Quest for employee well-being has some companies lifting the cap on mental health benefits

financialpost.com:

The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it anxiety, isolation and worsened mental health for Canadian workers, prompting companies to look seriously at how they support the well-being of their employees and in some cases, provide more benefits coverage.

Workers received boosts, sometimes significant ones, to their benefits plans and many now have several thousand dollars a year to put toward counselling, psychology and psychiatry services. The injection of funds into mental health benefits was a good start, but managers are now asking if an annual lump sum for mental health support is enough to ensure employees don’t wind up burned out, missing work or underperforming. Some business professionals argue the cap on financial support needs to be lifted if they’re going to be successful at creating a company culture where well-being in all forms — mental, physical and financial — gets a lift.

Removing Corus Entertainment Inc.’s benefits cap for mental health claims was one of the easiest and most impactful decisions Cheryl Fullerton says she’s ever made in her career. The media company’s executive vice president of People and Communications received emails from employees expressing how grateful they were for the change. People told her they no longer needed to choose between paying for a therapist and buying necessities for their kids.

“It’s hard enough to know you are in a bad place and it’s hard to ask for help and find it,” Fullerton said. “But then if you have to worry about how to pay for it, knowing that after a couple of sessions you’re on your own … the financial burden is real and that stops people from even starting therapy.”

Corus began providing unlimited funding for psychologists, social workers, counsellors,