“My benefits”- an assistance package that most employees have negotiated at hiring. We believe that every medium to large employer should invest in an Employee Assistance Plan. For $3.00 to $6.00 per employee per month, an employer stands to gain much more in productivity, retraining and other soft costs, than the relatively small premium expenditure.

Employees are for ever being asked to take on more challenges. This would be OK if it were not for the multitude of challenges they face at home their selves. Today’s employee has to manage their interpersonal relationships, possible elder care issues, stress and anxiety in the workplace and many more issues.

An Employee Assistance Plan has many outlets for assisting employees on a personal, confidential, and non judgemental basis. Whether the issues relate to substance abuse, or childcare, the EAP is there to provide a solution that meets the needs of the employee.

Since a focused member is likely a “productive” one, the goal is to make all members productive.

For most organizations, Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are “old news.” EAP may already be a part of your workplace, and the role the program plays is continually expanding. An EAP’s role is to help your organization achieve new heights of success, achievable by partnering with your EAP provider to build the EAP as an integrated component of a workplace health strategy.

A Strong Foundation

Traditionally, EAP’s have provided counselling and support for employees with emotional or mental health concerns. The work of EAP providers has focused on helping employees who recognize they have a problem and seek treatment. Counselling enables employees to resume their work, reducing costly medical and disability claims. In this role, EAPs have made a significant contribution to the health of employees and organizations. But your EAP can do so much more.

Building For The Future

The premise of workplace health is simple:

Prevention – organizations that take steps to promote health and safety benefit from healthier, more satisfied and productive employees.

Culture transformation – organizations that implement strategies to transform the workplace culture, in support of sustainable workplace health, benefit from improved performance.

The EAP has a role to play in this process of producing healthy outcomes.  They do so by:

1. Helping employees develop a skill set for resiliency. Resilient employees are more adaptable to change and more capable of bouncing back after exposure to stressful situations.

2. Educating managers and supervisors so that they have the social skills required to build relationships and engage employees, and the leadership skills required to initiate and sustain workplace transformation.

3. Establishing goals for workplace health – including the EAP – that are based on organizational strategy. Only with this level of integration will organizations see the true measure and value of workplace health.

There are a number of EAP providers in the marketplace.  One such provider that we have built a relationship with is, Family Services Employee Assistance Plans.

About FSEAP

FSEAP is a national organization that supports more than 5,000 companies, representing every economic sector and size in Canada. As a commercial division of Family Service Toronto, all revenue generated from their EAP services is reinvested in Family Service community programming in the Greater Toronto Area.

EAP is their core business, not a sideline. They make the wellbeing of organizations and their employees their priority, providing high-impact, personal consultation services that are proven effective for improving the quality of life and work for employees.  Their approach works. Surveys have shown that their counselling outcomes are as much as three times as effective as comparable counselling in helping to resolve personal and family problems.

For more information: www.fseap.com

For over 20 years, Chris Pryce of Human Capital Benefits has been advising employers on all aspects of managing employee benefits programs and related products. If you have any questions, you can contact Chris at 416.924.8280 or by email at chrispryce@www.humancapitalbenefits.com