TELUS Health

Australia’s largest EAP provider, formed from three decades of combined Benestar and LifeWorks history

TELUS Health is the largest employee assistance program provider in Australia and New Zealand, a position established through the 2023 merger of Benestar and LifeWorks — two of the most established EAP businesses in the region. Both Benestar and LifeWorks had operated independently for more than three decades before joining the TELUS Health group, giving the combined entity a depth of institutional knowledge across government, enterprise and regulated industries that newer providers cannot replicate.

The merger is now operationally complete, with a unified clinician network, a single digital platform in TELUS Health One, and a shared employer portal and reporting infrastructure. Globally, TELUS Health claims to serve clients across more than 160 countries and supports over two million workers across more than 2,000 organisations in Australia and New Zealand alone.

What they do

The core EAP offering covers short-term counselling, manager support, critical incident response, trauma counselling, work-life services and a library of self-guided digital programmes. Employees and their immediate family members can access support across multiple channels — in-person, telephone, video, live chat, and through the TELUS Health One app and portal — with 24/7 availability for urgent support and scheduled appointment access for non-urgent presentations. The CareNow programme provides digital self-guided clinical support across more than 30 topics, covering mental health, physical health, financial wellbeing and life transitions. Manager Hotline gives people leaders confidential access to senior consultants for guidance on sensitive employee situations.

Beyond the core EAP, TELUS Health provides a range of organisational services: psychosocial risk assessments, embedded workplace support, live and on-demand manager training, mental health learning series, leadership debriefs and workplace trauma response. These services extend the EAP’s role from reactive counselling toward proactive workforce risk management — relevant for organisations with obligations under Australia’s strengthened psychosocial OHS framework.

TELUS Health One functions as the integrated digital access layer for both employees and HR teams. For employees it surfaces care pathways, self-guided programmes and appointment booking. The combination of clinical depth and digital infrastructure addresses a gap that smaller EAP providers — which typically offer one or the other — cannot close.

Key differentiator

The TELUS Mental Health Index is one of the most substantive pieces of employee mental health research produced for the Australian market. Conducted three to four times per year across Australia and New Zealand, it tracks mental health scores across the working population, disaggregated by sector, role type, and demographic cohort. Unlike vendor-produced wellbeing reports that draw on global or US-weighted data, the TELUS Mental Health Index is locally commissioned, locally sampled and directly applicable to the workforce conversations Australian HR leaders are having. It is available publicly and has established genuine credibility as a benchmark reference.

The inherited depth of Benestar’s government-sector relationships — including longstanding contracts with WorkSafe Victoria and experience with federal and state government workforces — is a meaningful differentiator for public-sector buyers. These relationships were built over decades and reflect a demonstrated understanding of award-based work systems, union engagement and the specific duty-of-care obligations that apply to government employment.

Australian market context

TELUS Health’s ANZ footprint spans national clinician coverage, regional account management teams and sector-specific experience across government, financial services, healthcare, resources and professional services. The platform supports culturally specific access pathways, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander support options, multilingual counselling, and LGBTQIA+-inclusive clinician matching — design features that affect real-world uptake among diverse workforce populations, particularly in the government and community services sectors, where these populations are well represented.

The May 2025 acquisition of Workplace Options — a global EAP provider operating across 200 countries — significantly expands TELUS Health’s international service infrastructure. For Australian organisations with multinational workforces, this acquisition broadens the consistency of service that can be delivered across geographies through a single provider relationship. The integration of Workplace Options’ products and service model into the ANZ offering is ongoing, and buyers with specific global requirements should confirm current capability directly.

Considerations

TELUS Health’s EAPAA accreditation history requires clarification during the procurement process. The certification was held by Benestar prior to the merger. Buyers who regard EAPAA accreditation as a procurement requirement should confirm the current status of the certification under the unified TELUS Health brand before finalising their evaluation — this is standard due diligence rather than a specific concern, but it is a step that should not be taken for granted.

The breadth of TELUS Health’s model introduces procurement and implementation considerations that do not apply to smaller or more focused EAP providers. Organisations need to confirm precisely which services are included within their standard arrangement versus delivered as additional workplace services, how reporting is configured across service channels, and how the digital platform is onboarded and promoted to employees. The investment required to activate and sustain a full-service EAP at this scale is greater than that for a lighter-touch arrangement — and organisations that do not commit to that investment are unlikely to see the utilisation rates the platform can deliver.

For smaller organisations, the scope of the TELUS Health model can be disproportionate to need. The platform has demonstrated strength at enterprise scale and in regulated environments. Organisations with fewer than several hundred employees, or those whose primary need is straightforward access to counselling with minimal employer-side infrastructure, may find more operationally appropriate options among the specialist and boutique EAP providers in this category.

Who it suits

TELUS Health is best suited to mid-to-large and complex Australian organisations — particularly those in government, financial services, healthcare and resources — that need a full-service EAP capable of operating across multiple sites, award types and workforce demographics. It is the natural choice for organisations that have inherited a Benestar or LifeWorks relationship and are evaluating whether to consolidate onto the unified platform. It is also well-suited to multinationals with APAC or global workforces that need consistent service delivery across jurisdictions through a single provider. Organisations that value locally grounded research and data to support their workforce mental health strategy will find the TELUS Mental Health Index a genuinely useful resource that most competitors cannot match.