Only 16% of Employees Understand Their EAP Benefits, Survey Finds

More than eight in 10 employers offer an employee assistance program, yet only 16% of employees say they understand their EAP benefits very well. That figure comes from Dialogue's 2025 State of Workplace Well-being study, and it reframes a familiar budget debate. The problem is rarely the plan itself. It is whether employees understand the plan well enough to use it, and what the organization pays when they do not.

Two Canadian HR leaders argue the instinct to redesign benefits gets the problem backwards. "The cost goes so far beyond just the benefits budget," said Aman Malhi, Director of People and Culture at Refrigerative Supply Limited in Burnaby, B.C. "It shows up in attendance, morale, engagement — and it shows up in how people show up for work."

What does low usage actually signal?

Malhi warned against reading low uptake as proof a benefit has failed. "Low usage alone doesn't prove that a benefit is failing," she said. "There are so many benefits that maybe are not being used at the level that they should be because there's a lack of awareness, a lack of access, or maybe even stigma."

Mental health benefits illustrate the point. Dialogue's 2025 study found Canadian employee wellbeing has continued to decline, while uptake of employer-sponsored mental health supports remains persistently low across the country. Stigma is one driver, but poor fit and inaccessible delivery formats matter just as much. Each requires a different response.

"I see a lot of mental health benefits that aren't utilized as much because maybe there's a stigma around it, or just poor fit, or offering people something that they don't even need," Malhi said. "All of those — the awareness, access, stigma, poor fit — need different solutions."

Can communication move the numbers without new spending?

Isioma Coker, Human Resources Director at SaskTel in Regina, Saskatchewan, named the root cause plainly: open enrolment is designed to inform, not educate. "Do you actually understand what the coverage is? Do you understand how to maximize the best out of your plan?" she asked.

Coker reached this conclusion personally. When she joined SaskTel to lead total rewards, she could not navigate the plan she was responsible for managing. "I was confused by the benefits — I'm supposed to be leading total rewards, and I was like, 'I can't find anything. I don't really understand,'" she said. She sat down with her benefits manager and asked a simple question: can we make this easier?

What followed was a targeted communication campaign. The plan itself did not change — no new coverage, no added cost. The benefits manager built a dedicated website, launched the campaign, and ran lunch-and-learn sessions for employees.

The results appeared in SaskTel's next employee engagement survey. Scores on whether employees understood their benefits rose by four to five points year over year. Satisfaction scores also climbed.

"Just by doing absolutely nothing, only just talking about the plan, telling people what they have available, and getting that messaging consistent, we saw moves from our employees that we weren't actually expecting," Coker said.

How does delivery format change uptake?

At RSL, Malhi applied the same communication-first logic to mental health through a partnership with Dialogue, a virtual platform that delivers mental health services via an app. The format is designed to lower both access and stigma barriers that suppress uptake of traditional offerings.

She admitted her initial skepticism. "I was cynical when I first heard about it, and I didn't know how many people want to jump on a phone to access mental health," she said. "And I have been proven wrong because it is very popular with our workforce."

RSL sustains engagement with simple, recurring campaigns rather than formal communications. One example: a monthly competition for who has walked the most steps. "That's very simple, but it gets people walking. It creates competition. It helps people step away from work," Malhi said.

Do different generations need different benefits?

Malhi's answer is no. Different employees across generations and life stages do not necessarily need different benefits — they need the same benefits explained in ways relevant to where they are.

"I think you don't necessarily really need a different benefits program for every generation," she said. "What you do need, though, is maybe different ways of explaining the value of the same program. The underlying benefit is the same, but the conversation is so different."

Coker added that employees want simplicity above all. "They're looking for whatever it is that we do to be simple, to be easy, to be accessible to them," she said. "That first decision is, before we even dig into this, how are we designing it with a user experience in mind?"

Both leaders agree the gap between what employers offer and what employees understand is costing both sides more than either is measuring. For HR teams weighing a costly benefits redesign, the SaskTel result suggests a cheaper first step: measure understanding before coverage.