Employee assistance practitioners have a history of offering services in what may be called the "traditional" areas of their craft ... alcohol abuse, drug use, mental health services, and other personal problems associated with these conditions.
And yet, research has demonstrated a close correlation between "traditional" employee assistance services and indicators not normally considered a part of that total picture--workers' compensation claims, for example.
Workers' compensation claims my, in fact, be among the most significant indicators of workplace health and wellness, as well as very good clues as to the presence or absence of alcohol, drugs, or mental health problems.
If you're marketing employee assistance services, seek to discover the types of industries with the highest accident rates. Also, be sure to turn to OSHA. OSHA maintains a fresh list of high accident troubled companies. This is list is available, and you may discover some of the companies are near you. Why? There are 20,000 of them--at least--every year. So, go for the high accident businesses, not the high numbers of employees. You may find more motivated employers who will be interested in your services.
And approaching prospective clients along the workers' compensation chain can bring into your service orbit the self-insured as well as those who pay premiums, since both can realize substantial savings through the coupling of worker's compensation programs with employee assistance services.
The higher a work organization's accident rate, the higher the premiums it pays for workers' compensation. The organization is therefore motivated to reduce accident rates, on of the jobs employee assistance services are designed to do.
