Barriers to help-seeking - an important consideration

Providing access to EAPs or other workplace mental health programs and benefits is just one step towards a psychologically healthy workforce. Addressing the numerous psycho-behavioural barriers to help-seeking can increase/optimize use of such resources, address any gender gaps in their utilization, and contribute towards overall improvements in workplace mental health and productivity.

As highlighted by this Workreach Lab research summary on the topic, worker perceptions about seeking help via workplace benefits (such as EAPs) exist, and this can reduce the likelihood of seeking help in a time of need (thus impede the opportunity to improve workplace mental health and productivity).

Some things can be done by organizations and service providers to address this, and a good place to start of course is with more research! (including the deployment of workplace assessments of psycho-behavioral barriers to help-seeking)

For the summary:

Workreach Lab - Research Tidbit March 20

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