May 6, 2009

Employee assistance programs could be a bargain for employers in tough times

Construction Corner

Korky Koroluk

A person would have to be living a pretty insular existence to be unaware of the human toll that goes with the present economic upheaval.

Most of us know someone who has lost a job, or had hours reduced, or suffered a pay cut.

And all of these things contribute to stress at home.

There have been newspaper articles lately about increasing numbers of children and teens stressed out because their parents are stressed about family finances. Stress builds upon stress, until something snaps, which just creates more stress.

It’s pretty tough knowing where to turn for help, which is why I want to make one of my occasional pitches for Employee Assistance Programs — help plans that have been around for quite a few years now, but which, I feel, are still not well-enough known or well-enough used.

An Employee Assistance Program, or EAP, is a confidential, short-term counselling service for employees with personal problems that could affect their work performance. They grew out of alcoholism programs in the 1940s, as companies tried to reduce drinking on the job.

From there they morphed into programs to deal with any personal problem that affected work performance.

Then came recognition that such problems are not always caused by workplace issues and today’s broader approach evolved.

Now, a typical EAP helps employees deal with such things as relationships with other workers (especially your boss), with harassment, problems balancing work and family, legal problems, parenting issues, and other things.

They are available not only to the employee, but the employee’s family, as well.

That means your teenager can get help in dealing with friends who are drifting into drugs — or any of the dozens of things that make being a teenager so tough.

Having an EAP means having someone to point you toward financial counseling if your work hours have been cut in half.

That’s a key feature of EAPs: If your problem can’t be helped in three or four sessions with a counsellor, you will be referred elsewhere so the help can be extended.

EAPs can be purchased by a company, by a group of companies, or by some sort of professional or trade group. A union can purchase an EAP for its members, for example, or small businesses can band together and purchase an EAP as a group.

It’s hard to say how much an EAP might cost because that depends upon the features you want. And, it’s hard to say how much an EAP might save a company because there are a lot of variables there, too.

The return on investment for EAPs has been studied — a lot — but definitive proof of their benefit remains hard to obtain. If you assign someone in your company to find out if there’s a business case for an EAP, the task will be a difficult one.

But evidence does exist.

Aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp. did a study in the early 1990s and (they kept the figures confidential) it reported that “we’ve tracked the cost of the program and we know that we have saved money.”

There are estimates that an EAP can save $2 for every $1 invested in it. Some studies have put the savings much higher.

The problem with trying to get a precise figure is that there are so many factors that need to be counted, including absenteeism, health-care costs, litigation, damage, theft, productivity, staff turnover, job retraining, accidents, lost business, customer relations, short- and long-term disability, conflict and over-all morale. An EAP can be seen as having at least some impact on all these things.

There is a lot of information about EAPs available on the web. One of the best is Family Services. Visit www.familyserviceseap.com.

Korky Koroluk is a regular freelance contributor to the Journal of Commerce. Send comments to editor@journalofcommerce.com.

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