Good morning!
Finding a therapist these days is difficult. Before I started seeing my current counselor, I’d been on her waitlist for six months—and that doesn’t include the time and energy spent looking for the right therapist with appointments that fit my schedule.
My situation is not unique: Around 60% of therapists say they have no openings for new patients, and 72% with waitlists say the wait has only grown since the start of the pandemic, according to a 2022 survey from the American Psychological Association. As such, workers are turning to their employers for support: 77% of workers believe their employers have a responsibility to support their mental well-being.
While many employers have opted to provide related benefits like online counseling through platforms like BetterHelp, some, including AT&T, Delta Airlines, and Google, have started offering workers access to on-site therapists, my colleague Trey Williams reports.
Employees are certainly taking advantage of the service. Psychologist Connie Siciliano Avila is AT&T’s second-most booked person at the telecommunications giant’s health and wellness clinic in its Dallas headquarters. She sees roughly 75 employees per month, who typically only have to wait one day to get an appointment. Avila says the sessions are just the same as what a patient would receive in private practice, though she’s “a little more mindful that somebody’s going to leave my office and go to work.” Management doesn’t have access to patient records, she stresses, nor does AT&T directly employ her, but rather, she’s employed by its on-site benefits partner, Premise Health.
While having an on-site therapist is still uncommon at most companies, those that offer the benefit say it drives employee engagement and productivity and strengthens talent attraction and retention.
“The progress we’ve made on mental health in the last decade has felt like—finally,” says Katherine Morgan Schafler, a former on-site therapist at Google. “It’s about building as many bridges to mental health resources as possible.”
Read Trey’s full article here.
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
Reporter's Notebook
The most compelling data, quotes, and insights from the field.
More companies are offering benefits, such as paid leave, to support employees going through menopause.
“I think a lot of HR leaders are hearing about menopause benefits like ours in the market,” Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven Clinic, tellsFortune’s Maria Aspan. “So a lot of companies are under pressure if their peers have launched a menopause benefit, then they might have to, too.
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
- More than half of hiring managers still insist on applicants with college degrees for positions that don’t require them, a new ZipRecruiter survey finds. Fast Company
- Finance jobs in New York City are at their highest in 20 years, with an average of more than 195,000 securities industry jobs in the city in the past eight months. Bloomberg
- An employee lawsuit over a law firm’s policy that offered new mothers eight more weeks of paid parental leave than fathers is set to wrap up soon. It could set a precedent for leave policies at other firms. Wall Street Journal
- American workers are enjoying strong job security. Jobless claims are at a historically low 209,000. AP
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Savings stalled. Almost all of the Gen Z respondents in this year’s 401(k) Participant Survey from Charles Schwab say they’ve struggled to save for retirement and named inflation as the biggest obstacle. —Chloe Berger
Public opinion power. Supporters of the United Auto Workers strike outnumber the big three automakers’ supporters 4 to 1, a new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows. More than half of respondents also believe unions benefit U.S. workers. —David Koenig, AP
A new world. Don’t listen to return-to-office doomers: a new ZipRecruiter survey shows only 15% of companies with remote capabilities require in-person work five days a week. —Jane Thier
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