At the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), data about their employee population has driven the evolution of its mental health program over the last five years. Speaker Laura Carter, associate director of benefits at HOOPP, said that a multipronged approach has been effective in creating a psychologically safe culture where mental health challenges are normalized. A key tactic that has garnered HOOPP recognition with a recent award from Benefits Canada is their data-driven approach that includes a broad annual review of data. In the International Foundation’s webcast, Workplace Mental Health: A Multifaceted Approach, Carter shared a dozen examples of data that benefits professionals could consider for developing initiatives and potentially tweaking plan design.
Data = The North Star
How do plan sponsors meet their objective to support employees at all stages of health? How do they make a business case for adding benefits? In Carter’s experience, data is the answer to both questions. The benefits team at HOOPP wants “to make sure that we are targeting true employee need and not just checking a box. There’s a lot of great data from all aspects of the program that we use to evolve, tweak and shift things so that we are continually meeting employee needs,” Carter added. HOOPP’s annual review looks at the following data “channels” or sources.
- Wellness program participation
- Benefits program aggregate (de-identified) data reports available from vendors
- Employee assistance program (EAP) utilization
- Psychological benefits utilization
- Disability claims
- Drug utilization
- Disease categories based on utilization data guide exploration around preventive measures or resources, if any, that could impact a disease category
- Benchmarking reports from brokers or vendors
- HOOPP’s survey peer pension plans
- Recruitment team data (i.e., what they’re hearing from candidates)
- Exit interview data
- Annual meetings with employee resource groups with a goal to understand the relationship between peoples’ experiences and benefit offerings
Meeting Employee Needs
The next step of the annual review is analyzing whether the mental health resources are meeting employee needs, if any, that popped up in the data.
“If we see a need popping up among different channels of data, we know there’s something to investigate further,” Carter explained. And this doesn’t mean that there’s always a plan design change, although there have been some plan design enhancements like adding fertility benefits and extending the parental leave top up, Carter noted. Utilization data and feedback from employees and HR staff are key components to see if there are any pain points connected to benefits, or the annual review exercise may validate the mental health program is on the right track.
Learn More
After exploring data-driven background on how the program has evolved in recent years, what does the program look like?
- Providing comprehensive mental health benefits and partnering with a vendor that provides ease of access to discounted services for psychological support
- Developing mental health training for people leaders and integrating it into the general HOOPP management training program
- Partnering with a mental health consultant to provide coaching on an ad hoc basis to people leaders who are navigating the challenge of supporting staff with mental health challenges—ensuring they have the tools to manage conversations, boundaries and balance with their own needs
- Implementing preventive programming to complement the above, such as seminars on nutrition and mood, activities that incent physical activity and social connection, and courses on managing anxiety and stress
Members can view the recording to learn more about the other facets of the HOOPP mental health program.
Developed by International Foundation Information Center staff. This does not constitute legal advice. Please consult your plan professionals for legal advice.
