Helping people thrive with Bupa
According to recent research, mental health related expenses are costing UK businesses up to £45 billion a year.
Mental health services are under extreme strain. Moving from a pandemic, to an unstable socio-political environment (bit of an understatement) straight into a cost of living crisis, it’s no wonder people and the services that could support them are on the brink.
A national spike in demand, coupled with long term under investment in mental health services have left national services in crisis. It’s also created questions and challenges for employers post pandemic — and of the challenges presented, finding ways to support employees who are struggling as well as provide preventative services that keep employees healthy and happy, has perhaps been one of the most complex.
Mental Health is impacting every organisation
Bupa, the leading private healthcare insurance provider, wanted to help. Mental health and wellbeing is the number one workplace concern and Bupa’s goal is to change how people feel by supporting businesses with forward-thinking, industry leading care.
Bupa has recently launched a game changing new mental health proposition for businesses. At Magnetic, we’re proud that we worked with Bupa to help them with the new wellbeing proposition, now called the Workplace Mental Health Advantage.
Continuing to spearhead their efforts, Bupa has more recently added to their proposition by partnering with Just Ask A Question (JAAQ). JAAQ is an online platform with mental health, EDI and lifestyle video conversations, exclusive access to wellbeing content, and so much more.
Why do employers need to care?
Workplace mental health is complex with no easy or single solution. According to Bupa in the UK just 1 in 8 adults with mental health problems get treatment. Why is this the case?
- Mental Health Engagement is low: 63% of employees are unwilling to devote an hour a day to improve their mental health due to competing priorities
- It’s personal: Needs and expectations vary hugely by personal experience, demographic, culture and lifestyle
- Mental Health still has a stigma: 66% of employees would not feel comfortable raising a mental health concern with their employer
- Work is the second biggest cause of stress: Organisations need to cure the root causes internally, not just treat the symptoms
- Cost of Living Crisis is adding to concerns: The British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy says financial pressures are driving a decline in mental health.
How do we create a proposition that makes a difference?
To support Bupa’s goal to change how people feel, we spoke to key stakeholders to develop guiding insights, developed ideas and created streams of work to help elevate Bupa’s proposition. The Magnetic team worked with Prescient who then validated and developed these ideas through customer interviews (with HR directors or similar decision makers). This enabled the team to refine the ideas into three elements tied to a core proposition: 1. to provide proactive, 2. accessible mental health support that 3. creates a culture of wellbeing and care. Here’s a few of the many things we worked on alongside Bupa:
- We produced a conversation guide, for Bupa, designed to help them understand their business’ mental health and wellbeing needs.
- Defined a process for a single access phone number for mental health care at Bupa. To do this we created two service blueprints: one captured the existing state of telephone services, and another outlined a future state where these services were synthesised and channelled through a single phone number. We also provided recommendations for testing.
- We then collaborated to create a compelling narrative that explains the new mental health proposition — its objectives, characteristics and cover, to support Bupa in telling the story of the new proposition internally and externally.
Congrats to Bupa on creating a proposition that will make a difference
Focused on early intervention and helping employees maintain good mental health. Workplace Mental Health Advantage is an integrated service that supports mental health in a connected way, supporting people at every step, which offers:
- Advanced data analytics that can help businesses understand the impact of mental health and plan effective interventions.
- Refreshed wellbeing engagement services built using behavioural insights to help build a more resilient workplace.
- Partnering with JAAQ to offer businesses a customised set of innovative wellbeing services and tools for the workplace.
- Digital access to a mental health therapist within 10 days for all members.
Bupa have also launched a series of pilots to continue the evolution of their Workplace Mental Health Advantage proposition:
- An integrated mental health service incorporating EAP and PMI to deliver a simpler and more connected experience.
- A new coaching service for employees that helps them build resilience and supports a culture of early intervention.
Find out more about Bupa’s proposition in the press release and get in touch if you want to chat about our work in this space.
