Employee Assistance Program

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An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in human resources refers to programs for employee advice from an external company.

General

While in Germany only a few employers such as Siemens or SAP have explicitly set up such programs, EAP is part of everyday business in numerous companies in the USA. These programs were originally developed in the 1930s to support workers with addiction problems.

Over the past few years, EAP (also known as "external employee counseling") has become more and more widespread in Germany and a large number of companies offer this external support option to their employees and often their relatives.

history

Employee counseling in the form of psychosocial support has existed since the beginning of the 20th century. In 1907, the Macy's department store opened a counseling office for employees' psychosocial questions. Those counseling programs mostly arose out of emergencies, when social problems of the employees threatened to impair their workforce. One of the most important reasons for introducing psychosocial counseling was alcoholism problems among employees. However, due to the focus on addiction prevention, social counseling suffered from social stigmatization. Today, the topic of employee counseling is far more diverse and includes health, private, social and work-related issues.

use

Nowadays, an EAP specifically serves to give employees qualified advice on professional and private problems. Important areas here are:

  • Advice on psychological stress at work
  • Stress management
  • Addiction counseling and help with addictions
  • Conflict counseling
  • Health advice
  • Debtor and financial initial advice
  • Legal advice
  • Advice on organizational problems (e.g. childcare, caring for relatives)
  • all topics from the personal and private sphere (family, partnership, marriage)
  • personal development
  • Work-life balance

Another important area is the support of executives in their task of managing employees.

Since health, sociological and organizational problem areas can interlock here, some companies now offer integrated consulting services with experts from various professions (doctors, psychologists, social pedagogues, coaches). A large number of scientific studies show that EAPs also offer some important advantages for organizations from a business perspective. EAPs have been shown to have well-documented effects for the following parameters:

  • Increasing employee loyalty
  • Less absenteeism and therefore less downtime costs
  • Greater productivity
  • Lower accident rates

The ROI (Return on Investment) of EAPs ranges from just cost-neutral to 1: 8.7 in studies

As there are currently no binding standards for EAP in Germany, experts assume that, in addition to many reputable service providers, companies with dubious offers may also be active in this area. Consulting standards were formulated by the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, among others.

The European umbrella organization for EAP providers, the European Employee Assistance Forum (EAEF), defines the following service components that every EAP should have:

  • Organizational analysis
  • Description of services
  • Communication package
  • Usage statistics
  • Short-term advice
  • Referral for further treatment
  • Organizational advice
  • Training offers
  • Crisis interventions

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Addiction prevention in company health management" ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 23 kB), University of Hanover  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wa.uni-hannover.de
  2. ^ Claudia Schulte-Meßtorff, Peter Wehr: Employee Assistance Programs - external employee advice in corporate health management . 2nd Edition. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-642-38020-4 , p. 36-37 .
  3. ↑ Consulting areas EAP. Retrieved September 29, 2017 .
  4. ↑ "Mental stress and illnesses" ( Memento of the original from March 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.demographie-wiki.de
  5. ↑ "Study #whatsnext BGM". Retrieved September 29, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Table 2.8. Mental ill health is a factor in short as well as longer-term sick leave. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
  7. ↑ "Innovative Concepts in Workplace Health Promotion" (PDF; 395 kB), Bertelsmann Foundation
  8. ↑ Debra Lerner, David A. Adler, William H. Rogers, Hong Chang, Annabel Greenhill: A Randomized Clinical Trial of a Telephone Depression Intervention to Reduce Employee Presenteeism and Absenteeism . In: Psychiatric Services . tape 66 , no. 6 , June 2015, ISSN  1075-2730 , p. 570-577 , doi : 10.1176 / appi.ps.201400350 ( psychiatryonline.org [accessed May 18, 2020]).
  9. ↑ "Employee support via the Employee Assistance Program" , BetriebsratsPraxis24.de
  10. ↑ Debra Blaze-Temple, Peter Howat: Cost Benefit of an Australian EAP . In: Employee Assistance Quarterly . tape 12 , no. 3 , January 10, 1997, ISSN  0749-0003 , p. 1–24 , doi : 10.1300 / J022v12n03_01 ( tandfonline.com [accessed May 18, 2020]).
  11. ↑ Morneau Shepell: the return on investment for Employee and Family Assistance Programs. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
  12. ↑ What does an EAP offer? | zieringerconsulting. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .