Therapy at work: banks and law firms among those offering counselling as staff perk

Managers at UK creative agency Uniform Group have an outlet to help staff experiencing mental health difficulties. Rather than counsel teams themselves, they can point employees to a corporate perk: free therapy sessions.

“You see people who are struggling and it’s often a number of reasons,” says Nick Howe, chief executive. “It can be a lot going on outside of work, combined with a cost of living anxiety plus a stressful period at work. [But] we can’t be their therapist.”

Uniform is one of many organisations offering employees in-house therapy, providing a tool for managers of the post-pandemic workforce at a time when public healthcare systems are stretched.

The Bank of England has offered psychological support to staff since the 1970s. Now companies including top law firms Hogan Lovells and Linklaters, and US banks, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, are among the employers with psychologists and counsellors available online and on-site. The benefit can signal to staff that managers are supportive and help get the best from their teams.

Howe says in-house provision was not just personally helpful during a difficult period with his own work and health pressures but also “an opportunity for managers to signpost [employees] to a therapist”.

About 30 per cent of US employers either offered or were planning to offer on-site counselling or therapy in 2022, up from 25 per cent at the start of the pandemic, according to the latest Business Group on Health survey in partnership with Fidelity Workplace Consulting. The report found that 54 per cent of large employers globally offered online or on-site counselling. Traditional employee assistance programmes — set up to offer advice on personal problems, including wellbeing and finances — are increasingly dealing with complex issues, says Kris Ambler at the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. “What’s needed sometimes is a more nuanced response.” 

Tool for managers

JPMorgan has a team of mental health counsellors working in larger locations, covering crisis care and short-term counselling. Judith Bess, executive director of employee assistance programmes and licensed mental health clinician at the bank, says that since the start of the pandemic, counsellors have helped employees deal with grief and loss, anxiety and depression, often triggered by changes in their communities or workplace. “Having therapists available in our offices helps make it easier for employees to access care, [and] creates proximity to the common workplace issues and stressors that employees face.”

That in turn can take the pressure off team leaders. “A manager may be overloaded themselves, and knowing there’s a safe and confidential space that they can gently encourage a member of staff to explore will alleviate their own personal guilt of not being able to ‘fix’ a problem which they do not have the skills for,” says Francesca Rogers, co-founder of GetZeN, which provides companies with therapists.

Philippa Richardson, founder of The Circle Line, which offers a small team of remote therapists to corporate clients, agrees. If done sensitively, it may be useful to “say in a performance review, these are things we’d like you to work on, and here’s a facility to help you work with it”.

Trained psychotherapists can help managers identify problems arising in the workforce. Hybrid or remote working can make mental health issues among workers harder to spot, according to Lyndsey Laverack, a City-based partner specialising in M&A at Sidley law firm, which has been offering on-site therapy since 2020. Receiving broad insights from aggregated sessions — rather than specific details breaching confidentiality — can highlight any issues.

Understanding the business

In-house provision also gives therapists insights into an organisation that outsiders may lack. Linda Barnard is an integrative psychotherapist and senior staff counsellor at the Bank of England, part of a team that provides a range of therapies, including cognitive behavioural therapy. “We are fully immersed in the culture and environment that our clients are talking about.” They can work with managers to help them understand their team’s different needs and problems.

“They know us in terms of the pressures we’re facing,” says Angela Ogilvie, chief human resources officer at Linklaters. “It helps to develop an understanding of the firm.”

Adam Carvalho, a former law partner and now co-director of The Carvalho Consultancy, which offers therapeutic support to law firms, agrees, saying: “Managers talk to us about [the] pressures of running a team, generating work, seeing their spouses and children, maintaining other aspects of life.

“There are lots of sensitivities for managers dealing with newer generations of lawyers . . . It’s helpful for them to discuss [that] with someone who is removed from the situation but also gets how it works.”

Confidentiality issues

Providers of on-site counselling say it helps to destigmatise mental health at a time when more senior business leaders are disclosing their experiences. In 2021, Tom Blomfield stepped down as chief executive of UK digital bank Monzo, citing mental health struggles brought on by pandemic pressures. Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the former Virgin bank chief executive, has talked about depression.

“Society is much more open and willing to talk about mental health,” says Ogilvie at Linklaters, which introduced on-site psychologists four years ago. “A younger generation [expect such benefits] as the norm.”

We are fully immersed in the culture and environment that our clients are talking about

However, not everyone agrees work is the right venue for therapy. Advertising company Havas offers personal development sessions with a trained psychotherapist who is also a coach. Ewen MacPherson, group chief people officer of Havas UK, says: “The feedback we had is that people feel uncomfortable having a therapist on-site. There are issues around confidentiality.” Some staff also felt it was hard to explore “deep issues then [put] a brave face on things and go back to work”.

There can also be a risk of conflict of interest. Richardson of The Circle Line says: “You wouldn’t want to work for someone and their line manager.” It is best if “the therapist doesn’t see people that know each other”, she adds. The BACP’s Ambler says the provision of a therapist may prove a “sticking plaster for systemic issues”.

GetZeN’s Rogers adds that the offer of mental health treatment has to be coupled with the “employee actively looking for support themselves . . . otherwise it ends up as forced talking and halfhearted participation”. In addition, there is a concern that people taking up the offer will be seen as not being up to the job.

Financial challenges

Some employers do not see it as their responsibility to take care of their staff’s mental health. And even those that do might find providing the services more of a challenge in the current financial climate. Cate Murden, founder of Push, which offers wellbeing services to companies, says that for many employers, spending on mental health is on a “back burner” at a time when “there is so much fear about redundancies”.

Richardson says winning new business is hard, although existing clients are increasing their spend.

Michael Boroff, a psychologist and mental health programme manager at Crossover Health, which has healthcare centres on Meta and Comcast campuses, argues that it is cost-effective for companies to step in early rather than wait for crises: “In the US, the health system isn’t functioning super well. We can reduce [companies’ health insurance] spend.” 

The City Mental Health Alliance, a non-profit working with big London businesses, says members with on-site counsellors have experienced a notable reduction in private medical insurance claims for psychological support, demonstrating return on investment.

For Uniform Group’s Howe, therapy has been a worthwhile investment. “I never thought of cutting back. If we’re not investing in that, then everything else suffers, people’s motivation and quality of work. We want people to do that work on behalf of their clients. If they’re not in the right headspace, then they can’t do that, then the business model is broken.”