The long-living advantages of employee and family assistance programs make these programs highly effective and essential for every organization. Developing an employee assistance program is an important role of the HR department. This is such an amazing help provided by the company to its employees which strongly reflects its concern for them. The employee assistance program (EAP) delivers more than what a company invests in providing this service. This article suggests why we must have an employee assistance program EAP in our company. We will discuss the advantages of employee assistance programs and what are we losing by not keeping them in place.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is:
“An employee wellness free service to improve the overall health of an employee & his family so that he can deliver his best at the job”
This is one of the many options which a company can use to keep its employees in perfect shape. The basic purpose of such employee wellness programs is to improve the productivity of the organization by keeping its employees healthy. Here, healthy means perfect physical and mental health. The basis of employee assistance program (EAP) is to make the employee happy from inside out. If he is healthy, he is going to perform well at his job.
The role of the HR department is fundamental in providing benefits of the employee assistance program (EAP). It is the HR department that makes the employee assistance policies along with the higher management and then rolls out for implementation. After all, an ideal HR department works as the parent of employees so this department must take care of all the formalities of employee assistance program EAP.
In this regard, some of the ideal practices can be:
The advantages of employee assistance program multiply if all the supporting parties work in close liaison with one another. Above all, this is never possible without the consent of higher management. If the employer is truly concerned about increasing the productivity of his company, he will make all efforts to retain good employees and help them grow.
The next ball is rolled by the HR department which makes sure that managers and employees understand the benefits delivered by the employee assistance program. Written employee assistance policy includes the guidelines for using this program by stating when and how to benefit from this program. This policy must be included in the HR manual of the company and employees must be informed of it when hired.
A big problem comes with the fact that employees either do not know the significance of this program or are reluctant about its utilization. In both cases, the company’s investment in employee wellness is wasted. Hence, HR’s responsibility is to keep reminding the employees about it. HR must also try to provide counseling to employees if any performance issue is reported to it. This should be the first step in an ideal employee assistance program.
In the present challenging times, almost everyone is facing a heap of financial, family and health problems. Financial and family issues are consequently translated into emotional problems. Due to non-attendance, they are converted into physical collapse as well. Such an employee is not able to work with the required attention. It is still a dilemma that seeking the help of an EAP consultant or psychologist is discouraged by society and usually people feel hesitant to go to an EAP consultant. As a matter of fact, everyone is facing stress nowadays so accepting, addressing, and getting rid of it completely is necessary.
Here comes the training need of employees again. Making the employees understand that it is not something unusual and weird but it is very normal to seek advice from a qualified person.
Based on the type of the facilities, employee assistance programs can be of two types:
This type of employee assistance program is provided in the premises of the organization. This could be either some sort of counselling provided by the HR department or an employee assistance consultant.
This type of employee assistance program EAP is provided by a consultant outside the company. This is usually a third-party organization that gives counseling services to the company’s employees under a contract.
Based on the type of the resources, employee assistance programs can be of two types:
The company decides whether to employ the employee assistance consultant under its payroll or not. Big companies usually hire their own EAP consultants which provide in-house services to their employees.
Company gets the services of an employee assistance contractor which may either provide in-house services or offsite services.
Hence, summing up all, the types of services associated with EAP are very flexible. The organization can hire its own consultant or take help from a third-party contractor. In both cases, the purpose is to improve the performance of the employees by keeping them healthy.
Employee Assistance program covers all sorts of personal and professional problems which cause a decline in employee’s performance. These issues are listed below:
The policies & procedure of employee assistance program EAP are written in the HR manual and employee handbooks. Nowadays, all organizational policies and rules are also available on companies’ intranets/ employee portals. There can be 2 scenarios:
This depends upon the type of employee assistance program being employed by the company. If the organization hires the consultant on its payroll then, it pays him the monthly salary like other employees.
If company is availing services of third party then, there can be two ways.
The advantages of employee assistance programs go a long way with the success of your company.
Sometimes, stakeholders do not completely understand the benefits of employee assistance programs so these programs fail to deliver the desired results. Either the HR is not competent enough to reinforce the implementation of these programs and communicate effectively to the employees or the first-line managers don’t take interest in reporting the needs of affected employees. Hence, this entire process becomes ineffective.
The employees might not understand their right to take advantage of the employee assistance program (EAP). Some employees might feel reluctant to open themselves up to other people. It is even possible that the organization does not have an employee assistance program at all. Therefore, all these reasons contribute to the failure of an extremely useful technique to boost the overall performance of the organization. Employees who need professional counseling in particular show more absenteeism, low performance, and high turnovers.
When it comes to employee benefits, employee assistance program EAP can deliver the maximum if rightly implemented. This program shows the concern of the company for its employees. It is a winning step for the company itself as it encourages a thriving work environment which can help meet its goals. This builds a positive image of the organization.
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