HR managers everywhere are under enormous pressure to help the companies they serve to get the absolute most out of each and every employee. They’re called upon to settle disputes, navigate employment laws, and generally manage the relationship between employer and employee. It makes sense, then, that employee engagement is one of the primary preoccupations of the modern HR professional.
In recent years, HR departments the world over have become consumed with crafting and executing employee engagement initiatives to boost morale and productivity. By and large, most efforts in the area have centered on ways that businesses could modify internal processes, compensation schemes, and office culture. All such efforts are useful, to be sure, but they ignore a crucial point: employees only spend roughly one-quarter of an average week at work.
The rest of the time, employees are out in the world, dealing with the day-to-day necessities of their own lives. That means that it’s worth it for companies to explore ways to help support those employees outside the office as well. To do that, it’s a great idea to offer a robust and well-managed employee assistance program (EAP), and take steps to encourage employees to take advantage of it.
A valuable resource
A 2016 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management indicated that 77% of businesses offer some type of employee assistance program. Their popularity isn’t accidental. Statistics indicate that EAPs deliver a ROI of more than six to one, making them an easy sell to management. The problem, though, is that utilization rates for EAP programs hover between 4% and 5% on average. It’s possible to draw two conclusions from those statistics. First, it’s that EAPs offer excellent value for what they cost. The second is that they could be much more valuable if a higher percentage of employees can be persuaded to make use of them.
Removing the stigma
In theory, turning an underutilized EAP into an employee engagement powerhouse should be easy. In practice, it’s anything but. That’s due in large part to the stigma attached to seeking help in general, and especially when that help comes from an entity that holds the seeker’s career prospects in their hands. To combat that stigma, it’s necessary to take steps to both publicize the purpose of the EAP to employees and emphasize the confidential nature of the program. That alone could do wonders to assuage employee fears that their request for help may somehow be used against them in the workplace. That’s just step one, however.
Widening the EAP scope
Taking steps to encourage employees to ask for help from an EAP an excellent first step towards increasing utilization rates, but it isn’t a complete solution to the problem. To cast the widest possible net to increase participation among employees, it’s a good idea to widen the scope of the program beyond crisis intervention oriented services. For example, offering financial planning assistance that covers everything from how to remove negative items from a credit report to advanced strategies for building wealth through strategic investing. Such services provide a stigma-free on-ramp that can help employees get used to the idea of turning to the EAP when they have need of it. For that reason, offering the widest variety of services possible is best. That way the program will become more accessible to more employees – and they’ll have less hesitation to engage with the EAP.
Going the extra mile
An EAP program is also an excellent vehicle for demonstrating to employees the same kind of dedication that the business hopes to receive in return. Making that happen, though takes some extra care and a willingness on the part of the business to be as flexible as possible. Consider the example set by Scripps Health. They’ve built an EAP that extends well beyond traditional assistance programs and that stands ready to be compassionate and flexible no matter what employees call on it to do. In the past, they’ve offered emergency grants to an employee that lost eight family members in a bus crash, provided round-the-clock emotional support to an employee whose son had gone missing, and even organized a rotating crew of employees to spend time with a dying employee that had no family to rely on. That’s the kind of support that’s bound to make an impression on all employees, even if they never make use of the EAP themselves.
The benefits are clear
Providing multifaceted and flexible support to employees in as many areas of their lives as possible will result in a happier, more engaged workforce. They’ll have fewer outside distractions, and come to view their employer as a trusted partner in their lives, rather than as a grudging participant (or worse, an obstacle). The benefits to productivity and overall employee satisfaction are clear, and a simple cost/benefit analysis proves that investments in EAPs almost always pay off. The takeaway is that there are a nearly endless number of reasons for businesses to offer an EAP, and virtually no downsides. In an era where employee engagement is a critical part of business success, you’d be hard pressed to find a more tailor-made solution.
