5 Entrepreneurs Adopted Healthcare Apps To Ensure Employee Mental Health During COVID-19

“Your employees might be in a need of a little extra care, make sure you support them to get through these hard times”

The 24-hours swirling news, some unauthorized facts, and the increasing fear of unemployment are affecting the mental health of the Canadian workforce or employees.

With some reports that state worsening the mental health of half of the Canadian’s, employers have to play a key role in helping their employees maintain their mental stability.

During recent research, it was found that 63% of employees trust their boss more than any other source when it comes to COVID-19 updates. In order to ensure the mental wellness of the employees, the employer has to make efforts to replace the anxiety with reliable information.

Communicate with them regularly, let them ask questions, confirm them they are safe in the company, and build a team spirit by assuring them they can fight this situation together.

Understanding the need for mental healthcare in the workspace, the big brand Starbucks is helping its Canadian employees with a mental health app by providing a free subscription to “Headspace” a meditation app.

Following this, below is a list of some popular mental healthcare apps that are adopted by the employers and are doing wonders for the employees of their company.

Popular mental healthcare apps for employees and employers

●    Headspace

Widely adopted by most of the employers, Headspace is a mindfulness app that helps the user to meditate and keep a positive attitude by feeding them with informative articles, videos, and animations.

The app comes with the full package list of inspiring stories, basic exercises to help strengthen mental health and a playlist of soothing music to help the user get a slumber sleep. Headspace makes a person feel relaxed, calm, and breathe to give a much needed relaxing sleep to its user. Looking at the current situation of crisis the app has made its service free for the unemployed user for a year until they get back to their feet confidently. The app provides some of its features for free and then follows a subscription model.

●    Calm

Rewarded as the “happiest app in the world”, the calm app comes with 100+ sleep stories and 30+ sounds and natural scenes that help the user to calm down, meditate and have good sleep.

The app comes with different meditation sessions that come in different time lengths of 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 minutes for the user to choose their perfect fit based on their schedule.

Recommended by the world’s top psychologists and mental health experts, the app helps the user to improve concentration, focus, and self-esteem with its masterclasses and breathing programs for beginner, intermediate and advanced users.

●      Moodpath

With over 27k+ reviews and 4.6 ratings, Moodpath is placed among the list of top-rated apps for employee mental health. The app comes with a special feature that tracks the emotional state of the person and relates it with other aspects of his life to detect the pattern.

The app collects the information from the user by asking them some questions three times a day and based on their responses generates insights and mental health reports to identify any symptoms and know your triggering points.

The reports and the statistics generated by the app helps the user know his emotional pattern. Moodpath also allows the user to learn some mindful techniques by choosing Cognitive-behavioral therapy exercises.

●    Mindfulness Coach

Acting as a coach or a mentor for its users, the Mindfulness coach helps its user to remain active and pay attention to what’s happening in the present. It helps the user to develop a practice to not judge any situation by improving their emotional balance and dealing with anxiety and depression.

Developed for the veterans and service members the advanced version of the app works on the 4 major components (learning, practicing, tracking, and setting a reminder). For learning and practicing, the app provides the user with self-guided mental and physical exercises by giving them choices to select them based on their preferences. The app also allows tracking the behavior per day, while also allowing them to set reminders based on users logged behavioral patterns.

With 12+ audio-guided mental health exercises, the app is free to use and doesn’t save any personal information of the user.

●    Youper

Healthcare app + AI, always the best combination that works great for the wellness of people. Youper, an AI-based mental healthcare app that acts as emotional health assistance for the people who are in need of help.

Backed by the power of science and supported by the advanced technology of Artificial Intelligence, the app provides personalized therapies and techniques by understanding the needs of its users.

The app works on cognitive-behavioral therapy which helps the user understand themselves and their moods, which eventually improves their relationships, sleeping patterns to get a happier and healthier life.

This app acts as a friend to its user and thus improves their ability to share their problems with others and especially his/her doctor.

With the increasing mental health issues among employees, the need for more such mental healthcare apps has become inevitable for the employers. Accepting this as a fact, many businesses are focusing on the mental wellness of their employees and measurable steps in this area.

For example; 

• BP Canada ensures employees’ mental and physical health by using Fitbit products.
• Ontario’s Williamson Group takes care of its employees by organizing running clubs, celebrating Fiber Friday and initiating fitness assessments, smoke control, and BMI calculation programs.
• Toronto’s Delta Hotels and Resorts hosted Mental Health Week to encourage employers and employees to work together on the mental health-related issues in the office like stress and anxiety.

In the nutshell

Mental health is an important aspect of life that everyone around should be vocal about. Being the owner of a company, you might be having many responsibilities to handle, but remember your employees are your biggest asset, so keeping in mind their needs should also be your priority.

The above-listed apps acted as a great support for many entrepreneurs and could also help you to keep your employee’s mental wellbeing stable in these hard times of lockdown.

Author bio :

Parth Patel is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of SyS Creations – Managed IT services in Ontario. He has been serving in Canadian healthcare industry for more than 7 years. Along with his team, Parth Patel has earned expertise in customized app development and even developed a virtual healthcare solution for long-term care homes.