What should employers look for in workplace mental health support?

Written by George Stevens, founder of Soother, therapist with a first class BSc in Psychology and Level 4 Diploma in Counselling Studies.

Deloitte estimates that employers get back around £4.70 for every £1 they spend on supporting staff mental health. But it can't return anything if people don't use it.

So the most important question isn't what a service covers. It's whether your people will actually use it. Look for support staff can access without asking anyone, with a therapist they choose, within days, without a GP referral, from properly qualified practitioners, and with reporting that’s clear about usage but never breaks confidentiality.

Will employees actually use it?

Just having cover isn’t enough for people to use it. There are lots of reasons for that but it seems there are two main groups of reasons why people don’t engage with their EAP.

Firstly, EAPs depend on low usage. There is no incentive built into their business model to drive more people to engage with the service and actually use their therapy sessions.

We’re built to be the exact opposite. We take a small cut from each therapy session that takes place so it’s built into our DNA to drive employee engagement with our service. We believe therapy is a power for good and our business literally benefits from higher engagement, as it should when our mission is to get people into therapy because it’s something we believe in.

The second group of reasons involves people not really wanting work to know they’re struggling.

Mental Health UK's Burnout Report 2026 found that 35% of workers wouldn't feel comfortable telling their manager they were struggling with high stress, an increase from the year before.

And then research in 2019 by Opinium and the University of Warwick found 67% of employees who had struggled with their mental health never told their employer, mostly because they felt embarrassed, didn't think their employer could help, or feared it would harm their career.

If people are tentative to talk about their mental health with their manager or HR, then their route to support shouldn’t depend on it.

At Soother, once onboarded, employees just make an account on our website, get credits added to their account, one credit = one therapy session, and away they go. No need to ask or involve anyone else, removing a massive barrier.

During onboarding we also talk through what therapy actually is and isn’t, to humanise the whole thing. Often people are put off from accessing therapy because they might think they’re not ‘struggling enough’ to access support but that’s just not the case.

We make it clear that if someone has a feeling they’d like to talk to a therapist, that’s reason enough.

Can they choose and switch practitioner?

The relationship is crucial in therapy. If a client doesn’t quite feel comfortable, or safe to get into their stuff, the therapy will have a tough time being helpful. That’s why it’s important they have some control over who they see and are able to switch to someone else if the match just isn’t quite right.

When employees make their account, they are in control of which therapist they book with. Random allocation of therapist to client based mostly on a therapist's availability is pretty unlikely to lead to a good matchup capable of strong connection.

That’s why through Soother, employees browse our therapist profiles and choose the therapist that feels like the best fit for them. If they’re not quite sure what or who they’re looking for, they can take a short matching form and we send 3 therapist recommendations directly to their inbox within 48 hours.

All of this is to give the therapeutic relationship and connection the best chance from the off. That said, we’re all humans and connection isn’t an exact science. If the therapist doesn’t quite feel right, employees can select a different therapist next time and we always welcome open feedback and conversation on what didn’t quite work this time.

It’s important to give the relationship some time to develop but it’s also important to acknowledge when it’s just not quite right and it’s time for a change.

How quickly can someone get a session?

Mental health support in the UK has become synonymous with long waits. It doesn’t have to be like that. We have brilliant therapists, they have slots in their diaries. There is no need for long waits. We know that mental health often gets worse as people wait so it’s really important that access to therapy is available very soon after someone decides they would like support.

With Soother, employees can book a therapy session within 48 hours of creating an account.

Sessions are available throughout the week, including evenings and weekends.

Do they need a GP or referral first?

With Soother, there is no need for a GP referral for employees to access therapy. Needing a GP appointment first adds another booking process to navigate, another wait, another person to talk to before support even starts. For someone already a bit apprehensive or feeling vulnerable, that can be enough to stop them altogether.

If our therapists notice that a client needs support that is beyond their scope of practice or beyond the scope of counselling in general, they will be signposted to the most appropriate alternative therapist or service. But there is no need for a referral to access support in the first place. This is another huge barrier to access removed.

Who are the practitioners, and how are they qualified?

Therapy is not regulated in the UK. Anyone can call themselves a therapist. This can be a problem and can lead to genuinely dangerous situations, with people posing as practitioners without the adequate training, education, experience or ethical understanding.

Soother provides the sort of confidence that regulation might, in that to partner with Soother, therapists must be fully qualified and registered with a major UK ethical body, such as the BACP, NCPS or UKCP. They must be fully insured, they must have sufficient experience to work in the way that Soother’s high standards expect and they must also align with Soother’s approach to therapy, ascertained during a multi-touch-point recruitment process including interview.

Not every match will be quite right, that’s normal and switching is straightforward. And if a concern about a therapist’s practice is ever raised, we act quickly and decisively to keep everyone safe.

What will you see as the employer, without breaking confidentiality?

Employers should have visibility of how much these services are being used, to accurately understand the impact that they are or aren’t having. Usage reports are important, but so is confidentiality.

With Soother, employers get quarterly reports on how many people are using the service and how many sessions have taken place. As part of that reporting, we work together to plan for the next quarter and the rest of the year. If engagement is looking good, we discuss what’s working to inform us moving forward. If engagement’s not looking so good, we work together to understand why and strategise to improve uptake. We are not a set and forget.

Confidentiality is a huge piece of the engagement puzzle. When work pays for the therapy, it can feel like they have access to who’s using it, what’s said in sessions, etc., which can act as a major block to team members feeling comfortable using the service.

With Soother, employers never see who uses the service or what’s said. Confidentiality would only ever be broken where there’s serious risk of harm to the person or someone else. In most cases that means contacting the right services. The employer would only be told if there was a direct risk to someone at work. It is a confidential service that sits separately from the workplace. Yes work pays for it but this is a service for the individuals. Our view is that the business can only benefit if the support is genuinely for the individual. The cultural impact is then felt by a number of well-supported individuals coming together to contribute to the overall culture.