storycoaching article
Reprinted with permission from the BC Human Resources Management Association's PeopleTalk magazine, V7/N3 Fall 2004
Reprinted with permission from the BC Human Resources Management Association's PeopleTalk magazine, V8/N2 Summer 2005
The ROI on EAPs:
Innovative or Invasive?
BY CAROL SACHOWSKI, CHRP
Today’s new language of employee assistance programs (EAPs) includes disability management, rehabilitation management, supervisor training, performance evaluation, and organizational development. The once-simple area of confidential, early-intervention therapy, which organizations provided to employees and their families as part of a benefits package, appears to have expanded to include counselors as consultants versed in organizational training, facilitation, and coaching.
Yet isn’t the human resources department responsible for these areas? Perhaps HR cannot do it alone. With managers already complaining of overload, success might mean alternate partnerships. However innovative relationships might feel like intrusion to the employee.
Assess your EAP
Wherever your employer stands in the discussion of EAP, consider the following before your company begins to expand its contracted services:
- Who is the client? Who is told they are the client?
- What is the role of the EAP within your organization?
- How did your current EAP provider get selected? What criteria were used to assess their qualifications, contracting, confidentiality, reporting out, and return on investment?
- How healthy are the EAP staff themselves; are they burnt out or encouraged to further develop their skills?
- How healthy is your organization? Does it truly encourage open dialogue to best enable clear links between personal and organizational values?
- Is the relationship between the EAP and the employer transparent enough for the employee to understand?
- Do you offer your staff an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback on the service they’re receiving?
In the thought-provoking world of innovative EAPs, Westcoast Clinical Counseling partner Angela Burns says that one reason why employees use such programs is because they are missing something on the spiritual level. In her view, EAPs offer employees assistance with “depression, fear, and lack of satisfaction with their personal or professional lives.” Death of a loved one or potential death, through one’s own terminal illness, in particular, is known as “the big one” that gets a client in the door to seek help since it raises all of life’s questions in one go. Some of these questions can include: Why am I here? Why me? What is my purpose in life? Why do I find little or no meaning in my job?
Toronto’s CAREpath Inc. offers its membership a cancer-related employee assistance program, an employer-sponsored service that provides cancer management to Canadian workers to reduce the impact of cancer both at home and in the workplace. The potential for innovation is obvious but does it come at the expense of employee privacy?
Gloria McArter, an active member of Vancouver’s Workplace Centre for Spiritual and Ethical Development, makes spiritual health a key area of her counseling practice. McArter supports “individuals and couples who want to benefit from understanding the meaning and influence of their spiritual qualities and experiences” by including in her process discussion values (what’s important) and ethics (ability to discern between what is right and wrong). In McArter’s view, one can determine whether a connection exists between an employee and his or her employer by aligning an employee’s values and goals with those of his or her company, as articulated through their mission and vision statements.
When asked if an EAP program will help determine the link between an employee’s spiritual health and the employer’s bottom line, some providers replied: “yes.” However, an employee, when asked the same question, might say that he or she expects the EAP experience to consist of a single or series of confidential sessions with a neutral, third-party counselor whose sole responsibility is to provide help with personal issues — nothing more.
Remember the business side of EAP
An employee assistance program involves two clients, the one who sits in the counselor’s chair (the employee) and the one that pays the bill (the employer), says Claire Sutton, president of the western chapter of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association. She reminds us that EAPs are businesses too, with their own need to earn a profit and remain competitive. Training of associate counselors in organizational culture makes good business sense for the EAP.
Carol Sachowski , CHRP is president of storycoaching™ inc. in Victoria and Toronto . Contact: csachowski@storycoaching.com
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