Blissful Circuit Wellness Reinvents the Employee Assistance Program

This content is sponsored by Blissful Circuit Wellness.

Elise Tuck, owner and Chief Wellness Officer of Blissful Circuit Wellness, has made it her mission to change the face of EAPs. An EAP, or Employee Assistance Program, is a benefit offered by employers as a supplement to health insurance. Although EAPs have been around since the 1960s, most have yet to evolve to meet the needs of contemporary professionals.

“The problem I saw personally is that traditional EAPs are underutilized and not designed for the next generation,” says Tuck, who worked in corporate HR for over fifteen years in Denver and Detroit. EAPs were originally conceptualized to address substance abuse, mostly as a second chance for employees struggling with addiction. But even as they have expanded over time to provide basic mental health services like talk therapy, most EAPs still fall short of their full potential.

According to national statistics from insurance groups, only about 5 to 10 percent of employees actually use their company’s EAP annually. “The traditional EAP model is like a gym membership,” Tuck discloses. “They get everybody to sign up for a low price and hope that nobody uses it.”

She recognized that in order for EAPs to serve their intended purpose for the modern workforce, the old-school model would have to be reimagined. So along with a Denver-based clinical team, Tuck began to develop Blissful Circuit Wellness in 2023, fully launching the program in March 2025.

Blissful Circuit Wellness is the epitome of a modern, holistic EAP. “We are a 360-degree wellness company, so we blend therapy, social services support, nutrition coaching, manager training and human design into a real system of care. Therapy is just one spoke of the wheel,” says Tuck of the program’s unique approach. Because of the stigma around mental health issues, many employees are reluctant to use or even explore their EAP benefits, so BCW prioritizes the privacy, accessibility and awareness of its services.

“Sixty percent of people are terrified to ask for help or let their employer know that they have a mental health issue. There’s still rampant discrimination around it, and also, they just don’t want to be seen as incompetent,” Tuck explains. “All of our services are, of course, HIPAA-protected, so there’s a strong level of privacy. You do not have to ask your manager to access our services.”

Blissful Circuit Wellness also has a comprehensive 90-day onboarding program for new clients to help ease the stigma around mental health services and ensure that employees know that confidential and affordable professional help is available through its EAP.

“The way that we are approaching stigma is through education,” Tuck says. ”We want to educate managers and leaders to openly share about using mental health days and what it means when somebody is coming to you and struggling. The more that we talk about it, the better it’s going to work for everyone, and the more it can be utilized."

From the outset, Blissful Circuit Wellness was designed specifically to empower small and medium-sized businesses, where its services could make the greatest impact.

“They need it the most. A lot of those small and medium-sized businesses are contributing to our tax base and they’re supporting families,” Tuck points out. Working with smaller companies also allows BCW to develop a more personal relationship with its clients, she adds: “We’re not interested in having your staff become a number or statistic to us. We aim to be a wellness partner with your organization, not just a hotline or 1-800 number.”

Blissful Circuit Wellness offers three distinct service tiers, plus a variety of à la carte services, so that companies can customize their EAP based on the size and type of their business. As a Denver-based business itself, Blissful Circuit Wellness is personally invested in supporting a healthy local economy in Colorado.

“Our focus is the growth and wellness of Colorado, first and foremost,” Tuck confirms. “Those are the kinds of companies that drive the economy and really make a difference in our community, so that’s who we’re aiming to help first.”

BCW does have a network of out-of-state health professionals available for any businesses that may have out-of-state employees, but Tuck encourages Colorado business owners and their employees to take advantage of the benefits of having a local EAP: “We have opportunity for on-site support, whether that means going in and doing our orientation right there or doing that training with managers and leadership, but I think it’s also a connection to a shared vision and similar values. Not that other states don’t have similar vision and values, but I think that in Denver, there are some pretty unique social and community resources. We really pride ourselves on having those local partnerships that we can connect you with.”

With Blissful Circuit Wellness, employees get access to a local network of Colorado-savvy health and wellness professionals, including therapists, case managers, and nutritionists, right in their own city.

Different demographics require different support systems, so BCW provides a range of critical services for employees at every level of income and experience. “Low-income workers are looking at housing and utility assistance, food-access navigation like SNAP and food banks, job stability and upscaling resources, and then transportation support — like helping them find out where they can repair their car within their budget, or transit vouchers,” Tuck notes.

Middle-income workers tend to be more focused on changes in family structure and how that impacts finances: “Their biggest concerns for social services and needs are credit card debt, student loans, retirement planning, burnout recovery, and then family and relationship counseling.”

Blissful Circuit Wellness can help those workers with everything from finding caregivers and financial planning to marriage counseling and return-to-work coaching. Such EAP benefits are particularly relevant to those in the “sandwich generation,” who may need to navigate care for both their children and their parents. While the coverage of most EAPs begins and ends with the employee, BCW’s top two service tiers go above and beyond to give the entire family unit access to the same benefits as the employed family member.

Partnering with a human-centric, holistic EAP is a win-win for both employees and business owners. Investing in the overall health and well-being of employees drastically reduces burnout, turnover, “quiet quitting”, and absenteeism while increasing morale, productivity, and, most importantly, psychological safety.

“If you look at the top reasons people are not going to work or missing work, we’re looking at physical and mental illness, family responsibilities and caregiving, stress and burnout, medical appointments and preventative care, transportation, workplace conflict, grief and loss, fatigue and sleep deprivation, and substance abuse. All of those are tied directly to mental health and social services,” Tuck emphasizes.

By providing necessary social services and support, Blissful Circuit Wellness tackles workplace issues at the root, assisting with employees' real-life concerns before they reach the workplace. Plus, all of the company’s service tiers include back-end access to utilization data, so that the usage patterns, symptom trends, and common needs of employees can be used to help predict and prevent future issues.

Onboarding new employees doesn’t just slow down a business’s overall workflow — it’s also incredibly expensive. To replace a middle manager costs one and a half times their salary, and the cost is significantly higher for workers in health care and other high-stress sectors.

“By partnering with a modern, next-generation EAP, we’ve seen turnover decrease three to four times lower than what they were experiencing before. Return on investment ranges from 3:1 for small employers, 5:1 for medium, and 9:1 for large employers,” Tuck says, adding that those statistics apply to the industry average EAP with a 3 to 10 percent utilization rate, while BCW aims for a minimum of 25 percent and has an even higher ROI.

“Productivity gains and reduced absenteeism translate into savings of $2,000 to $3,500 per employee, she adds. "Even at just one case per 100 employees, programs can break even.” It also leads to better recruiting outcomes, as each new generation entering the workforce has higher expectations of their employer than their parents did.

“Gen Z is basically going to demand that mental health care is part of their benefits," Tuck says. "It’s going to be a requirement. Wellness is non-negotiable. Investing in mental health support and those social services that are directly tied to absenteeism isn’t really optional. It’s a leadership strategy at this point.”