An employee assistance program in the United States generally offers free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services for employees. EAP counselors may also work in a consultative role with managers and supervisors to address employee and organizational challenges and needs. Many corporations, academic institution and/or government agencies are active in helping organizations prevent and cope with workplace violence, trauma, and other emergency response situations. There is a variety of support programs offered for employees. Even though EAPs are mainly aimed at work-related issues, there are a variety of programs that can assist with problems outside of the workplace. EAPs have grown in popularity over the years.
EAPs have their origins in the late 1930s, and were formed out of programs that dealt with occupational alcoholism. During a time when drinking on the job was the norm, people began to notice the effects it had on job performance and productivity. This became a major issue for industrial jobs and would become the main focus for correction with job-based alcoholism programs. By 1939, the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) movement had begun to spread throughout the Midwestern and Northeastern United States.[1] People in “recovery" began to eagerly share their experiences with other workers. This would be the start of the EAP movement. Businesses also started to see the effectiveness of the programs through the rehabilitation of their workers and the rise of productivity. These improvements sparked the thought of what other types of problems this program could address.
Taking shape
In 1962, The Kemper Group introduced a program to address alcoholic rehabilitation and later expanded the program to address the needs of the families of their employees as well. Including the families broaden the programs services to deal with marital, emotional, financial, legal, and drug abuse problems.[1] In 1969, Senator Harold Hughes would introduce a bill called The Hughes Act. Sen. Hughes felt that there was a great lack of federal and state involvement in the treatment of alcoholism. In 1970, Congress would pass the Federal Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention Treatment and Rehabilitation Act creating the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA).[2] States would then soon begin to follow suit and denounce public intoxication and began treating alcoholism as a disease. The NIAAA priority would be to begin researching and treating alcoholism. They were also focused on providing states with grants to hire and train EAP specialist.[3]
In the 1970s, the Occupational Alcoholism Bureau formed by the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA) and the Association of Labor and Management Administrators and Consultants on Alcoholism (ALMACA) helped to spread EAP concepts. They did this by distributing information, giving conferences and seminars, increasing the knowledge of professionals and the community. A number of treatment centers would also grow after the passing of the Hughes Act. These centers have EAP specialist on site to help in the rehabilitation processes. It is not known the exact amount of treatment centers in the United States.
Economic crisis cutbacks
Employee Assistance Programs would see a significant shift during the economic crisis of the 1980s. During this time, the government was forced to create cutbacks for programs. This would cause for mental health public agencies, treatment centers, and private counseling firms to survive by partnering with industry wanting to enter the EAP field. This though would also cause the effectiveness of the programs to come into question. The cutbacks began to affect the training of the EAP specialist and their effectiveness. The situations of workers also began to change at this time. People were also having to wait in lines, and were having to search for work due to the crisis.
Post September 11
In most recent years, the services provided by EAPs have changed in their direction. With events occurring in the United States and around the world has caused for EAPs to rise and the need for them greater in the United States. EAPs have also been affected by technology, terrorism attacks, natural disasters, disabilities act, and workplace violence.[1] Since the events of September 11, 2001, EAP specialists have become more involved in incident debriefing and implementing plans during emergencies [4] Providers began to report more on the workforce experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and an increase in occupational stress and depression.[5]
Benefits
Some studies indicate that offering EAPs may result in various benefits for employers, including lower medical costs, reduced turnover and absenteeism, and higher employee productivity.[6][7] Critics of these studies question the scientific validity of their findings, noting small sample sizes, lack of experimental control groups, and lack of standardized measures as primary concerns. Proponents, however, argue that the consistency of positive findings across studies in different service sectors denote at least some positive effect of programs, even if the most effective components of such programs have not been determined.[7] EAPs may also provide other services to employers, such as supervisory consultations, support to troubled work teams, training and education programs, and critical incident services.
The provision of employee assistance services has established business benefits, including increased productivity of employees, and a decrease in both presenteeism and absenteeism.[6] Employees typically have access to an EAP hotline 24 hours a day, so there is no need to wait to seek assistance. If an appointment with a medical professional or counselor is necessary, the employee can arrange to see one in just a few days. Because the employee can call anytime, they do not have to worry about calling from a work phone. You may also be able to minimize the cost of your health insurance plan, because employees can use the EAP to ward off stress-related illnesses, meaning fewer trips to the doctor.
Small businesses can especially benefit from EAP programs. Even though they may have fewer employees and may not see the need to implement an EAP program, small business owner's bottom line can suffer quicker due to decreased performance and productivity and workplace negativity. A small company could be severely damaged if they do not seek effective measures to rectify such issues. An employer that provides an effective, full-service EAP can help both themselves and employees by lowering risk and liability, improving employee satisfaction, and especially decreasing the stress small business owners experience when managing numerous responsibilities with little support.[8]
Benefits of EAP are:
Direct Access: Employees call the psychologist's office directly.
Quick Response: The first counseling session occurs within a few days, and a crisis is dealt with immediately.
Professional: Counselors are typically qualified psychologists, and are experts in human behavior.
Confidentiality: The employer never knows who uses the service.
Off-Site: Counseling takes place at the psychologist's office.
Direct Treatment: Referrals are made only when the patient requires another specialist or long-term care.
Appropriate Coverage: 24 hours a day hot-line with offices in towns and cities in which employees are located
Service
Employees and their family members may use EAPs to help manage issues in their personal lives. EAP counselors typically provide assessment, support, and referrals to additional resources such as counselors for a limited number of program-paid counseling sessions. The issues for which EAPs provide support vary, but examples include:
An EAP's services are usually free to the employee and their household members, having been prepaid by the employer. In most cases, an employer contracts with a third-party company to manage its EAP. Some of these companies rely upon other vendors or contracted employees for specialized services to supplement their own services, such as: financial advisors, attorneys, travel agents, elder/child care specialists, and the like.[9]
In the United States, California requires EAP providers who deliver actual counseling services on a pre-paid basis for more than 3 sessions within any six-month period to have a Knox-Keene license. This is a specialty license for psychological services and is mandated by the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975. The state's Department of Managed Health Care regulates these licensed plans and assists consumers with regard to grievances, access to quality care, and ensuring that the EAP has an appropriate level of tangible net equity to deliver services to plan members. Title 28, Rule 1300.43.14 of the California Code of Regulations allows EAPs without a Knox-Keene license to request an exemption if they solely refer callers to external services and do not provide the actual services themselves.
Each Federal Executive Branch agency has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). An EAP is a voluntary, confidential program that helps employees (including management) work through various life challenges that may adversely affect job performance, health, and personal well-being to optimize an organization's success. EAP services include assessments, counseling, and referrals for additional services to employees with personal and/or work-related concerns, such as stress, financial issues, legal issues, family problems, office conflicts, and alcohol and substance abuse.[12] EAPs also often work with management and supervisors providing advanced planning for situations, such as organizational changes, legal considerations, emergency planning, and response to unique traumatic events. EAP’s can reap benefits for agencies, employees, families and communities. Some of those aspects that we will be focusing on are: the improvement of productivity and employee engagement, improving employees’ and dependents’ abilities to successfully respond to challenges, developing employee and manager competencies in managing workplace stress, reducing workplace absenteeism and unplanned absences, supporting employees and managers during workforce restructuring, reduction-in-forces, or other workforce change events, reducing workplace accidents, reducing the likelihood of workplace violence or other safety risks, supporting disaster and emergency preparedness, managing the effect of disruptive incidents, such as workplace, injury, or other crises, facilitating safe, timely, and effective return-to-work for employees short-term and extended absences, reducing healthcare costs associated with stress, depression, and other mental health issues, reducing employee turnover and related replacement costs.
Military/veterans
There are a variety of employee assistance programs in the military, ranging from financial assistance programs, family counseling, depression, and transitional assistance programs. One of the largest military employee assistance organizations is Military One Source.[13] Military One Source offers both services directly to service members and their families, but can also help send people to places in the community if there is a specific need. If someone is in need of assistance and is: an active duty service member, family member of a service member, a veteran, or family member of a veteran, they can find additional information about the assistance programs offered by Military One Source on their website.
In the last couple decades military employee assistance programs have expanded greatly. What started as alcohol assistance programs has grown to help people with financial issues, physical health, family health, and since 2000 mental health programs have expanded rapidly as more has become known about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). There are several programs for families, and increasing assistance for dual military families, families in which both spouses are active duty military, as they have grown dramatically in number. Financial programs have been expanded as well, as payday loan establishments grew in popularity in the 2000s; and as a result, debt among military members has grown as well. The Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS), is a program started by military members to help other members that have fallen into debt, and has expanded to also help service members reach educational goals. This society has helped many service members, as a service member can borrow up to 300 dollars without a reason, and more with a valid reason for either no interest or low interest depending on how much and how long they borrow for. The Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society has helped many members of the military when unforeseen problems arise. More information on the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society can be found at: www.nmcrs.org.
One of the largest veteran employee assistance programs is the Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA provides a variety of services to veterans including: health care, education assistance, transitional housing assistance, mental health, financial assistance, women veterans assistance, and career search assistance. The Veteran Affairs is a nationwide system that offers their services to all veterans who attained any discharge other than dishonorable. More information on Veterans Affairs can be found at: www.va.gov.
Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism refers to unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implicit contract between employee and employer. It is seen as a management problem, and framed in economic or quasi-economic terms. More recent scholarship seeks to understand absenteeism as an indicator of psychological, medical, or social adjustment to work.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), as part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, supports and conducts biomedical and behavioural research on the causes, consequences, treatment, and prevention of alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. The NIAAA functions both as a funding agency that supports research by external research institutions and as a research institution itself, where alcohol research is carried out in‐house. It funds approximately 90% of all such research in the United States. The NIAAA publishes the academic journal Alcohol Research: Current Reviews.
The Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant and the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant are federal assistance block grants awarded by SAMHSA.
Presenteeism or working while sick is the act or culture of employees continuing to work as a performative measure, despite having reduced productivity levels or negative consequences. Reduced productivity during presenteeism is often due to illness, injury, exhaustion, or other conditions, but presenteeism can also describe working while contagiously sick, which has the added risk of creating a workplace epidemic.
Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, reflective listening, or counseling. Peer support is also used to refer to initiatives where colleagues, members of self-help organizations and others meet, in person or online, as equals to give each other connection and support on a reciprocal basis.
Workplace wellness, also known as corporate wellbeing outside the United States, is a broad term used to describe activities, programs, and/or organizational policies designed to support healthy behavior in the workplace. This often involves health education, medical screenings, weight management programs, and onsite fitness programs or facilities. It can also include flex-time for exercise, providing onsite kitchen and eating areas, offering healthy food options in vending machines, holding "walk and talk" meetings, and offering financial and other incentives for participation.
Workplace deviance, in group psychology, may be described as the deliberate desire to cause harm to an organization – more specifically, a workplace. The concept has become an instrumental component in the field of organizational communication. More accurately, it can be seen as "voluntary behavior that violates institutionalized norms and in doing so threatens the well-being of the organization".
Occupational stress is psychological stress related to one's job. Occupational stress refers to a chronic condition. Occupational stress can be managed by understanding what the stressful conditions at work are and taking steps to remediate those conditions. Occupational stress can occur when workers do not feel supported by supervisors or coworkers, feel as if they have little control over the work they perform, or find that their efforts on the job are incommensurate with the job's rewards. Occupational stress is a concern for both employees and employers because stressful job conditions are related to employees' emotional well-being, physical health, and job performance. The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization conducted a study. The results showed that exposure to long working hours, operates through increased psycho-social occupational stress. It is the occupational risk factor with the largest attributable burden of disease, according to these official estimates causing an estimated 745,000 workers to die from ischemic heart disease and stroke events in 2016.
Employee retention is the ability of an organization to retain its employees and ensure sustainability. Employee retention can be represented by a simple statistic. Employee retention is also the strategies employers use to try to retain the employees in their workforce.
Professional abuse is "a pattern of conduct in which a person abuses, violates, or takes advantage of a victim within the context of the abuser's profession." This typically involves a violation of the relevant professional organization's code of ethics. Organizational ethics or standards of behavior require the maintenance of professional boundaries and the treatment of people with respect and dignity.
A high-functioning alcoholic (HFA) is a person who maintains jobs and relationships while exhibiting alcoholism.
In workplaces, especially in Australia, a mental health day is where an employee takes sick leave, or where a student does not attend school for a day or longer, for reasons other than physical illness. Mental health days are believed to reduce absenteeism and presenteeism, which is a reduction in productivity or other negative consequences resulting from a pressure to work. Mental health days differ from absenteeism in that the purpose is to reset one's mental health rather than due to a nonspecific desire or feeling to skip work.
Workplace harassment is the belittling or threatening behavior directed at an individual worker or a group of workers.
The Army Substance Abuse Program is an anti-substance abuse program in the United States Army, operated by the Army Center for Substance Abuse Programs.
Occupational health nursing is a specialty nursing practice that provides for and delivers health and safety programs and services to workers, worker populations, and community groups. The practice focuses on promotion, maintenance and restoration of health, prevention of illness and injury, and protection from work‐related and environmental hazards. Occupational health nurses (OHNs) aim to combine knowledge of health and business to balance safe and healthful work environments and a "healthy" bottom line.
Workplace health promotion is the combined efforts of employers, employees, and society to improve the mental and physical health and well-being of people at work. The term workplace health promotion denotes a comprehensive analysis and design of human and organizational work levels with the strategic aim of developing and improving health resources in an enterprise. The World Health Organization has prioritized the workplace as a setting for health promotion because of the large potential audience and influence on all spheres of a person's life. The Luxembourg Declaration provides that health and well-being of employees at work can be achieved through a combination of:
Employee morale or workspace morale is the morale of employees in workspace environment. It is proven to have a direct effect on productivity.
Warren Shepell is a Canadian psychologist and human resources consultant who advocated for and founded companies which provided employee assistance programs (EAPs) in Canadian workplaces.
Christine E. Dickson is an American clinical psychologist. For over 20 years, she has specialized in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. She is best known for being a psychotherapist in California and appearing as a featured guest on Tri-Valley Community Television (TV30) where she provides self-help advice on topics such as mindfulness, work-family balance, marital happiness, compassion, trauma recovery, and more. Her psychotherapy practice is located in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Many students attending colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions consume alcoholic beverages. The laws and social culture around this practice vary by country and institution type, and within an institution, some students may drink heavily whereas others may not drink at all. In the United States, drinking tends to be particularly associated with fraternities.
Richard, Michael A., William S. Hutchison, and William G. Emener. 2009. Employee Assistance Programs: Wellness/Enhancement Programming. 4th ed. Springfield: Charles C Thomas, eBook Collection.
External links
Professional associations in the employee assistance program industry:
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
