As part of our series focusing on workplace wellbeing, we caught up with Stacey Agnew, Wellbeing Experience Manager at leading NZ Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provider Instep EAP to discuss EAPs, how they benefit workers and businesses, and how they work.
First up, what is an Employee Assistance Programme?
An EAP is a service designed to help employees deal with and resolve problems, either at work or at home, that are impacting their wellbeing. It’s also an advisory service for managers and supervisors who might need help with their staff’s welfare or with their concerns.
An EAP’s main aim is to provide people with confidential, expert assistance and support in times of stress.
Is an EAP service always outsourced?
To my knowledge, EAP is always outsourced; to ensure the confidentiality of the service as that encourages people to use it.
How does an EAP typically work?
EAP is a short-term support service that usually allocates 3 initial sessions for an employee or their immediate family member, to access talk therapy. The employee contacts the service to request support and the EAP service sets them up with a talk therapist. They attend the therapist’s office location or have their sessions online.
The service should also provide access to helpful tools and resources for employees.
Is EAP just counselling?
Each EAP service provides various levels of specialists. At InstepEAP we have a range of experts; these are mainly counsellors, psychotherapists, and clinical psychologists, who use a range of approaches to support our clients.
Why do businesses (and employees) need an EAP?
We bring our whole selves to work. When your staff start their work day they bring all their concerns and emotional challenges with them. If workplaces want to create innovative and highly efficient workforces, they need their people to be motivated, focused, and healthy.
EAP gives your people a confidential way to access support that can help them deal with their concerns and emotional challenges.
What are the risks of not having an EAP?
In today’s competitive labour market and the climate of the ‘great resignation’, employees expect workplaces to invest in their wellbeing. It’s no longer a nice-to-have; it’s an expectation, and holding onto your talent requires that you provide it.
An EAP service provides a way for your people to access the talk therapy support that they need when they need it. Without it, research shows that you risk higher employee disengagement, absenteeism, turnover, and grievances.
What are the elements of an effective EAP?
An effective EAP should offer a range of specialists and specialist expertise to support individuals. There should be a variety of therapy modalities and timeframe options. As much as possible, the user of the EAP service should be given options to ensure the support offered fits their needs.
Most importantly an EAP service must be confidential; it is essential that employees have trust in the confidentiality of the EAP support or they will not use the service.
Should the EAP options be tailored to the business?
For some workforces, this is very important. Examples of this would be if your workforce has high exposure to trauma, or perhaps your workforce operates in remote regions of Aotearoa – these workforces will need their EAP provider to understand the unique needs of their people and have a service set up that can effectively deliver for them.
How does an EAP affect business costs?
There are various returns on investment (ROIs) talked about in reference to providing wellbeing support to workforces: 12:1 or 5:1.
I think in today’s environment, it’s really important to consider staff retention and the cost of replacing people. In many industries, it’s estimated that it takes 6 months for a new staff member to be fully able to achieve their entry-level position deliverables. If we add to that the recruitment time, you’re looking at about 9 months where a particular role is not being well delivered. Added to that is the stress on the remaining staff left to cover the tasks usually held in this role, and you can see that the business costs are considerable.
EAPs positively support business costs as it is a much more affordable way to keep your staff managing both their personal and work challenges. They will continue to deliver their role requirements and be in the headspace to advance, streamline, and innovate workplace activities.
When considering setting up an EAP, are there any other things employers need to know?
Employers should consider how they will encourage their staff to use the service, i.e can they take time from work to go to appointments? Where will the information on the service be available? What employee groups need to know about the services (HR, People Leaders etc)
Can you share any success stories?
Sure. We have so many of these, but here are a couple that come to mind:
A Mum who rang us, worried about her 16-year-old daughter who had been self-harming. This mum had taken her daughter to their GP and been referred to the Mental Health Crisis team. When she finally got a response from the Crisis Team, her daughter got put on a waiting list where she was told it would be about 3 months before she could see someone. Within a couple of weeks, we got her daughter sessions with a psychologist who worked with youth, and she started learning to process her difficult feelings in a less harmful way. Her mum was then able to worry less and start focussing again on her work and personal life.
A gentleman we’ll call George. By his own admission, George had never seen much use in the idea of counselling and he always thought that the fact he didn’t cry showed that he was tough and could cope with life better than most people.One day, George found that he couldn’t stop thinking about a situation he had faced at work. As far as situations go, this wasn’t a particularly difficult situation, but George couldn’t stop thinking about it. At night it was interfering with his sleep and he was getting grumpy and ‘short’ with his colleagues and family – something had changed.
He decided to give EAP a go. George found that he actually liked his counsellor and that actually he did benefit from talking about his feelings and situations he had experienced. His sleep eventually went back to normal and his kids started enjoying his company again. George couldn’t believe that he had spent his whole life trying to keep all these feelings bottled up inside of him – he now tells other people to go to counselling!
