Employee Assistance Programs

Implementing Employee Assistance Programs Introduction When the average employee hears the words "employee assistance programs", he may immediately think of medical benefits. Another employee may think of Workers Compensation. Yet another may think of further training for possible advancement. Although all of their conceptions are true, they are not all inclusive. There are several parts to the vehicle called Employee Assistance Programs, or EAPs. Employee Assistance Programs are defined by Myers as "structured programs that utilize technical, administrative, and professional human services and personnel people, on either a contractual or employment basis, to meet the needs of troubled employees" (4). EAPs are needed so that the work environment is safe and productivity is as high as possible. This benefits the employees as well as the employers. The process of creating and implementing EAPs will be discussed. It is important to define who the troubled employee is, how the EAPs are to be structured, and how it is that the troubled employee is helped through the structured programs. As those three areas are discussed, some of the statistics that make these EAPs necessary, or at the very least, helpful, will be looked at also. The Troubled Employee Many of us have seen Gus – he’s the one who believes that in order to ease the hang over from last nights party, he has to have a drink the next morning. But it may not stop there. He needs a sip around 10am to take the edge off. Whatever he does on his lunch is his business so he may go home and have a couple of beers before returning to his job - at the factory. Gus probably has a problem with alcohol, as do 6 to 10 percent of the employee population (Myers 5). Of that number, 30 percent of them are manual workers (Myers 5). In any situation, this could become quite costly if there were an accident on the job. There are the obvious medical bills, Workers Compensation, destroyed

Bibliography: Cascio, Wayne. Managing Human Resources. Denver: McGraw-Hill, 1998. Kizer, William M. The Healthy Workplace. Omaha: John Wiley & Sons, 1987. Myers, Donald W. Establishing and Building Employee Assistance Programs. West Port: Greenwood Press, 1984. Shain, Martin, Helen Suurvali, and Marie Boutilier. Healthier Workers: Health Promotion and Employee Assistance Programs. Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1986.