Support for Employers
A Government-led report in 2017 found that employee's mental health costs employers between £33 and £42 billion per year (Stevenson & Farmer, 2017).
Since Covid-19 we've seen this increase massively, as staff and their families experience all kinds of issues affecting their mental health. Not only does this affect staff wellbeing, but it can also impact their performance at work and lead to difficult conflicts and contribute to negative workplace atmospheres and cultures.
Increasingly, employers are taking their employee's mental health seriously, and this includes providing benefits such as access to counselling, often known as Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs). At The Empathy Project, we offer EAP services on individual or a contracted basis.
Our Approach
If you are an employer, we can help you look after your team's mental health in a variety of different ways. We can support that colleague's mental health directly through individual counselling for them, or we can offer therapy for their children, partner or family as well.
We generally take a flexible, individual approach on a case-by-case basis. Your employee can take a look at our team of therapists and choose the right person and service for them, and then we can invoice you as their employer if you're willing to provide this for them. Employee benefits in this way are legitimate tax-deductible business expenses with HMRC.
Employers are welcome to arrange either a fixed number of sessions, or keep things open-ended. If you tell us you're willing to fund a specific number, we can work accordingly and tailor a solution-focussed approach. If your employee then wishes to continue after this, they are welcome to self-pay thereafter. We always review our work with each client periodically to see how the therapy is going and if more sessions are needed.
We're also very happy to provide our support in other ways, and can discuss other options such as a serviced contract to provide support for your whole team when they need them, or we can offer workshops and classes on mental health in the workplace. These workshops can be tailored for your whole team, or specific people such as leaders, managers and HR.
If you are considering EAP support, please contact our Practice Manager at tom@southampton-counselling.co.uk
