One of the biggest bonuses of using AI in Health and Wellbeing is that it can significantly increase the uptake of benefits. This is great news for professionals in the sector because low uptake is a perennial source of concern for professionals (as addressed in this article).
Low EAP utilisation is the most typical concern, with employers generally reporting uptake rates of EAPs as between 3-10% of employees, with more reporting at the lower end of this figure and very few into double figures. However some providers are seeing huge jumps in utilisation after implementing AI.
Wysa is an AI powered chatbot that delivers cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). It’s used by the NHS, but also by employers such as Bosch, L’Oreal and Accenture to improve employee wellbeing, mental health and resilience.
Change the benefits game
“We have multiple tools built into Wysa which stand alone but if you just offer it on its own, it also has pretty average uptake,” says Sarah Baldry, Chief Marketing Officer, Wysa.
But, the point at which the AI element becomes game changing is when “you put it front and centre of the whole benefits offering”, she says. This means that when an employee visits the wellbeing hub the first thing they see is a simple chat bar where they can enter any concern and receive the information they need. All the relevant Health and Wellbeing data, not just Wysa’s, is fed into the AI system including all information on every other resource and benefit available.
“Employees can then go onto the hub and freely chat to it about anything that is going on in their lives. Often they’re not sure what they want, so are prompted by the AI which is helping them find what they need. What we find is that because we’ve got this very powerful chatbot, that understands people’s needs and has safety built in, if you let people chat to it, it can personalise its response,” says Baldry.
Tailoring AI to your organisation
Based on what the employee is saying, for example, the AI can suggest calling the EAP and giving the telephone number, or direct to the SOS feature with a comment like ‘There are people who will be able to guide you through this tough time. Do get in touch with them here.’ or ‘sounds like you’re overwhelmed, would you like to try an exercise to calm you down?’.
“The AI is entirely tailored to the organisation and embedded in everything that they offer,” she says. Obviously, this can be a complex system to set up, depending on how many sources of information you are dealing with and added complications like the difference between what benefits are offered in which countries, and different languages.
“So for some multinationals it is complicated and will take a good six weeks to set up the technology to ensure it can surface the right tools or supplier. But what we see, when clients do this, is that the uptake of resources massively increases across the entire board,” she says.
Increasing engagement tenfold
Accenture is one of Wysa’s clients which, after this process, saw employee engagement in wellbeing increase tenfold.
“That’s why, if you’re working in the HR benefits space, I’d recommend putting your AI in the middle of your benefits package, to help people navigate what’s available to them, rather than promoting each of your packages, from financial to health, separately,” says Baldry.
“Let the AI find the right resource for the employee. That way, it feels like real personalisation because the AI isn’t just using their name, it’s understanding their needs and suggesting something for them.”
AI can simplify complex information quickly
Geeta Arora Bhojak, Global Mental Health Lead at Accenture, having seen this approach work is now a strong advocate for AI and the positive impact it can have on employee wellbeing, saying:
“Between a mental distress or a life event happening with somebody and them getting ‘human’ help there is a lot that can be done.”
One reason why experts believe that AI could revolutionise benefits uptake is due to its ability to simplify information in an extremely complex space. Communications have always been a huge challenge for professionals, not helped by the heavy and often jargon-filled information booklets sent out to employees when they are signing up to policies (touched on in this feature).
Health information can be overwhelming
It’s a testament to how far the industry has come that there are now so many different ways to support employee wellbeing, but employer offerings can often feel overwhelming to employees due to this wide variety of support. This complexity can hinder, rather than support effective health decision making, particularly says Benifex Chief Innovation Officer Gethin Nadin, when people are looking for support in a state of distress.
“At point of crisis, employees are often not in the best headspace to make the right decisions. For example, being diagnosed with cancer. At that point, wading through a tonne of information and guidance can be overwhelming. But it’s at this point where we can see how AI could really help,” he says.
An employee could tell the platform or app what kind of diagnosis they have received, and the system could reveal all the ways their benefits could help.
Directing to overlooked benefits
“They could tell them about the free (and often overlooked) vocational and rehabilitation services,” continues Nadin. “The app could also show how immediate help can be provided with a referral to a specialist or even suggest the option to talk through your diagnosis with a therapist.”
Wysa’s own research shows that the therapeutic bond established with AI and the user builds trust three times faster than with a human therapist.
“That’s because it is a bot,” explains Baldry. “People can say whatever they like to it, without fear of judgment. They can be horrible about their spouse, their boss, their children and it won’t judge them. And people really understand that, so they open up about their worries and what they’re angry or sad about and start to learn how to express and manage their emotions better.”
AI could particularly help men
This could be particularly helpful for men who typically find it harder to open up in face to face situations about their emotions. Not only that, unlike with humans, the user can choose to delete the AI’s memory of the conversation, too, adding another layer of reassurance.
The fact that trust is built so much quicker means that employees can progress to recovery solutions quicker, and therefore AI could be a crucial ally in the industry’s desire (and government’s) to shift from a culture of cure to prevention.
The other way AI supports this is by exposing employees to therapeutic language and models before they are, potentially, referred to ‘human’ therapy. “In many instances with our NHS work, by the time they get to this human therapy many of them have already achieved their target outcome, so AI is improving therapeutic outcomes,” says Baldry.
Wearable AI tech
Additionally, individuals who do go on for therapy are more ready and engaged when they start treatment. Wysa also has evidence that the drop out rates are much lower because they are mentally prepared for what therapy is going to look like.
Another way that AI is driving cultures of prevention and personalisation is through wearable tracking technology.
“AI powers our personalised approach,” says Reeva Misra, Founder and CEO, Walking on Earth (WONE). “Advances in wearable technology and AI now allow us to draw richer insights by integrating physiological, psychological, behavioural, and environmental inputs into our platform.”
AI personalises recommendations
Because of its ability to instantly aggregate vast amounts of information, and learn about its individual users over time, AI can adapt and personalise further its recommendations, offering up more relevant, effective interventions. “And, as a result, sees higher utilisation of the solution,” says Misra.
As well as this, companies like WONE and Wysa can feed back these large anonymised data sets to employers in order to create Health and Wellbeing strategies that best serve the workforce’s actual needs and situations.
The data can even help them identify particular areas of concern, whether it be segments of the employee base that are particularly stressed, and look for commonalities – such as whether they are in the same team / function, whether this happens at a particular time of year or whether the individuals share any demographic characteristics.
How AI helps with prevention
“You can tackle workplace stress before it becomes a chronic issue by detecting and addressing early signs of burnout out we can improve overall employee health, which has a direct impact on business health,” adds Misra.
Baldry agrees, saying employers can “slice and dice the data by geography, or by office, as long as there’s 20 people in a group so it retains it anonymity”. Wysa has had employer clients where they’ve been able to notice a problem in a certain office and been able to address it.
“You can see which offices need attention because their scores are worse than the office in the next city or the next country, which could suggest something like toxic management. We also have word clouds for words coming up most in conversion. So you can actually start to genuinely support those employee groups,” she says.
AI can identify toxic cultures
In this way, AI can help to change culture by noticing and addressing unhelpful, unaligned behaviour and recognising and encouraging helpful behaviour.
This feature initially set out to consider how AI can boost benefits uptake and, through doing so, also showed how it can help support a shift to a more preventative approach, as well as be a tool for culture change, too. But where is the future of AI and benefits specifically?
With such rapid change, it’s hard to predict but there is one change which seems obviously waiting to happen according to Baldry – and that’s the way benefits are paid for.
AI could lead to paying for benefits on demand
“Personalisation thanks to AI means you can have benefits available on demand from a massive pool of providers,” she says. “It also opens up a case for employers just paying for what their employees use.”
So what would she do, in light of where the market is currently with AI, if she were in charge of an employer’s Health and Wellbeing benefits?
“I would go to my benefits provider and say ‘I want everything you’ve got and I want to put AI upfront, but I want to pay on a utilisation basis’. Doing this puts the employer back in the driving seat of seeing what is really being used and working. Yes, it’s early days, but it can happen now…”
You might also like:
