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Snapshot Policy Snapshot: Workplace Care and Supports

Updated April 29, 2024
Related Topic: Labor and Employment

Employers play an important role in promoting the health and well-being of America’s 160 million workers. Key strategies employers may use to support workers’ mental health include building awareness and a supportive culture, providing accommodations to employees with mental health conditions, offering employee assistance programs, and ensuring access to treatment for mental health conditions, including substance use disorder. 

5 Things to Know About Workplace Care and Supports

  • Workers report experiencing burnout, exhaustion and a sense of hopelessness, yet only 46% of the 53 million American adults with mental health conditions have access to mental health services. Workers also say they need more support from their employers. 

  • For each $1 spent on treatment for common mental illnesses, there is a $4 return in improved health and productivity. 

  • Stay-at-Work/ Return-to-Work policies and programs provide individuals who have been injured, on or off the job, with support and services to remain in the workforce, preventing unnecessary loss of employment.

  • Telehealth provides people the flexibility to access health care services at their convenience. It also offers access to culturally competent or specialized care and reduces transportation-related barriers to care. Employees can also seek care at a time that suits them best and with shorter appointment waiting periods. 

  • Workplace wellness programs help identify at-risk employees, connect them to treatment, and estalish supports to reduce and manage employee stress.

5 State Approaches to Workplace Care and Supports

  • Maine 

    Maine provided that if an employee is actively participating in a rehabilitation plan, employment rehabilitation benefits must be paid to the employee. Therefore, workers can partially return to work without losing their benefits.  

  • Minnesota 

    Minnesota established a fund to help small to midsize businesses provide accommodations, including those for mental health, for employees. 

  • Oklahoma 

    Oklahoma provided an employee assistance program to state employees and established a council to advise on policy issues and provide support to expand and improve program services that are available to state employees and their families. 

  • Louisiana

    Louisiana allowed behavioral health providers (licensed professional counselors, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, etc.) to see patients via telehealth. 

  • Nevada

    Nevada created a commission to support emergency response employees who are experiencing mental health issues because of the nature of their work. The state also mandated, with certain exceptions, that communications between an emergency response employee and a peer support counselor remain confidential and  inadmissible in certain proceedings. 
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Related Resources

National Employment Monthly Update

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 275,000 in February, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.
Labor and Employment
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