Spectrum.Life EAP overview

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Spectrum.Life offer a digital platform with a wide range of health and wellbeing content, and access to clinical support via phone, WhatsApp, SMS and live chat. Founded in 2018, they now work with over 7.2 million insurance members, 3,000 corporate clients, and 60 universities.

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Spectrum.Life differentiates itself by focusing on providing personalised health and wellbeing content that encourages employees to proactively take control of improving their health, and partnerships with other tools (e.g. symptom checkers) to offer integrated health services.

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While some users praise the quality of the self-guided content available, the majority of reviews share negative and frustrating experiences with the app caused by technical issues (making it difficult to log in) and poor UX (making it difficult to find the right content). Glassdoor reviews from counsellors who have worked at Spectrum.Life also mention a high-pressure work environment where they are expected to get through calls as quickly as possible and keep counselling referrals to a minimum.

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Let’s take a look at Spectrum.Life’s offering in more detail.

Counselling on Spectrum.Life EAP

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Counselling services on Spectrum.Life are provided at three levels, depending on your plan. When an employee calls the helpline they will be clinically assessed to understand their level of need and direct them to the most appropriate form of support.

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Short-term counselling and Silvercloud iCBT (internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy) are included in all plans and recommended for “mild to moderate cases”. For more severe circumstances employees may be referred on for a set number of counselling sessions (from 8 sessions per issue, to unlimited) and high intensity CBT and psychotherapy is available as an add on for longer term support.

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Employees that are deemed not suitable for a short-term counselling intervention can still receive “in-the-moment” support from Spectrum.Life’s 24/7 support line. The advice line team will signpost the employee towards other resources if appropriate such as local authority support, their GP, or wellbeing content on the Spectrum.Life platform.

Other services on Spectrum.Life EAP

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Integrations

Employees use the Spectrum.Life app to access wellbeing content, and clinical support is also available via phone, WhatsApp, SMS and live chat. The website does reference the ability to “seamlessly integrate new services or scale new digital health and wellbeing solutions as your organisation evolves”, but it’s unclear what’s included.

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Confidentiality

Spectrum.Life is a confidential service. Be aware that calls to the EAP helpline are recorded, however the service user can choose to opt out of call recording and consent is always required in order to share call recordings with employers or other third parties.

Best reviews for Spectrum.Life EAP

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Good variety of content

The positive user reviews for Spectrum.Life mostly focus on the variety of health and wellness content available on the platform. The workouts and nutrition content are called out in particular – although a few users are disappointed they don’t connect to other platforms like Strava or Garmin.

Bad reviews for Spectrum.Life EAP

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Technical issues

The majority of negative reviews on Google and App Store relate to technical issues with the digital platform. Common themes are difficulties logging in, unintuitive interface and poor organisation of content making it hard to find and access support when needed.

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Poor counsellor experience

Several reviews on Glassdoor from counsellors mention long working hours, high staff turnover and pressure to resolve calls as quickly as possible . Often this means intentionally directing struggling employees away from counselling sessions towards self-help resources instead.

Spectrum.Life is designed for big companies who want to offer a diverse range of support that the whole team can benefit from. The core offering is a huge hub of wellness content, containing everything from recipes to workouts and meditation – great for helping employees to proactively improve their physical and mental health. Reviews suggest that this is the feature that employees most appreciate.

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There are two issues that are highlighted by the reviews. Firstly users are experiencing a lot of technical issues preventing them from logging in, finding the content they need, or using the content as intended (e.g. watching videos with sound or subtitles). This provides a disappointing experience for users, and will impact platform usage.

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Secondly, there are lots of negative reviews from the counsellors themselves citing long hours, high turnover, lack of training and support, and poor clinical practices (such as pressure to withhold counselling sessions and redirect employees towards other services where possible).

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If you are looking for EAPs that specialise in high quality and accessible counselling for employees, try one of the other top 5 EAPs.