May 3, 2024 Integrating A.I. into Employee Mental Health Services

Leaders looking to integrate A.I. services into mental health programs must vet tools that prioritize worker safety, impact, and adoption.

By Smriti Joshi, Chief Psychologist at Wysa 

A.I.’s role in supporting the industrial workforce has skyrocketed in recent years. From optimizing maintenance schedules to enhancing operational efficiency, this technology is permeating into almost every corner of the industry.

However, employees are still unsupported in one crucial area where A.I. can help: mental health. The industrial workforce is vulnerable to higher levels of depression, anxiety, and extreme mental health concerns. Now, employers recognize that addressing their staff’s mental wellbeing is imperative. In turn, leaders are integrating AI-guided services that enhance mental health support at a mass scale and flow easily into the lifestyle of the industrial workforce.

Still, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that despite employers’ increased investment in their workers’ mental health, employees continue to report they don’t have the help they need. This feeling of being unsupported starts from the very beginning – employers are not choosing the most impactful options to meet the needs of their staff. 

Why your current mental health program might not be effective 

Designing the most helpful employee wellness plan is a challenging feat. The industrial workforce has an evolving set of needs, and what might be helpful to some might be idle to others. While traditional therapy might be an offering for employees, it’s not always accessible or practical. Nearly 40% of psychologists have a waitlist for three to six months, if not longer. These extended wait times can cause workers to feel frustrated or lose hope in receiving help altogether, especially when there are no intermittent tools to provide some relief to staff. 

Within the industrial workforce, the longstanding stigma that sharing mental health concerns is a sign of weakness can have a disastrous impact on a company’s wellness program. If aid requires employer approval or visibility, this harmful taboo might stop employees from asking for help, making the severity of the problem fly under the radar. 

With the addition of AI-guided mental health services, employers can reduce these common employee pain points like excessive wait times, the need for anonymity when discussing mental health challenges, and gauging the seriousness of their workers’ wellbeing. However, incorporating new technology cannot be done with haste. For employers to have the best return on investment possible and for employees to feel a real impact or improvement, employers must vet mental health services with meticulous consideration. 

What to look for when choosing a provider for your workforce

Selecting the best plan for a company’s frontline work staff can seem overwhelming. As new mental health services come into the fold daily, safety and H.R. managers may face decision paralysis. To select the most productive mental health provider for your workforce, employers must assess the following factors: 

Employee Privacy: Effective workplace mental health technology requires trust. For employees to safely use mental health services offered by their employer, the telehealth options must protect user data. If employees believe their data is at risk of being shown to their manager or sold to a 3rd party, they’ll be less inclined to use the tool to its fullest. Some workers may opt out of care entirely if employee data isn’t safely stored and pulled anonymously. To make the most informed decision, managers should consider the platform’s privacy policy to see how data is stored. 

Clinical backing: AI-guided providers must have the evidence to support their claims of effectiveness. With a variety of options to choose from, it is hard to gauge which ones are truly impactful. Employees will get the most beneficial care if the program includes evidence-based therapies and techniques. 

Offerings: Workplace mental health technology should not exclusively offer one type of service to employees. Industrial staff can experience moderate stress and anxiety, but on the more severe end, individuals can experience life-threatening mental health crises. The program chosen should be equipped to handle everyday stressors and have the proper safeguards for serious incidents. 

Adoption: The tool selected should be easy to use and fit into your employees’ workflow. Industrial workers require flexible care, and the provider should offer care that is adaptable to employee schedules. For instance, employees may constantly be moving to new job sites for projects or work unusual hours, creating barriers to when and how they can receive care. Employees must have programs available during working and non-working hours. 

Measurement: For industrial employers to see the true impact of a mental health program, the provider must be able to calculate its efficacy across the workforce. Programs that pull data at an aggregated and anonymized level are not only the safest option, but these services can also identify periods of heightened stress, increased anxiety, and more. Having a tool that measures employee mental health will give employers the insight needed to address concerns they might not have otherwise known about.

Impactful programs require more than the right technology 

The impact mental illnesses like depression have on the industrial workforce is not always visible – it is not the same as breaking a bone and walking around with a cast that everyone can see. Even with the addition of AI-guided services, this intangibility makes open conversations around mental health a critical and foundational part of any corporate wellness program. 

Employers can hold companywide discussions on the importance of conveying issues to their supervisors to make employees feel more comfortable addressing their challenges. Leaders should train manager-level employees to recognize signs of depression or anxiety and enroll them in courses with learning centers that specialize in workplace mental health. 

Whether industrial employers implement more frequent breaks or designated mental health days during high-pressure situations, staff need to feel supported in all realms of employee wellness programs.

Using these guiding principles, industrial leaders can harness the scalability of A.I. to give employees the mental health support they need. This will not only enhance the overall well-being of a workforce but also lay the foundation for a more resilient, productive, and compassionate workplace culture in the years to come.

About the Author
Smriti Joshi is the Chief Psychologist at Wysa. Smriti is an experienced leader in the field of digital mental health and has found her niche in the area of ethical delivery of digital mental health support and services.

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