Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) have been around for decades, and your company likely has one. You may not pay much attention to it, but if you don’t, you may be missing an opportunity to really reap its maximum value.
Recently, the National Business Group on Health (NBGH) (businessgrouphealth.org) created a work group charged with a close examination of EAPs: what they are, what they should be, and how organizations can ensure they’re getting the maximum value from them. The work group was made up of mental and behavioral health professionals and professionals in EAP management. As a group, they learned how much EAP services are needed in the workplace, and how well these programs are actually performing. In producing their Employer’s Guide to Employee Assistance Programs, the group makes a number of recommendations that you can use to ensure you’re getting the most bang for your EAP buck.
Employee stress levels are at an all-time high, says Helen Darling, NBGH’s president. And while employer surveys identify workplace stress as their number one issue, most don’t know how to mitigate it. “Employers recognize that they sometimes contribute to the stress, but they don’t always know how to act on it,” she reports. Increased stress has increased the demand for mental health services.
Darling says that reports from across the country indicate more people are seeking help for depression and financial pressures. “A Chicago-based EAP received 21% more calls seeking help with stress from finances in July (2008) than they received a year earlier. One very large EAP reports that calls for assistance with home foreclosures, bankruptcies, and other financial hardships grew 89% in 2008, compared to the previous year. Hospital admissions for psychiatric services were up 10% in 2008 over 2007.”
Mental Disorders More Costly Than Any Other
Darling points out that the numbers are likely to worsen as the dust settles from the current financial situation. Yet even in so-called “normal” times, she says, mental health issues are costing companies a lot of money. “In a just-published study of the 15 most costly medical conditions in the United States, the single most costly condition was a mental disorder. It was considerably more costly, by about 10% to 15%, than heart conditions.
“Depression is associated with a 2.5-fold increase in the probability of missing work and a 50% increase in lost work time. In a 3-month period, individuals with depression miss an average of 4.8 workdays, and suffer 11.5 workdays of reduced productivity. It is estimated that depression causes 200,000,000 lost workdays each year, with the cost to employers ranging between $17 and $44 billion. Those are just the direct costs—the indirect costs are even higher.”
How Does Your EAP Stack Up?
“An EAP is the front-line opportunity to identify and appropriately refer people who have problems,” Darling says. However, if your EAP is something of an afterthought, it is likely that you’re missing opportunities to help employees and save some money.
“We found that employers do not necessarily subject their EAPs to the same rigorous evaluation or cost impact assessment as they do for their other programs. Only 34% of employers view analyzing and reporting data on the affects the EAP has on the organization as a core service they should receive from their provider. That’s really surprising, because most employers, especially these days, have rigorously assessed every program they offer.”
So what are some of the critical services your EAP should offer, and how can you make sure yours does? According to the Guide, how your company uses its EAP has a direct bearing on productivity and morale. One study cited in the Guide showed that work loss was avoided 60% of the time when EAP services were provided, saving an average of 17 hours per incident.
It also revealed that 72% of the individuals involved in these cases were more productive when the EAP intervened. In order to maximize the value of an EAP, the Guide recommends that employers should make sure the program focuses on seven specific strategic and operational tasks. Three of the critical tasks are training, assessment, and evaluation.
Consult with Company Leadership
Employers need to understand when intervention is required, how to handle certain “hot button” situations, and how to react when there is a crisis. The Guide details a case where a company went through difficulties because of a product recall. Corporate leadership relied on EAP staff for guiding employees through this very difficult time, with employees barraged daily with negative media coverage and angry phone calls.
The EAP encouraged corporate leaders to communicate with employees on an ongoing basis. Leaders reacted by working with their EAP to provide 24/7 live-answer services for the work/life and mental health support of the employees, and also added a toll-free call center where employees could hear an up-to-date message from corporate leadership about the latest developments. These were recorded by the president and CEO of the company, offering information, encouragement, and support for employees.
Employees were also offered an option to immediately speak with a counselor through the toll-free line. When the smoke cleared, the company lost fewer employees than anticipated, and received positive feedback from employees about how they handled the crisis.
Confidential Assessment Services
Employees who seek help should be quickly assessed to make sure they have the tools to get them through their situation with a minimal impact on their life and their productivity. This includes helping employees and families during a workplace incident or even a crisis that impacts an entire facility, as well as problems people suffer in their personal lives. The EAP can offer critical incident response, evaluate employee fitness for duty, and assess any threats of violence.
These personal services are a part of any well-designed EAP. However, a truly effective program also includes methodology for companies to use in evaluating the business impact of the program that should coordinate effectively, without wasteful overlap, with the company’s health plans, disability plans, wellness programs, employee relations, risk management, work/life programs, and others the company uses to maintain optimal employee health and productivity.
The Guide recommends that employers require their EAP to utilize technologies that enable the program to be efficient and to quantify the direct effect of the EAP on the company’s performance. Also critically important is communicating that the EAP is a positive, open resource that the company supports.
“The key is to get senior leadership to acknowledge that it is important to them, from the CEO on down,” says Paul Heck, manager of Global Employee Assistance & Worklife Services for the DuPont Company and a member of the NBGH work group. “They should be talking openly that the EAP is available, that they want people to use it, and that it’s a program that is out in the open.”
Time spent on a thorough examination of your EAP would be time well-spent.
Dr. Anna Marsh, deputy director of the Center for Mental Health Services, believes that addressing the mental health concerns of employees, rather than hiding from them, has a positive business impact. “Effective behavioral health treatment produces tangible results that offset both the cost of care and a loss of productivity should these conditions remain untreated,” she says.