Mental ill health accounted for the most common reason for customers to call Zurich’s employee assistance programme (EAP), but this coincided with a dramatic increase in the number of customer calls on housing-related issues.
Data released by Zurich Corporate Risk found mental health remained the most common cause of calls to its EAP in 2023 for the second year running, with 40% of calls received from workers linked to mental health.
But the data also revealed housing-related issues were fuelling a major increase in workers calling employee assistance helplines.
Calls relating to landlord and tenancy issues were up 95% in the year to 2023 with calls concerning housing difficulties up 51%.
Analysis of calls to Zurich’s EAP, which provides support to employees of its corporate risk customers, also found that calls about financial concerns had increased by 42% on the previous year.
The types of financial issues that workers called about varied from employment concerns to housing and affordability.
The data also showed increases in calls around worries linked to redundancy (156%) and employment (33%).
Nick Homer, head of group risk at Zurich UK said: “At a time when employees are struggling with all sorts of personal issues, it is more important than ever that employers offer proactive and preventative support.”