Cost of Low EAP Utilisation Rates: Financial Impact for Employers
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
When your EAP isn’t being used, the cost doesn’t show up as a line item.
It shows up in productivity drag, absence trends, and avoidable attrition, usually after the cost has already accumulated.
If you’re a finance director or HR leader heading into a planning cycle, the more useful question isn’t “Is our utilisation rate good enough?” It’s: “What is low utilisation costing us, and what do we recover if we intervene earlier?”
This article builds a practical cost model to answer that. It uses conservative assumptions throughout, not to make the numbers look dramatic, but to show how quickly workforce costs move with relatively small shifts in employee wellbeing.
Note: Figures below are illustrative. Substitute your own salary bands and local currency to model your organisation accurately.
Table of contents:
Step 1: Start with your workforce as a baseline
Take a mid-sized organisation
5,000 employees
Average salary: $70,000
240 working days/year
Daily salary cost is roughly:
$70,000 ÷ 240 = $292/day per employee
Now apply one assumption: 10% of your workforce, 500 people, experience sustained, performance-affecting stress at some point this year. Not the acute end of the spectrum. Just the persistent, everyday kind that slowly erodes output.
If you have internal indicators (engagement scores, stress survey items, EAP enquiries, absence reasons), use those to replace the 10% assumption. This model is designed to accept your data.
Is 10% realistic? Many workforce surveys report stress as widespread; 10% is a conservative modelling floor, not a worst case.
Step 2: Presenteeism: The Cost No One is Counting
Here's the thing about presenteeism, it doesn't generate a data trail. No absence form, no manager alert, no HR ticket.
If 500 employees work at 80% productivity for 20 days due to unmanaged stress, the salary cost looks like this:
500 employees × 20 days × 20% loss × $292 = $584,000
Finance note: this is paid-time value lost (output proxy), not extra payroll spend.
That's half a million dollars from people who showed up. And that figure only covers direct salary cost during the reduced-productivity window. It doesn't touch team delays, quality errors, or the management time spent holding things together around them.
Step 3: When presenteeism becomes absence
Some of those 500 employees won't stay in the presenteeism zone indefinitely.
Assume 15% (75 people), move from impaired performance into short-term stress-related absence, taking an average of 7 additional days each.
75 employees × 7 days × $292 = $153,300
Again: this is direct salary cost only. The cascade, redistributed workload, operational disruption, increased stress for others, isn’t fully captured here.
Step 4: When Absence Becomes Extended Leave
A smaller group will need longer time away.
Assume 2% of the original 500, 10 employees, require extended leave of 30 additional days each.
10 employees × 30 days × $292 = $87,600
At this point, direct costs alone have crossed $824,900 — before you add attrition.
The point isn’t to reduce people to a number. It’s to show how quickly costs compound when support is accessed late.
Step 5: Attrition: The Cost Most Finance Teams Underestimate
Attrition is when employees leave the organisation (typically tracked as voluntary turnover). In this model it matters because the cost shifts from “reduced capacity” to replacement cost: recruitment, onboarding, ramp time, and the productivity gap.
Conservative estimates from SHRM and Deloitte place replacement cost at 30–50% of annual salary for a mid-level role, covering recruitment, onboarding, lost productivity during handover, and knowledge transfer.
If just 10 additional voluntary departures in a 5,000-person organisation are stress-linked:
10 departures × $70,000 × 30% = $210,000
That attrition line alone often rivals the annual cost of an EAP contract, before you’ve counted a single absence day.
Step 6: From cost model to measured recovery
The figures above quantify what poor mental health costs. The more useful question is: what do you recover when support is accessed early?
Most organisations can tell you how many employees contacted their EAP.They often cannot tell you whether those employees improved.
That’s where the conversation moves from utilisation to measured recovery.
With Kyan, outcomes can be tracked using clinically validated measures like PHQ-9 and GAD-7 at the start of care and over time. At an organisational level, HR and finance can then review aggregated improvement trends by quarter, not just satisfaction scores.
That’s how mental health spend becomes a performance input, not a welfare line item.
The Full Picture
Here's what the model totals across all four cost categories, using these conservative assumptions, for one year.
Cost Category | Assumptions | Annual Estimate |
Presenteeism | 500 staff · 20 days · 20% loss | $584,000 |
Short-term absence escalation | 75 staff · 7 extra days | $153,300 |
Extended leave | 10 staff · 30 extra days | $87,600 |
Attrition (stress-linked) | 10 departures · 30% replacement | $210,000 |
Total (conservative model) | 5,000 employees · one year | $1,034,900 |
The point isn't the number. It's the sensitivity. Every assumption in this model is deliberately modest. In higher-pressure industries, financial services, pharma, logistics, healthcare, the inputs will be materially worse. What the model shows is how quickly small shifts compound across large workforces.
Where EAP Utilisation Fits, and Why Timing Matters
The entire cost model above is built on escalation: presenteeism deepens, absence follows, extended leave comes next, attrition is the exit.
Every stage costs more than the one before. Utilisation matters because it determines how many people get support before they escalate. Timing matters as much as the percentage.
Traditional EAPs often average 2–5% annual utilisation. When engagement is low, it’s tempting to assume the workforce is resilient. A more honest interpretation is often: support isn’t being accessed early enough to show up in the data, until it’s expensive.
Even modest shifts produce meaningful numbers.
If your EAP engagement shifts this... | You recover approximately... |
Presenteeism period reduces by 10% | $58,400 / year |
Short-term absence drops by 1 day per affected employee | $21,900 / year |
5 fewer stress-linked departures | $105,000 / year |
All three shifts combined | $185,300 / year |
These aren’t optimistic projections. They’re small improvements applied to an already conservative model.
How Kyan Breaks the Low-Utilization Loop
Access + AI triage + outcomes (not vanity metrics)
Low utilisation is rarely about “employees don’t need support.”It’s usually about friction, timing, or uncertainty:
“I don’t know what service is right”
“I can’t access help quickly”
“I’m not sure it’s confidential”
“The process is too hard when I’m already struggling”
Kyan is designed to remove those failure points:
Reduce friction with direct accessEmployees can move from intent to action quickly through direct booking on app and web, reducing drop-off at the moment help is needed.
Route people to the right support with AI triageKAI Triage helps guide employees to the right service and level of care sooner — improving fit, reducing churn, and increasing the chance of early intervention.
Support multiple pathways (not one door)
Some people will prefer human-first support. Phone pathways and warm transfer options can capture “I need help now” moments, when the risk of escalation is highest.
Make outcomes visible, not assumed
Using tools like PHQ-9 and GAD-7, organisations can evaluate clinical movement over time at an aggregated level, tying engagement to improvement, not just utilisation.
Scale supply so engagement doesn’t hit a capacity wall
Higher engagement only helps if the care pathway has capacity. Provider supply and service coverage matter — especially as utilisation rises.
Net effect: earlier access → better routing → higher engagement → measurable improvement → reduced escalation cost.
The Insurance Conversation No One is Having
Stress-related conditions don’t stay neatly inside HR. They intersect with:
disability duration
return-to-work timelines
claim frequency
multi-year renewal conversations
Over time, sustained patterns of mental health-related absence can influence risk pricing and renewal outcomes. Early intervention that shortens absence episodes and reduces escalation to extended leave can shift that trajectory.
What to Measure Quarterly (so you can manage the ROI)
If you want to manage this like a performance lever, track:
Access + engagement
utilisation rate (overall + by service type)
time-to-first-appointment
drop-off points (intent → booked → attended)
Outcomes
aggregated PHQ-9 / GAD-7 movement over time
recovery rate by pathway (self-guided vs coached vs clinical)
Downstream impact
stress-related absence days (duration + frequency)
trends in extended leave
voluntary attrition hotspots (teams, periods, functions)
Utilisation alone is a weak signal. Utilisation + outcomes + downstream impact is where the business case becomes durable.
Want to see what this looks like for your organisation?
Kyan’s Wellbeing Analytics helps HR and finance teams spot escalation risk early and build a numbers-based case for early intervention — without vanity metrics.
See how it works | Talk to the team
Frequently Asked Questions
What's a realistic EAP utilisation benchmark?
Most EAP providers consider 5–10% annual utilisation to be functional engagement for larger workforces. Rates consistently below 3% in organisations with known stress indicators should prompt a review, not of whether the programme is good, but whether employees can actually access it when they need it. Timing matters as much as the number.
How do I build an EAP ROI case for a budget conversation?
Start with your headcount, average salary, and any absence data you have. Use the model above: presenteeism first (conservative period, modest productivity loss), then absence escalation at 10–15% of affected employees, then attrition at 30% replacement cost. Compare the total against your annual EAP contract value. In most organisations, a 5% improvement in absence duration alone produces a positive return.
If utilisation is low, does that mean the workforce is fine?
Not necessarily. It more often means support isn't being accessed early enough, which is precisely when it would be most effective and most cost-efficient. Low utilisation in the presence of normal absence and attrition data warrants a conversation about accessibility, awareness, and stigma. Low utilisation alongside rising absence data is a flag worth acting on.
Can EAP data actually be used for planning without compromising confidentiality?
Yes, with the right reporting structure. Aggregated, anonymised utilisation and engagement data can indicate where teams or periods are generating elevated demand, without exposing individual employees. That data has real value for workforce planning, manager support prioritisation, and anticipating absence risk ahead of peak operational cycles. Kyan's Wellbeing Analytics is built specifically around this.
How does EAP engagement affect our insurance position?
Over time, sustained mental health-related absence and disability claim patterns influence how insurers and benefits consultants price risk. Early-stage EAP intervention that shortens absence episodes and reduces escalation to extended leave can measurably shift that trajectory across a multi-year benefits cycle.
