TELUS Health, Desjardins Insurance expand health and wellness collaboration

Strengthened partnership affirms value of supporting employees’ well-being and health

TELUS Health, Desjardins Insurance expand health and wellness collaboration

A new partnership between Desjardins Insurance and TELUS Health will make TELUS Health's top health and wellness services available to members and other qualified individuals from group insurance plans managed by Desjardins.

Desjardins will now be able to offer a selection of services that will better promote a balanced work-life balance at every stage of the wellness journey thanks to access to hundreds of health specialists and other trained advisors.

Building on their established partnership, TELUS Health expanded its Employee and Manager Assistance Programs (EAP/MAP) for Desjardins to cover mental health support; crisis management; legal and financial support; and referral services.

“This new collaboration with TELUS Health was a natural choice for us. Having looked to them since 2019 for virtual care solutions for members of our plans, we’ve seen first-hand how dependable and rigorous their resources are,” said Marie-France Amyot, vice-president Group and Business Insurance at Desjardins Insurance.

“We are confident that our proactive approach to adding more health and wellness options to our benefits plans and service offering will create healthier and happier employees,” Amyot added.

The collaboration with Desjardins is a prime example of how TELUS Health can collaborate with its customers to create healthier communities across Canada.

LifeWorks, a top supplier of digital and in-person total well-being solutions supported by TELUS Health, recently released research that confirms the value of health and wellness benefits among Canadian workers, coinciding with the partnership between Desjardins Insurance and Telus.

In the firm’s latest monthly Mental Health Index from October, 34.2 % of Canadians said health and well-being benefits and services are the most important factor when choosing an employer, compared to 28% citing flexibility and 18% focused on the type of work.

The study also found that 15% of Canadians rate their managers as a one or two on a five-point scale of being humane, with one being “weakly humane” and five being “strongly humane.” These groups have mental health index scores that are more than nine points below the national average.

Poor health and wellness also weighs on productivity in the workplace. Compared to workers rating their manager as strongly humane, LifeWorks found the productivity scores of workers who rate their manager as “weakly humane” are twice as low.

“The importance of health and well-being benefits and services is very clear. We know that they have a meaningful impact on employees’ lives, and within this data we see that they make a significant impact on where one wants to work,” said TELUS Health Chief Operating Officer Michael Dingle.

“Canadians are considering their personal needs, beyond direct compensation, when exploring new employment opportunities.”

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