Although they're not usually marketed to employees, employee assistance programs and the counseling they provide can help increase employee health and productivity. according to an HRDive report. Highlighting a new study by Chestnut Global Partners (CGP) and the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, the report found that employee health, productivity and satisfaction all improved after EAP counseling.
Related: 5 things your EAP may be missing
The 2017 Workplace Outcome Suite (WOS) Report evaluated work engagement, absenteeism, workplace distress and life satisfaction following EAP counseling, using data that evaluates five core outcomes: absenteeism (looks at the number of hours an employee is absent due to a personal problem); presenteeism (measures loss of productivity from an employee who is present but not working at his or her optimum due to unresolved personal problems); workplace distress (examines the degree of anxiety or stress at work); work engagement (measures how invested in the job, or passionate about it, the employee is); and life satisfaction (measures one's general sense of well-being).
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According to the study, statistically significant changes in the expected directions indicatied the greatest improvement and largest effects in work presenteeism and life satisfaction after use of EAP counseling.
The study, which was developed in 2010 to provide a scientific, objective way to measure whether investing in EAPs is a good business decision, indicates that presenteeism improved by 26 percent and life satisfaction by 22 percent after EAP counseling.
EAPs aren't utilized as much as they could be, since many employees believe that such programs are mainly for those dealing with drug addiction or other highly stigmatized health issues. But educating employees about the availability of EAP services such as psychological counseling or a resource for financial or legal assistance can drive utilization.
Employers don't necessarily know how to measure the results of an EAP, nor do the EAPs themselves. Greg DeLapp, CEO of EAPA, the organization that partnered on the study, is quoted saying, "Many EAPs still don't know the extent to which their program or interventions actually improve the work performance of employees who use EAP services. Employers, purchasers, or other stakeholders wind up focusing on two metrics where information does exist: cost and utilization, versus the most meaningful metric to business: employee workplace outcomes."
DeLapp adds, "The 2017 WOS report shows that EA providers and purchasers can effectively move from utilization-based models to ones based on value as defined by outcomes achieved relative to costs."
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