Employee well-being is more important today than ever before. Working long hours in fast-moving corporate settings with the challenges this brings to mental health, places tremendous pressure on employees.
The blurring of work and home boundaries, the increased rate of change and economic uncertainty can lead to anxiety, burnout and other psychological syndromes. Organisations must maximise their Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to handle these challenges and expand their mental health services.
The EAP is an essential instrument in maintaining the psychological well-being of employees, reducing absenteeism, and increasing productivity. Yet, many organisations fail to realise the potential of it and how a healthy workplace culture can be promoted for the betterment of all staff.
Role of EAPs
EAPs aim to guide workers on personal or work-based issues that may affect their performance, health and mental well-being. Typically, they include counselling, mental health consultation, legal and financial planning and work-life resources. A good EAP addresses these issues but can also give workers long-term ways to enhance their mental health and work-life balance.
Despite its benefits, EAPs remain vastly underutilised. Some possible explanations for this low rate include misinformation, stigma attached to counselling services, and apprehensions about confidentiality. To overcome these and other possible barriers and maximise your EAP’s potential, consider the following suggestions:
1. Awareness and accessibility
The first step in optimising your EAP would be to ensure that the employees know and are aware of what is available to them. Proactive communication and the promotion of services offered can be advertised by:
- Employee orientation: Information about EAP services as part of the initial onboarding of staff. Provide this information as part of the permanent new employee handbook.
- General communication: This can be done through newsletters, internal portals, and email campaigns so as to remind employees about EAPs available to them. You can highlight specific services and benefits monthly to remind employees what’s on offer.
- Workshops and webinars: Organise workshops about mental health issues and accessing EAP services. You can provide interactive sessions about access to remove any mystery about the process and encourage usage.
- Management training: Train managers to recognise markers of distress among their employees and brief them on how to refer them to EAPs while maintaining their confidentiality.
2. Building trust and reducing stigma
The threat of a confidentiality breach is identified as a major reason why employees do not seek EAP services. To combat this, an organisation can consider the following steps;
- Clearly address privacy policies: Make sure to inform employees that their activities with EAPs are totally confidential. Communicate confidentiality policies from time to time.
- Promote acceptance of the culture: Engage senior leaders to openly talk about the significance of mental health. When leaders model appropriate behaviours, it decreases stigma and increases help-seeking behaviour.
- Anonymous Access: Offer web counselling or support services where you can provide employees with services to access anonymously, which may serve to address the issues of confidentiality.
3. Add new services
EAPs should not restrict their scope in an always changing mental health space in the workplace. Expand your program into:
- Virtual counselling: As remote work becomes more prominent, engage in virtual counselling that is easily accessible to employees.
- Specialised support: Help people with specific challenges such as substance abuse, intimate partner violence or chronic health conditions.
- Wellness initiatives: Implement wellness programs, including stress management workshops, mindfulness training, and fitness programs. These programs can complement and bridge the gap between traditional services.
4. Link to organisational policies
An EAP should be linked to an organisation’s operations. Consider the following approaches:
- Integrate EAP into HR practices: Align services with company leave, performance management policies, and health benefits. This integration ensures that employees perceive EAP as a part of their overall support system.
- Establish a culture of openness: Encourage open communication and ensure that employees view the discussion of mental health issues as acceptable. Improve training of managers on how to support staff effectively and use EAP resources.
- Monitor and review: Continually monitor the performance of your EAP. Employee feedback, usage data and surveys determine absences or areas of improvement.
5. Proactive engagement
EAPs should not be viewed as just a crisis management device. Promote active use of the services by employees through:
- Preventive care: Highlight services such as financial planning, legal consultations, and wellness coaching as preventive care to prevent stress escalating to the point of no return.
- Early intervention: Educate managers in using EAPs as part of early interventions and provide them with training to identify the first warning signals of stress or degradation of a team member’s performance.
Maximising your EAP and enhancing mental health services is an ongoing process that requires a continuous commitment to the changing needs of employees. The resources and support system within an organisation have to evolve to ensure the accessibility of services for staff.
Putting these strategies into action will assist your business in building a solid foundation that addresses immediate requirements and establishes long-term mental health and well-being. Although EAPs are a terrific resource, individual counselling and customised support will also remain an essential part of comprehensive mental health care.