How to use mental health data to reach the employees your support is missing

It was a useful reminder that a strong headline utilisation figure can give employers false reassurance. Mental health data becomes far more valuable when it tells you not only who is using support, but who is missing from it.

That is what Onebright and SSE set out to understand across a workforce spanning offices, engineering teams, operational sites, depots and remote locations. What followed provides a practical lesson for HR teams on how to interrogate mental health data, identify barriers and turn what they find into action.

1.Start with the headline data, then look underneath it

Data can identify where engagement is lower, but it cannot always explain why. At SSE, employees had historically been able to access support through routes including managers, HR and occupational health. Those routes remain important, but they do not work equally well for everybody.

For example, neurodivergent employees may need more flexibility around how support is communicated and delivered, including clearer information, different communication methods and consideration of sensory or processing needs.

Some employees may not feel comfortable speaking to their manager. Others may worry about confidentiality, stigma or whether what they are experiencing is serious enough to raise formally. Psychological safety is important here, as employees need to feel able to seek support without fear of judgement, negative consequences or being treated differently.

Introducing a confidential self-referral pathway gave employees another option, and around 97% of referrals in the first year came through self-referral.

Employers frequently encourage people to seek help early, before difficulties escalate, but if accessing support feels complicated, exposed or dependent on another person’s approval, there is little value in asking people to reach out early and then putting several doors in front of them.

For HR, this means looking at the whole journey from recognising “I might need help” to actually receiving support. If that journey contains unnecessary friction, there are more opportunities for someone to disengage.

2. Turn gaps into questions

One of the clearest findings in SSE’s data was a gender gap. SSE’s workforce is predominantly male, yet men were accessing support at roughly half the rate of women.

The important point is that the team did not simply accept that difference as inevitable or assume that men were less interested in mental health support. Instead, the data prompted a closer look at how and where support was being offered.

Our specialists began joining site visits and wider health checks, bringing mental health support into settings employees were already familiar with. Rather than mental health support feeling like something separate, specialist or only relevant to people in crisis, it became part of a broader conversation about health. Male engagement subsequently increased and the gap between male and female use narrowed considerably.

The lesson is not that every organisation should use the same intervention. It is that a gap in the data should trigger action, followed by another look at whether that action worked.

3. Remove Friction

Many workplace mental health services are still easiest to access if an employee regularly checks email, uses an intranet and works close to HR. That does not reflect every workforce.

SSE includes people working away from home, in remote locations and across operational sites. Reaching those employees required different access routes, including QR codes on site, telephone support, posters, face-to-face conversations and integrating mental health into existing health activity.

If a workforce is dispersed, support cannot depend entirely on employees finding it themselves. HR teams need to think about where people actually spend their working day and whether access reflects that reality.

This also means recognising that the same communication method will not work equally well across every part of the organisation. What feels accessible to an office-based employee may be largely invisible to someone who spends most of their week on site or working alone.

4. Combine data with employee experience

Utilisation is only one measure of whether a workplace mental health service is working. At SSE, more employees began coming forward before reaching the point where they could no longer work. That matters because earlier intervention creates a greater opportunity to support people while they remain in work.

It also changes the business case for workplace mental health support. Earlier access can support functioning, productivity and retention, while reducing the likelihood that difficulties escalate into longer periods of absence.

This is why employers should look beyond referral numbers when evaluating whether support is working. Clinical outcomes, treatment engagement, work functioning and whether employees are able to remain in work can all provide a more meaningful picture of impact.

The aim should not be to increase referrals for their own sake. It should be to make sure that the people who would benefit from support can reach the right level of help at the right time.

5. Measure outcomes, not just uptake

The clinical data also reinforces the importance of interpreting workplace mental health information carefully. Many employees entering treatment were experiencing significant levels of distress. Mixed anxiety and depression, generalised anxiety and low mood were among the most common presentations.

People were also dealing with wider pressures including bereavement, family and relationship difficulties, trauma and neurodivergence. Life events affect work, and work can intensify their impact but that doesn’t mean every difficult period should be turned into a diagnosis.

Some employees will need specialist psychological treatment. Others may need occupational health input, workplace adjustments, support from their manager or simply help navigating a difficult period.

The purpose of workplace mental health support should be to help people reach the right level of support at the right time, rather than assuming that every experience of distress requires the same response.

6. Keep reviewing and adapting

The most important lesson from this work is that mental health data should create a cycle. Employers should look at who is using support, identify where gaps exist, understand the barriers behind them, make changes and then measure again.

Where those patterns point to recurring barriers within particular teams, they may also highlight where managers need more support or training to recognise concerns and signpost employees appropriately.

For SSE, some of the most effective changes were also among the simplest, with confidential self-referral, site visits, practical access routes and closer scrutiny of who was and was not engaging.

Every organisation will have its own hidden majority. The challenge for HR is to find them. Know your data, remove the barriers and take support to your people.

Watch the World Mental Health Day Webinar here: What SSE’s frontline workforce taught us about reaching their hidden majority