Why employees don't use mental health benefits — and what changes when they do
10 min read
A research study into trust, privacy, and the hidden barriers that keep employees from accessing workplace wellness support.
I shifted the product direction from awareness nudges to privacy-first onboarding, top-level data controls, and warmer support flows.
The problem wasn't access. It was trust.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) exist in most mid-to-large organisations. On paper, they solve the problem: employees get mental health support through their employer. In practice, usage rates are consistently low — often below 6% globally.
The common assumption is that the barrier is awareness. The assumption turned out to be wrong.
WellNest is a concept for a workplace wellness platform. Before any interface was designed, I wanted to understand why the existing EAP model was failing people — and what a trustworthy alternative would actually need.
Research questions
- Why do employees avoid seeking mental health support through their employer, even when they need it?
- What specific concerns prevent engagement with digital wellness platforms in a work context?
- What would a digital platform need to offer for employees to trust and use it?
A two-phase approach: broad first, then deep
I chose a mixed-methods approach — starting with a screener survey to identify patterns and recruit participants, then semi-structured interviews to understand the reasoning behind those patterns.
Screener Survey
11 respondents across tech, education, and content industries. Age range 25–44. Experience range 1–5+ years.
Goal: quantify stress prevalence, EAP usage, attitudes toward digital platforms, and recruit for interviews.
Semi-structured interviews
3 participants (45 min each): a senior software engineer, a transitioning engineer, and a product manager. Different stress levels, company sizes, and EAP exposure.
Goal: understand the why behind survey data — reasoning, emotion, past experience.
Competitive audit
3 platforms analysed: Headspace for Work, MindPeers, YourDost — evaluated on privacy approach, accessibility, and design tone.
View participant profiles
*All participant names are pseudonyms.
From raw transcripts to actionable themes
Phase 1: Survey Insights (n=11)
Before diving into interviews, the screener survey surfaced a critical contradiction:
- 8 out of 11 respondents felt stressed "sometimes" or more frequently.
- 100% of those who felt the need for support had never used employer-provided resources.
This proved that the core problem wasn't awareness. People knew the support existed; they were actively choosing not to use it.
Phase 2: Interview Themes (n=3)
I used the 3 interviews to understand the why behind the survey data. After each interview I wrote a detailed record: key quotes verbatim, themes by section, an overall summary, and design implications. Three themes emerged consistently across the interviews:
Across these interviews, privacy emerged as the strongest barrier — ahead of stigma or cost
All three participants raised privacy concerns without being prompted. The concern followed a consistent pattern: what if my employer gets this data and uses it against me? This was especially notable with Rahul, who had never used an EAP — suggesting the concern can exist before any product contact at all.
"It's a privacy concern more than anything. I don't find it okay that my company can have access to my mental health records."
— Rahul, Product Manager
"What if they use this data against me? Anonymity can't be guaranteed in a small startup."
— Vikram, Software Engineer
For one participant, a single EAP experience shaped ongoing avoidance
Vikram described using his company's EAP once — an experience he characterised as transactional and call-centre-like. In his account, he had not sought employer support since, even when it was available in later roles. That single interaction appeared to create an association between "workplace mental health support" and "impersonal bureaucracy" that persisted across jobs.
"It felt very transactional — like I was in a conversation with a call center representative. The whole experience felt formal and detached."
— Vikram, on his single EAP experience
Within this study, participants consistently wanted control over their data — not just assurance
Across the three interviews, participants described wanting the ability to verify and control their data rather than simply being told it was safe. Anya listed very specific structural requirements: personal email access, external therapists, anonymous chats, and a hard delete option. Rahul described wanting open-source transparency so he could verify privacy claims independently. The pattern suggests that assurance alone is unlikely to be sufficient.
"I wouldn't want to use my office email for it. I'd want to use my personal email so there's no tie to the company directory. I'd want external therapists—people who aren't on the company payroll. And I need a way to delete everything. My chats, my account, all of it. Maybe even anonymous chats where I don't have to give my name at all."
— Anya, Software Engineer
Where participants diverged
Good research doesn't only report consensus. While privacy was a universal concern, other needs and contexts varied significantly, which prevented me from designing a "one-size-fits-all" solution:
- Current stress levels: While Anya and Rahul were actively navigating workplace stress, Vikram wasn't particularly stressed anymore because he had become more experienced and built stronger boundaries over his 5+ year career.
- Attitudes toward AI: Rahul actively wanted an AI assistant to help match him with the right therapist and navigate resources. Anya never mentioned AI and was highly skeptical of automated recommendations, preferring direct human selection.
Systematically evaluating what existing platforms get wrong
Why these three platforms
I selected platforms representing the main strategic approaches in the Indian and global workplace wellness market: Headspace for Work as the leading global B2C-to-B2B crossover, MindPeers as the dominant India-first B2B platform, and YourDost as an anonymity-led hybrid model. Together, they cover the three most common approaches to this product problem — which meant any shared weaknesses were unlikely to be accidental.
Evaluation criteria
Each platform was evaluated against five criteria derived directly from the research findings — specifically, what participants described needing in order to trust a product like this.
View platform findings and scorecard
Platform findings
Summary scorecard
Rated against each research-derived criterion: ✓ Meets · ~ Partially meets · ✗ Does not meet
| Criterion | Headspace for Work | MindPeers | YourDost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Privacy transparency | ~ | ✗ | ~ |
| Employer / employee separation | ~ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Onboarding clarity | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
| Language & tone | ✓ | ~ | ~ |
| User control | ~ | ✗ | ~ |
How findings shaped every major design decision
The research produced a set of constraints and priorities that restructured the entire product — not just a feature list.
Privacy fear can be pre-formed — participants distrusted employer-provided tools before opening one
Privacy statement on welcome screen (not buried in settings). Onboarding step 2 is entirely about data handling. Encryption notice persists in footer of sensitive screens.
Transactional tone after one bad EAP experience created lasting avoidance for one user
Full microcopy audit. "Book a session" becomes "Schedule your session." "Loading" becomes "Securing your slot." Warm language applied as a design token, not an afterthought.
Interviewees wanted to verify and control their data, not just be assured it is safe
"My Privacy" becomes top-level navigation — not a settings sub-menu. Contains: data usage explanation, delete account/data option, communication preference controls.
Participants in this study needed immediate relief tools — not a booking flow — when stressed
"Quick Access" elevated to home dashboard with direct paths to guided breathing, SOS/crisis line, self-assessments. Therapy booking deliberately secondary to immediate tools.
Structure as a trust signal
The IA was built from the user journeys — specifically from Anya's (privacy-focused) and Vikram's (immediate-relief-focused) paths. The driving question for every structural decision: does this placement reduce or increase anxiety for someone who already doesn't trust this product?
View information architecture map
★ My Privacy is top-level navigation — not buried in settings. This was a direct research decision, not a visual one.
Testing the prototype against real users
After the Figma prototype was built, I ran moderated usability tests with 2 participants (Anya and Vikram — both from the original interview pool, which let me compare their stated preferences to their actual behaviour).
Sessions were 45 minutes, screen-recorded, with a think-aloud protocol. I tested 4 scenarios: onboarding, booking a therapist, using the mood tracker, and creating a journal entry.
View usability issues by severity
What the research changed — and what I would investigate next
What changed because of research
- Privacy surfaced as the first screen users see — not the sixth
- "My Privacy" added as top-level navigation — not in the original concept
- External therapist option added after Anya specified she would only trust non-employer-affiliated support
- SOS widget added after Rahul described needing emergency access without navigating menus
- Entire microcopy tone shifted from functional to warm — direct result of Vikram's EAP story
- 7 high-severity usability issues resolved in the second design iteration
What I would investigate next
- Longitudinal study: do users who engage with privacy features actually use the platform more? The hypothesis is yes — but it needs data.
- HR stakeholder interviews: what do employers actually see in aggregate dashboards? Employees assume the worst — understanding real data access could reshape the privacy communication entirely.
- Expand sample: 3 interviews surfaces dominant themes but not edge cases. A fourth participant from a non-tech industry would stress-test whether findings generalise.
- Diary study: one-week study tracking real-time emotional responses to onboarding and privacy flow — not retrospective recall.
Researcher's note
The most interesting finding was in the gap between the screener and the interviews. The screener showed 8/11 people felt stressed. The interviews showed none had used employer support. I expected interviews to surface "I didn't know it existed." They didn't. Every participant knew support was available. The barrier was entirely psychological — and it existed before any product contact. That means no amount of UX polish fixes this without first addressing the trust problem. The research changed the entire framing of the product.
Research documentation
I included this appendix for anyone who wants to see how I structured the study, recruited participants, shaped the discussion guide, and moved from raw data to themes.
View research appendix
Research objective
To understand why employees in mid-to-large organisations avoid using employer-provided mental health support — even when they are aware of it and experience work-related stress — and to identify what a digital wellness platform would need to offer for them to use it with confidence.
Participant criteria
- Currently employed full-time in an organisation with 50+ employees
- Reported experiencing work-related stress at least "sometimes" (screener filter)
- Had not used employer-provided mental health resources in the past 12 months
- Age range 25–44; mix of seniority levels
- At least one participant with prior EAP exposure; at least one without
- Recruited across tech, education, and content industries to avoid single-sector skew
Discussion guide excerpt
The full guide covered 4 sections across approximately 18 questions. The following is a representative excerpt from the core section on barriers and trust. Questions were deliberately open-ended to avoid leading participants toward expected answers.
- Can you walk me through a time when you felt stressed at work? What did you do with that?
- Have you ever considered using your employer's mental health support? What happened — or what stopped you?
- What would need to be true about a platform like this for you to feel comfortable using it?
- If I showed you that your data was fully encrypted and your manager couldn't access it — would that change anything for you? Why or why not?
- Is there anything about how I've described this that doesn't sit right with you?
Coding approach
I used inductive coding — starting from the data rather than a predetermined framework. After each interview I wrote a structured record: key verbatim quotes, initial codes by guide section, a summary of the session, and early design implications.
A code was treated as a theme only when it appeared independently across at least two of the three interviews. I also specifically tracked contradictions — moments where a participant's stated attitude conflicted with their described behaviour — as these often surfaced the most analytically interesting material.
Analysis workflow
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