Data-driven empathy

Breaking the stigma through executive modeling For Samsung, destigmatizing mental health required more than just policy changes; it required a cultural shift—led by those at the top. The SRA Benefits team shines a spotlight on mental health initiatives each month during the executive management meeting.

At SSI, Cara Ayala, Wellness and Benefits, Associate Manager, and Sarah Schutzberger, Benefits Manager, noted that while HR can promote benefits, the message carries significantly more weight when it comes from leadership. “We’ve gotten leadership involved as much as possible because if the message is coming from them, we think people are more likely to avail themselves of the benefits,” Cara shared.

To achieve this, the team invited executives to join live Lyra workshops and share about their own mental health journeys. In one pivotal session, the former CFO spoke openly about how unmanaged anxiety can manifest as physical illness, which provided a powerful wake-up call: everyone, even at the leadership level, feels the physical tolls of stress.

Data-driven results: reducing work-related stress With Lyra, Samsung has seen quantifiable improvements in employee health, moving the needle from reactive crisis management to proactive support. Sarah (SSI) highlighted that a 2025 year-end review revealed a dramatic shift:

“When we first started with Lyra, the majority of our claims were work-related stress. But with Lyra, our engagement numbers have grown year over year. The fact that our employees now have access to  tools to help them cope with work is one of the driving forces that caused work-related stress to drop significantly.”

The SRA Benefits team echoed this sentiment, noting that success is measured not just by engagement, but by the elimination of the “weeks or months” employees previously spent waiting for care.  Lyra’s fast access ensures that a stressful moment at work doesn’t escalate into a long-term medical leave.

“The fact that people can get care as quickly as possible through Lyra is a success,” shared the SRA Benefits team. “Back with our previous EAP, it took weeks, sometimes months to get care. We want to make sure people get what they need when they actually need it.”

A proactive drumbeat: reaching the “whole person” To drive meaningful engagement, Samsung treats mental health awareness as an ongoing, multi-channel marketing campaign rather than a once-a-year HR announcement. The SRA Benefits team explained that the team has built an evergreen “drumbeat” of communication that combines physical on-campus activities with modern digital platforms. In Mountain View, Samsung hosts interactive “Mental Health Walks” where employees walk campus lawns and scan physical QR codes to instantly access Lyra Essentials’ breathing and meditation exercises on their phones.

Beyond physical campus events, both SRA and SSI leverage Lyra-led emails and their own benefits platforms to ensure employees have resources at their fingertips at all times. This strategy hasn’t just driven engagement, it’s elevated Samsung’s reputation in the highly competitive Silicon Valley talent market, and turned its mental health offering into a powerful tool for recruitment.

Culturally responsive care for a diverse workforce A critical pillar of Samsung’s strategy is recognizing that a diverse, global workforce requires tailored messaging rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. The benefits teams pay close attention to employee populations that might face cultural stigma or linguistic barriers around mental health care.

A prime example of this local customization was Samsung’s targeted outreach to a cohort of expatriate workers arriving from Korea. The SRA Benefits team observed that this group possessed a strong word-of-mouth network, but was unfamiliar with corporate mental health frameworks. The team identified a linguistic disconnect: in Korea, mental health services are associated with clinical treatment for severe illness, which inadvertently heightened the stigma of participating.

To bridge this gap, HR collaborated directly with the cohort to rebrand the benefit—positioning mental health as an essential optimization tool for sustaining professional stamina, high performance, and long-term efficiency. With a dedicated Korean-language portal, Samsung successfully built cross-cultural trust and drove utilization in a hard-to-reach population.

What members are saying about Lyra Beyond the data, the true value of the partnership is felt in the personal lives of Samsung employees and their families. From marital support to parenting, the benefit extends far beyond the office walls.

“As my daughter approaches her teenage years, she has taken an active interest in prioritizing her mental health, thanks to the information and awareness provided by her school. When she expressed a desire to try therapy, we turned to Lyra, and the process couldn’t have been smoother. She was matched with a therapist and able to meet weekly from the comfort of our home. Lyra made this journey convenient, accessible, and—most importantly—comfortable.” —Lyra Member