A lot of EAPS fall into a common – and hazardous – category – Management thinks the program is excellent, but workforce think it’s a waste. But it doesn’t have to be that way if you’ve an EAP or are considering one.
Seventy-three percent of all firms (59 percent of small employers) have an EAP. But how well does the average employee assistance program work? Not as well as we’d hope. A Mid America Coalition on Health Care study found -
o just 50% of 6,400 workforce surveyed said they’d use the employee assistance program (EAP) if they felt overwhelmed by personal issues, and
o one-third said they didn’t even know how to access its resources.
The good news – Firms like yours have seen dramatic improvements in three relatively simple steps
1. Employee attitude surveys
The best beginning place – Take the pulse of your staff members with a short, confidential attitude survey.
Objectives – Ask workforce when they know how to use the EAP’s resources. Then test workers’ knowledge and opinions of depression and other personal issues that may affect their workplace performance and/or safety. In the final section, determine how workforce would handle a serious personal issue.
In other words, find out where your individuals would likely turn for help. Would workforce seek out the EAP? Would they prefer to discuss the issue with their family doctor? A mental health professional?
The Mid America Coalition’s survey remains an excellent design model from which to craft a recent survey for your own employees.
2. Promote employee assistance program (EAP) through education
Your survey data should help you pinpoint areas where employees need more education about your EAP. Some awareness-boosting techniques that have gotten results -
o Lunch-and-learn sessions. Possible topics include dealing with personal-finance stress, caring for elderly parents, understanding depression or dealing with a dependent who has potential mental health issues.
o Employee newsletter. If you have a benefits newsletter, spotlight the EAP from time to time. Many businesses without newsletters have done e-mail campaigns or targeted mailings instead.
o Workplace posters spotlighting EAP. The ones that work best are often posters designed around a specific theme (e.g., anxiety about personal debt) rather than a general “need help?” message. In addition to posters, you could want to distribute wallet cards with employee assistance program contact info.
Need help finding educational material? There’s lots of free EAP-related flyers and FAQs here. Do not forget – When doing employee assistance program (EAP) education, constantly remind personnel that the program is strictly confidential.
3. Make sure to work with supervisors
For legal reasons, supervisors need to tread carefully when they suspect an employee has a mental health issue.
What you don’t want – supervisors taking disciplinary actions without consulting HR or playing amateur psychologist and “diagnosing” the employee’s problems. Here is a PDF of some proven tips and talking points for doing supervisor-specific employee assistance program education.
HIPAA compliance – Beware non-discrimination issues
HIPAA’s non-discrimination rules impact both psychological health benefits and general health plans. Under current interpretations, medical programs can no longer have benefits exclusions that deny benefits for injuries resulting directly or indirectly from pre-existing psychological health issues.
That’s true even if the psychological condition wasn’t diagnosed until after the injury and even if the injury was self-inflicted. Example – Suppose an staff member gets hurt in a workplace accident he or she caused. After the fact, the staff member is diagnosed with a mood disorder that previously escaped detection by the employee’s physician.
Under current regs, HIPAA-covered plans can’t deny benefits. This puts employers in a bind. Mental health issues like depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder are one of the medical conditions that’re most likely to go undiagnosed or underdiagnosed.
That’s why, in most businesses, having a strong employee assistance program is one of your best compliance tools.