Companies are offering benefits like virtual therapy and meditation apps as Covid-19 stress grows

Like many modern tech companies, UiPath had been expanding its mental health benefits to employees in recent years, committing the equivalent of 1% of salaries to health and wellness programs. More than seven months into the coronavirus pandemic, that all seems quaint.

The crises of 2020 have taken stress, anxiety and depression to entirely new levels for employees, who are trying to stay productive at home, surrounded by children who can’t go to school or hang out with their friends, except outside and at a distance.

Add to that the racial animus sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in late May, the raging wildfires across the West and a particularly consequential election season and it’s easy to see why employers like UiPath are working overtime to help staffers find some semblance of balance.

“The whole world changed and we had to quickly adapt,” said Daniel Anastas, the head of total rewards at New York-based UiPath, whose software helps companies automate back-end tasks.

World Mental Health Day is Saturday, Oct. 10, as recognized by the World Health Organization. The WHO said this week that demand worldwide is increasing for mental health services because of Covid-related “bereavement, isolation, loss of income and fear,” adding that critical services have been disrupted or halted in 93% of countries across the globe.

Prior to the pandemic, UiPath offered employee assistance through a company called Corporate Counseling Associates, which provides access to counselors, therapists and help with childcare. Anastas said that employees have been making greater use of those services and asking for more.

At the beginning of October, UiPath gave all 2,800 employees free access to meditation app Headspace, which typically costs $70 a year for individual subscriptions, as well as fitness service Aaptiv, which costs $100 for consumers.

“Once Covid hit, we got a lot of feedback about how hard it was to disconnect from emails because people are constantly home,” Anastas said. “These apps allow people to disconnect and spend some purposeful moments thinking about, where’s my head at?”

Headspace told CNBC by email that it’s seen a greater than 500% increase in inbound interest from companies seeking mental health help for their workforce. The number of people starting its “stressed meditation” offering is up six-fold, and the company said that a survey it conducted earlier this year found that 53% of workers feel mental health benefits are now essential.

Headspace is currently the fourth-highest grossing iOS App in the health and fitness category. Rival Calm is second.

“So many organizations have recognized that mental health is a must-have for employees rather than a nice to have,” said Alex Will, Calm’s chief strategy officer.

Will said that corporate sales have become a big and possibly the fastest-growing part of the business, with more than 20 of Calm’s 140 employees now focused on it. He said that when companies join as clients, 25% of staffers sign up for the app within a few weeks.

In May, the health plan Kaiser Permanente signed a deal with Calm to make the app available to millions of members. Calm has also been working directly with employers.

While large insurers have been adding mental health to the services they cover in employer plans, they haven’t been moving fast enough to keep up with employee demand. That means companies are having to patch together services, putting their human resources departments to work to figure out what employees most urgently need and negotiating deals with vendors over video chat.