benefits pay off through fewer sick days, higher productivity and better retention. Workplace mental health support offers many advantages for both companies and employees. The key effects:

• Fewer and shorter absences: Mental health conditions are among the most common reasons for sick leave, and these absences typically last much longer than those caused by physical illness.
• Higher productivity: Globally, an estimated 12 billion workdays are lost every year to depression and anxiety, costing nearly US$1 trillion (WHO/ILO). Companies working with nilo report 44% fewer unproductive days.
• Better retention: Over 60% of nilo users say the benefit has had a positive effect on their loyalty to their employer. How this works in detail is covered in our article on mental health benefits for employee retention; more general tactics are in our guide to boosting employee retention.
• Stronger employer brand: Candidates, especially younger ones, increasingly ask about mental health support before they accept an offer.
• Less pressure on managers and HR: Employees get a confidential point of contact outside the team, so many issues are addressed before they reach the manager’s desk.

How much do mental health benefits cost, and what is the ROI?

Costs depend on the type of benefit and company size. EAPs are usually priced per employee per month; digital platforms work either per employee or with packages (nilo starts at €600 per month, see pricing). The more useful question is the cost of doing nothing: Deloitte puts the cost of poor mental health for UK employers at £51 billion a year and calculates a return of nearly £4.70 for every £1 invested in mental health support (Deloitte, 2024).

Whether you reach that return depends mostly on usage. A benefit that only 5% of employees use cannot reduce absences across the company. You can calculate the business case for your own headcount with the method in our article on the ROI of mental health benefits.

How can mental health benefits improve employees’ mental well-being?

A good mental health benefit helps employees cope with crises, prevents mental illness and supports personal growth. These are the topics where nilo, as a workplace mental health partner, offers targeted support:

• Mental health challenges: Easy access to psychologists, coaches and therapists helps employees get through professional and personal crises.
• Stress management: Excessive stress can lead to mental and physical problems. Employees learn to monitor their stress levels and build tools to manage them, in 1:1 or group sessions or through curated exercises.
• Resilience: The key factors that determine resilience, such as optimism, solution focus and acceptance, can be trained.
• Setting boundaries: Prioritizing and separating work from personal life can be practiced in coaching, group discussions or self-guided exercises.
• Growth: Individual coaching supports the development of top talent and emerging leaders.
• Culture monitoring: Workshops on psychological safety and positive company culture help drive cultural change, and nilo’s anonymized reports serve as an early warning system for teams under strain.

In companies using nilo, 96% of employees who use the platform report improved mental health. Solutions like nilo also ease the pressure on managers by giving employees an additional point of contact for their challenges.

What HR should keep in mind when choosing a mental health benefit for their employees

Based on dozens of mental health benefit implementations, these factors decide whether a benefit succeeds:

Define requirements, goals and budget first

Ask employees what they need and decide what you want to achieve, for example fewer sick days or better engagement scores. Your goals and budget determine which provider fits.

Make sure the benefit fits your workforce

Check whether employees can get support in the languages they speak and whether the provider’s experts reflect the diversity of your workforce. nilo, for example, works with 500+ psychologists in 50+ languages.

Check access and quality

Ask how fast employees get a first session, whether they talk to licensed psychologists or only use app content, and how confidentiality is protected.

Plan for awareness from day one

Many companies already have a mental health benefit that employees do not know about. In an APA poll, only 30% of US workers said they could access an EAP through work (American Psychiatric Association, 2024). Communicate the offer through several channels: all-hands meetings, the intranet, newsletters and lunch & learn sessions.

Let’s find the right mental health benefit for your team.

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Mental health benefits are a strong support tool, but they do not replace leaders and HR engaging with the topic themselves. Read more about what employers can do to support mental health in the workplace.

How does an employee mental health benefit work, and how do you implement it?

An employee mental health benefit works like this: the employer pays the provider, employees register with a work email or code, and they book confidential sessions or use self-guided content without their employer seeing who uses what. HR receives only anonymized usage and well-being reports.

The rollout should follow a time-bound onboarding plan. Explain clearly why the benefit was introduced, what it offers and how employees can use it, and engage employees through a lunch & learn, a company-wide webinar or an internal knowledge-sharing session.

The 5 onboarding steps with nilo

1. Onboarding: A structured process led by our Customer Success Team, with an introductory meeting, registration tests and onboarding for managers.
2. Rollout: Support with a kick-off event, communication templates and best practices from other nilo clients.
3. Activation: Ready-made activation initiatives to keep employees aware of the benefit.
4. Reporting: Regular, anonymized reports on well-being, productivity and motivation, with recommendations for action.
5. Individual support: Additional services based on your goals, such as development support for leaders or HR.

With an experienced partner, implementation takes little HR time. From day one, nilo shows you the upcoming steps, tells you what is needed from your side and adapts the process to your organization.

Best practices for offering employee mental health benefits

These practices helped HR leaders among our clients reach utilization rates of 40% and more, compared with about 5% for traditional EAPs:

• Destigmatize: Make mental health a normal topic. Leaders and HR should model openness themselves.
• Send reminders: Create regular touchpoints, such as a company-wide health day, so employees remember the benefit when they need it.
• Train managers: Trained managers take better care of their own well-being and build healthier teams. nilo offers dedicated leadership training.
• Collect feedback: Ask employees regularly what is missing and adjust the offer.