EAP | Poor mental health drives 1 in 3 employee helpline calls, data shows

Britain’s poor mental health continues to be the main driver of calls to employee assistance helplines, with anxiety and low mood accounting for one in three calls in 2024.

New data from Zurich Corporate Risk reveals that anxiety remains the number one call category for the fourth year running and is responsible for nearly a fifth of calls (19%), while low mood makes up more than one in 10 calls to the helpline (11%). 

Together, the prevalence of these two categories indicates persistent poor mental health among UK employees.  

ONS data shows that mental health is the fifth most common reason for sickness from work, accounting for 7.9% of absences in 2022, while previous Zurich/Cebr research found that long term sick leave due to poor mental health costs the economy around £5.9bn a year.