When I hear in the national news that some employee turned violent in a horrible and tragic incident and shot coworkers, I can't help but wonder if--as the bullets flew--there wasn't in that employee's hip pocket or purse, a health insurance card and a barely visible, small type, "1-800 EAP" number printed on the back of it; a practically invisible, poorly promoted telephone helpline.
Is this sort of cost containment to prevent access to behavioral health benefits really worth it to companies? I think if they knew the real story, and had a different impresssion what risks they really face with a "DEAP" "diminished EAP", they would think twice about it.
A CT-EAP (core technology EAP) can reach out so much more, do more, and be more than what some of these benefits entities have sold or given away to America's employers. Where's the education to change all of this?
If we research the tragedies seen in the news via the Internet, would be discover that there was an EAP, but that it was a diminished model or program that appeared to have a poor promotional plan?
Of course, the next thought is whether a more effective EAP model or promotional effort would have made a difference and saved some lives with effective outreach and solid supervisory referral processes taking place in the organization.
Is health insurance "cost containment" to prevent use of behavioral health benefits, as much as possible, really worth the risk of a diminished EAP delivery model? I don't think it is.
It's simple math. Remove regular EAP promotion, visibility, and the ability to offer "high touch" access to the workforce and you will destroy top-of-mind visibility for the EAP. You will see fewer referrals, less EAP involvement in the organization, less "thinking" about how to use the EAP in new ways, and few supervisor referrals to be sure. You will get more risk to the workplace, coworkers, and the financial well-being of the organization. Only if you have worked for internal EAPs, external EAPs, and office cubicle managed care EAPs, can you truly see the enormous difference in accessibility, utilization, and risk associated with these various contrasting models.
When you get home to tonight, look on the back of your spouse or partner's insurance card. See if there is a 1-800 # to the EAP or leads to an EAP once it is called.
Then ask yourself is this EAP working? And, for whom or what?
Get information to include in your EAP Refresher Training Program here. Increase your supervisor reach and effectiveness of supervisor referral processes in your CT-EAP.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Getting Spit On? Call the EAP!
Finally, I found an amazing and dramatic illustration of the topic I like to harp on most -- having EAPs identify and then make use of opportunities that suddenly and dramatically emerge in the workplace where the EAP solution can be applied. When EAPs do this, they grow their value and reputation, and if they are lucky enough, come in contact with major stake holders who have enormous clout. These stake holders -- property casualty insurers are one -- can elevate EAPs dramatically.
Can you guess how days the average bus driver in New York City took off last year after they were spit on by bus riding customers? The average time off was 64 days!!!!! One took off 191 days. No, these are not drivers to be disciplined for gross abuse of leave policies. They are getting paid by workers' compensation!
Amazing you say? Indeed. It's costing tens of thousands of dollars right out of the city coffers. And many of these drivers are claiming they need psychological help as a result of the pedestrian abuse they experience. Here is a link to the story.
What's the issue, and is there an EAP solution for the drivers, the public (indirectly), and the financial crisis associated with this workers' compensation nightmare? I think there is, or at least I hope you walk away from this blog with the idea that you can find untold numbers of opportunities to make yourself more useful and valued in the EAP setting. (And by the way, fear not, you won't have managed care competing with you for these classic applications of the core technology. It is off their "grid" entirely.)
Off the top of my head, the EAP should be included in a round table discussion with top management and review the data associated with these incidents. Specifically, what should be determined are patterns associated with everything from time of day these incidents occur, profiles of the spitting customers, antecedent and provocative events, worker profiles, and other variables that may point to behavioral interventions appropriate for the EAP.
For example - EAPs have skills or can closely coordinate with resources that have the skills to provide stress interventions for these cases, education on managing emotions, behavioral interface with customers, how to diffuse violence (which of course is what we are talking about when it comes to spitting). And, what about customer service? Dealing with angry and abuse customers? (see fact sheet).
How many bus drivers are depressed, alcoholic, or experience other behavioral problems exacerbated by these types of stressful incidents? What about anger management training or examining customer service issues that help employees avoid responding or provoking inappropriate behavior from people? There many more issues to examine here. Are more men than women assaulted. What's the difference? What about processing anger in groups and learning skills.
The violence of spitting on a bus driver surely is a crime. And law enforcement must play a powerful role. However, there are psycho-medical and dynamic behavioral issues at play with the larger problem, and of course, the enormous expense of workers' compensation costs demand a comprehensive attack on the problem.
The EAP is part of the solution. At least, this is much is true before I am willing to say there is not: Completely omitting any consideration of an EAP role in dealing with this problem is financially irresponsible.
Now, if the EAP is being considered at all, and no one has suggested, we need to ask why?
This problem lies at the feet of the profession. And here lies the answer to a new dawn for employee assistance programs. Am I wrong?
Can you guess how days the average bus driver in New York City took off last year after they were spit on by bus riding customers? The average time off was 64 days!!!!! One took off 191 days. No, these are not drivers to be disciplined for gross abuse of leave policies. They are getting paid by workers' compensation!
Amazing you say? Indeed. It's costing tens of thousands of dollars right out of the city coffers. And many of these drivers are claiming they need psychological help as a result of the pedestrian abuse they experience. Here is a link to the story.
What's the issue, and is there an EAP solution for the drivers, the public (indirectly), and the financial crisis associated with this workers' compensation nightmare? I think there is, or at least I hope you walk away from this blog with the idea that you can find untold numbers of opportunities to make yourself more useful and valued in the EAP setting. (And by the way, fear not, you won't have managed care competing with you for these classic applications of the core technology. It is off their "grid" entirely.)
Off the top of my head, the EAP should be included in a round table discussion with top management and review the data associated with these incidents. Specifically, what should be determined are patterns associated with everything from time of day these incidents occur, profiles of the spitting customers, antecedent and provocative events, worker profiles, and other variables that may point to behavioral interventions appropriate for the EAP.
For example - EAPs have skills or can closely coordinate with resources that have the skills to provide stress interventions for these cases, education on managing emotions, behavioral interface with customers, how to diffuse violence (which of course is what we are talking about when it comes to spitting). And, what about customer service? Dealing with angry and abuse customers? (see fact sheet).
How many bus drivers are depressed, alcoholic, or experience other behavioral problems exacerbated by these types of stressful incidents? What about anger management training or examining customer service issues that help employees avoid responding or provoking inappropriate behavior from people? There many more issues to examine here. Are more men than women assaulted. What's the difference? What about processing anger in groups and learning skills.
The violence of spitting on a bus driver surely is a crime. And law enforcement must play a powerful role. However, there are psycho-medical and dynamic behavioral issues at play with the larger problem, and of course, the enormous expense of workers' compensation costs demand a comprehensive attack on the problem.
The EAP is part of the solution. At least, this is much is true before I am willing to say there is not: Completely omitting any consideration of an EAP role in dealing with this problem is financially irresponsible.
Now, if the EAP is being considered at all, and no one has suggested, we need to ask why?
This problem lies at the feet of the profession. And here lies the answer to a new dawn for employee assistance programs. Am I wrong?
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Air Force Suicide Prevention Worked
Suicides are down and the intervention program worked. That's the conclusion of a research study just released by the University of Rochester Medical Center and published in the American Journal of Public Health. The program being proclaimed successful dropped the suicide rate by over 20%. The suicide prevention program with the U.S. Air Force began in 1994, but suicide rates were examined from the period 1981 - 2008.
Lessons from the study. To decrease the rate of suicide, the U.S. Air Force concentrated on four key components: 1) Encouraging members of the Air Force to seek help; 2) Promoting the development of coping skills; 3) Fighting the stigma associated with receiving mental health care; and 4) stressing the absence of negative career consequences for seeking and receiving treatment. The Air Force Suicide Prevention Program is included in all military training. Supervisor training is a key component of the program with leadership getting instruction in how and when to refer subordinate personnel to help. If any traumatic events, especially those related terrorism occur, they are responded to rapidly to address acute and posttraumatic stress, a known major contributing factor to the risk of suicide risk. The number of suicides prior to the study going back to 1994 were 64 in that year. The program low during the implementation period of the program was 1999 with a total of 20 suicides. (Note: There has been no reduction in the suicide rate among the general U.S. civilian population since the 1940s according to the study.)
Blog Note: Currently the U.S. Army is undergoing service wide training in an effort to reduce the suicide rate among its ranks.
Suicide prevention education module in PowerPoint, PowerPoint with sound, Flash video, and DVD, with script notes for the PowerPoint formats can be found at WorkExcel.com, Suicide Prevention Training. (Used by many federal government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, the U.S. Senate, and smaller businesses.)
Lessons from the study. To decrease the rate of suicide, the U.S. Air Force concentrated on four key components: 1) Encouraging members of the Air Force to seek help; 2) Promoting the development of coping skills; 3) Fighting the stigma associated with receiving mental health care; and 4) stressing the absence of negative career consequences for seeking and receiving treatment. The Air Force Suicide Prevention Program is included in all military training. Supervisor training is a key component of the program with leadership getting instruction in how and when to refer subordinate personnel to help. If any traumatic events, especially those related terrorism occur, they are responded to rapidly to address acute and posttraumatic stress, a known major contributing factor to the risk of suicide risk. The number of suicides prior to the study going back to 1994 were 64 in that year. The program low during the implementation period of the program was 1999 with a total of 20 suicides. (Note: There has been no reduction in the suicide rate among the general U.S. civilian population since the 1940s according to the study.)
Blog Note: Currently the U.S. Army is undergoing service wide training in an effort to reduce the suicide rate among its ranks.
Suicide prevention education module in PowerPoint, PowerPoint with sound, Flash video, and DVD, with script notes for the PowerPoint formats can be found at WorkExcel.com, Suicide Prevention Training. (Used by many federal government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, the U.S. Senate, and smaller businesses.)
Monday, May 10, 2010
EAPs to the Rescue with Workers' Compensation Fraud?
One of my favorite subjects is business insurance. I like to watch news, press releases, and blogs reporting on the many aspects of this field. As I have often opined, business insurance is a stake holder of effective, core technology employee assistance programs. The only problem is, they don't know it. That's the fault of EAPs as a group.
Insurance protects businesses and producers sell insurance. Your bridge to meet these employers and establish yourself is one of following three professionals who know a business owner best: the lawyer, the accountant, or the insurance agent. Insurance agents are your best bet because of synergies associated with the their needs, business needs, and the purpose of EAPs are nicely melded. They must all be concerned about human behavior in the workplace that leads to risk and financial loss.
Who pays for the legal bills of employees sued for sexual harassment? Who pays for the workers' compensation costs associated with sexual harassment (yes, harassed workers have often collected money for sexual harassment) and who will lose money if lawsuits come for sexual harassment? The answer is business insurers. Of course, employers pay too, if insured, through high deductibles.
There are many types of business insurance and there are many behavioral risk exposures that business insurance is designed to address. EAPs interface with many of them.
So the logic is there to team up with this group. Get started. Start in Colorado, or at least follow this legislation to see where it goes an how much influence it carries. Here's the news.
One of the insurance writers I follow is Gary Boop. He writes for "About.com". Gary reported today on a piece of legislation working its way through the Statehouse in the Colorado. The politicians there are focused on prohibiting workers compensation insurers from spying on or doing clandestine surveillance of employees injured on workers' compensation. This technique of finding employees who are stealing money from employers by faking injuries and collecting fat paychecks has been used for decades to reduce workers' compensation costs. Do you know the ramification of such legislation? They are potentially great and it means news skills and capabilities are going to be important to reducing costs. That's where you come in.
Consider this New Colorado bill H.B. 1012
What does this have to do with EAPs? I hope you see the connection, but let me spell it out clearly for you. Limitation of an employer's ability to investigate fraud means there must be some other way to find it, but even better, a renewed interest in preventing it will obviously be on the horizon.
Instead of ignoring injured employees and then seeking to discover criminal malingering to collect benefits, heading these problems off at the pass will get more scrutiny.
I predict that someday a business service will emerge that will be funded by workers' compensation insurers, and that it will play the following role. It will operate confidentially and
EAPs typically don't do these things now, but they could add these services to their continuum of activities and get enormous credit for doing so.
If you have entertained the idea of looking more at the EAP/Workers' Compensation interface, and you happen to service employees in Colorado, run don't walk, to develop your capabilities of servicing these employees with the goal of monitoring their care so they are less likely to fall prey to the temptation of malingering.
Of course, sometimes injuries are very real, except bogus injuries or injuries that were very real at the time become easy to lie about once their pain and debilitating symptoms disappear.
Any thoughts about this? See the drift?
Insurance protects businesses and producers sell insurance. Your bridge to meet these employers and establish yourself is one of following three professionals who know a business owner best: the lawyer, the accountant, or the insurance agent. Insurance agents are your best bet because of synergies associated with the their needs, business needs, and the purpose of EAPs are nicely melded. They must all be concerned about human behavior in the workplace that leads to risk and financial loss.
Who pays for the legal bills of employees sued for sexual harassment? Who pays for the workers' compensation costs associated with sexual harassment (yes, harassed workers have often collected money for sexual harassment) and who will lose money if lawsuits come for sexual harassment? The answer is business insurers. Of course, employers pay too, if insured, through high deductibles.
There are many types of business insurance and there are many behavioral risk exposures that business insurance is designed to address. EAPs interface with many of them.
So the logic is there to team up with this group. Get started. Start in Colorado, or at least follow this legislation to see where it goes an how much influence it carries. Here's the news.
One of the insurance writers I follow is Gary Boop. He writes for "About.com". Gary reported today on a piece of legislation working its way through the Statehouse in the Colorado. The politicians there are focused on prohibiting workers compensation insurers from spying on or doing clandestine surveillance of employees injured on workers' compensation. This technique of finding employees who are stealing money from employers by faking injuries and collecting fat paychecks has been used for decades to reduce workers' compensation costs. Do you know the ramification of such legislation? They are potentially great and it means news skills and capabilities are going to be important to reducing costs. That's where you come in.
Consider this New Colorado bill H.B. 1012
What does this have to do with EAPs? I hope you see the connection, but let me spell it out clearly for you. Limitation of an employer's ability to investigate fraud means there must be some other way to find it, but even better, a renewed interest in preventing it will obviously be on the horizon.
Instead of ignoring injured employees and then seeking to discover criminal malingering to collect benefits, heading these problems off at the pass will get more scrutiny.
I predict that someday a business service will emerge that will be funded by workers' compensation insurers, and that it will play the following role. It will operate confidentially and
- Meet with employees to assess the emotional impact of their injuries,
- Do a family assessment to determine likely areas of distress and conflict at risk for protracting an injury,
- Conduct an occupational alcoholism assessment,
- Help an employee remain motivated and anticipating a return to work,
- Resolve conflicts between an injured employee and the boss or coworkers back at the worksite,
- Offer support for the injured employee during the period of time they are off work,
- Offer guidance, tips, and support upon return to duty so employees experience reduced anxiety and conflict associated with return to light duty or full duty assignments.
EAPs typically don't do these things now, but they could add these services to their continuum of activities and get enormous credit for doing so.
If you have entertained the idea of looking more at the EAP/Workers' Compensation interface, and you happen to service employees in Colorado, run don't walk, to develop your capabilities of servicing these employees with the goal of monitoring their care so they are less likely to fall prey to the temptation of malingering.
Of course, sometimes injuries are very real, except bogus injuries or injuries that were very real at the time become easy to lie about once their pain and debilitating symptoms disappear.
Any thoughts about this? See the drift?
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Resolving Coworker Conflicts - Done
Resolving coworker conflicts is something many employee assistance professionals are well skilled at doing. However, many EAPs don't advertise or promote this service. You should think about doing so to improve your worth and perceived value. Providing education on resolving coworker conflicts can increase your visibility for this service and EAP utilization, but the really good news is that such help to the organization brings with it big returns that may help you stick around. You will notice that many of the products and services at WorkExcel.com are designed to help EAPs be more valuable. For example, doing Stress Management Secrets for Supervisors was not an accident. It was produced to get EAPs closer to the decision makers.
To offer a promotional and educational tool, available in five formats, I recently created new product on Resolving Coworker Conflicts. You can see it here. Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions. This program will elevate the visibility of your EAP and reduce risk to your host organization(s.)
Are you interested in possibly cutting your newsletter expenses in half or more? FrontLine Employee newsletter can do it. In PDF format, or print as needed, it can save you money and give you a completely customizable wellness newsletter program. Learn more about it here.
To offer a promotional and educational tool, available in five formats, I recently created new product on Resolving Coworker Conflicts. You can see it here. Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions. This program will elevate the visibility of your EAP and reduce risk to your host organization(s.)
Are you interested in possibly cutting your newsletter expenses in half or more? FrontLine Employee newsletter can do it. In PDF format, or print as needed, it can save you money and give you a completely customizable wellness newsletter program. Learn more about it here.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Are You Doing the Right Kind of Stress Management (link)
About a year and half a go, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a leading global-wide consulting firm, surveyed employers and discovered that stress was the number one reason employees quit their jobs.
Watson Wyatt is a major benefits consulting firm, so their interest was in learning more about this workplace issue. They discovered that most employers weren't doing much about stress. Two surveys conducted by Watson Wyatt confirmed it.
The strange thing is that most employers did not cite stress as the key reason employees quit. Stress did not make it into the top five reasons. Most employers listed things like insufficient pay, lack of career development, or poor supervisor relationships as the reasons employees quit. Employees were saying it was other things.
The bottom line is that if you are doing stress management in companies and want to make the most impact, you must target the source of stress in your EAP interventions. According to the research from Watson Wyatt, the target sources of stress that increase the risk of employees leaving include the following, some of which you may be able to address, and others, perhaps not.
Note: The second number is the percentage of employers acting to help employees with this stress related issue.
Long hours, doing more with less - 48% of employees say this is a problem. (Only 5% of employers doing anything about it.)
Work/Life Balance - 32% (16%)
Technologies that expand work - 29% (6%)
Manager's inability to recognized stress - 24% (7%)
Manager's inability to find solutions for stress - 20% (14%)
Extra time, hassles related to security - 8% (2%)
Safety fears - 5% (27%)
The numbers give some clues. It may be easy to focus on dealing with security or saftey fears of employees, but there may be nothing employers can do to help employees who are forced to do more with less. The interesting set of numbers above is "Manager's Inability to Recognize Stress". It's rated high as an employee complaint, but it is low as a point of intervention from the employer's perspective.
There is appreciable room to help managers and supervisors understand stress better, its effects, the impact it has on employees, what to do about it, signs and symptoms in employees, and factors associated with supevisor-supervisee communiation that undoubtedly contributed to it.
When doing stress management consider laser targeted interventions to be more effective. Source: Press Release, "Few Employers Address Workplace Stress", contact Steven Arnoff at steven.arnoff@watsonwyatt.com
Watson Wyatt is a major benefits consulting firm, so their interest was in learning more about this workplace issue. They discovered that most employers weren't doing much about stress. Two surveys conducted by Watson Wyatt confirmed it.
The strange thing is that most employers did not cite stress as the key reason employees quit. Stress did not make it into the top five reasons. Most employers listed things like insufficient pay, lack of career development, or poor supervisor relationships as the reasons employees quit. Employees were saying it was other things.
The bottom line is that if you are doing stress management in companies and want to make the most impact, you must target the source of stress in your EAP interventions. According to the research from Watson Wyatt, the target sources of stress that increase the risk of employees leaving include the following, some of which you may be able to address, and others, perhaps not.
Note: The second number is the percentage of employers acting to help employees with this stress related issue.
Long hours, doing more with less - 48% of employees say this is a problem. (Only 5% of employers doing anything about it.)
Work/Life Balance - 32% (16%)
Technologies that expand work - 29% (6%)
Manager's inability to recognized stress - 24% (7%)
Manager's inability to find solutions for stress - 20% (14%)
Extra time, hassles related to security - 8% (2%)
Safety fears - 5% (27%)
The numbers give some clues. It may be easy to focus on dealing with security or saftey fears of employees, but there may be nothing employers can do to help employees who are forced to do more with less. The interesting set of numbers above is "Manager's Inability to Recognize Stress". It's rated high as an employee complaint, but it is low as a point of intervention from the employer's perspective.
There is appreciable room to help managers and supervisors understand stress better, its effects, the impact it has on employees, what to do about it, signs and symptoms in employees, and factors associated with supevisor-supervisee communiation that undoubtedly contributed to it.
When doing stress management consider laser targeted interventions to be more effective. Source: Press Release, "Few Employers Address Workplace Stress", contact Steven Arnoff at steven.arnoff@watsonwyatt.com
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
New EAP Professionals and Orientation to Alcoholism (Ouch!)
It is safe to say that discussing alcoholism with any professional in the treatment field, EAP field, or other helping industry will generate some argument and controversy. Just wait. If you are new to the field, you'll soon be indoctrinated with one of these cocktail conversations.
It's one of the "elephants in the living room" of the helping profession. One out of four people has an addict in their family, and myth and mythology over thousands of years keeps intervention, treatment, and recovery confusing and controversial.
From non-M.D. psychologists who are selected to be the U.S. Supreme Court consultants, who then push the idea that alcoholism is not a disease, to best selling authors telling us how alcoholics can drink safely, there is simply no shortage of information and "new thought" about alcoholism that continues to undermine the legitimacy of this disease and how it should be managed.
Of course, if you have worked directly with alcoholics in treatment, you are prized material for being hired as an EAP staffer. It means you have been in the trenches, faced the defense mechanisms, and hopefully have been mentored by recovering persons (if you are not recovering yourself) who adhere to abstinence principles and 12-step programming as the most effective way to manage this chronic disease.
(It is truly amazing that when I blog on this topic, I get rabid members of Rational Recovery threatening to turn off my free speech rights with their conspiracy theories about AA.)
If you are new to the EAP field, and have not been in the trenches of alcoholism, there are few things you need to know.
First, don't think that understanding alcoholism or writing about it as new EAP professional will be an easy scrabble. The economics and politics of alcoholism diagnosis, causation, treatment, and ongoing recovery are profound , convoluted, and continue unabated.
Before you get into a discussion about alcoholism, do a few things that are really critical to your edification and orientation.
1. Go to a dozen or so open AA meetings and get oriented to "recovery think". Know what recovering people read, and have your own library of this material. (Also purchase alternative and controversial materials that argue against AA so you can see their rationalization and desperation to avoid what AA is about.) Memorize the twelve steps. You don't want to be caught unable to converse about the 5th step, the 4th step, or the conflict in treatment programs that push patients to go to the 4th step instead sticking with only the first three. (See what I mean?)
Not having this information will also cause issues with your clients who will expect for you to know more than they do about recovery initially.
2. Visit the Web site of the American Society on Addiction Medicine at http://asam.org. There is a ton of stuff on this site. Read their position papers. This association represents about four thousand medical doctors who are the leading authorities on addictive disease, alcoholism, and its treatment. They don't get a lot of press. Probably because they get a lot of folks upset who would otherwise report on their opinions. There is a simple explanation: Science and research simply don't mix well with the popular culture, which has a 5000 year head start ahead of them.
It is popular culture that drives belief systems about the disease. You need to separate the wheat from the shaft if you are going to work in this field effectively.
There a lot of people making money off of alcoholics. Whether it's trying to do psychotherapy with them while they are still drinking or drugging, selling them gimmicks, pushing alternative group therapies and "not-necessarily-abstinence" groups, pop-psych ideas about how to drink normally, etc., there is no end to the influx of confusion and interference that keeps alcoholism from being accepted by everyone (like cancer) that it is an authentic, chronic disease that requires abstinence to arrest its progression.
3. Read "Under the Influence" by James Milam and Katherine Ketchum. Still about $5.95 a paperback copy, it is a fascinating book that explains alcoholism as a chronic, genetically based illness so well, it is hard to put it down. Not sure if the author's original, self-published book, 'The Emergent Comprehensive Concept of Alcoholism" is still around, but if you find it, it will blow your mind about the economics and the forces in our larger society that have a vested interest in your not believing that this is a true disease.
Okay that's enough to blog about today, don't you think!
It's one of the "elephants in the living room" of the helping profession. One out of four people has an addict in their family, and myth and mythology over thousands of years keeps intervention, treatment, and recovery confusing and controversial.
From non-M.D. psychologists who are selected to be the U.S. Supreme Court consultants, who then push the idea that alcoholism is not a disease, to best selling authors telling us how alcoholics can drink safely, there is simply no shortage of information and "new thought" about alcoholism that continues to undermine the legitimacy of this disease and how it should be managed.
Of course, if you have worked directly with alcoholics in treatment, you are prized material for being hired as an EAP staffer. It means you have been in the trenches, faced the defense mechanisms, and hopefully have been mentored by recovering persons (if you are not recovering yourself) who adhere to abstinence principles and 12-step programming as the most effective way to manage this chronic disease.
(It is truly amazing that when I blog on this topic, I get rabid members of Rational Recovery threatening to turn off my free speech rights with their conspiracy theories about AA.)
If you are new to the EAP field, and have not been in the trenches of alcoholism, there are few things you need to know.
First, don't think that understanding alcoholism or writing about it as new EAP professional will be an easy scrabble. The economics and politics of alcoholism diagnosis, causation, treatment, and ongoing recovery are profound , convoluted, and continue unabated.
Before you get into a discussion about alcoholism, do a few things that are really critical to your edification and orientation.
1. Go to a dozen or so open AA meetings and get oriented to "recovery think". Know what recovering people read, and have your own library of this material. (Also purchase alternative and controversial materials that argue against AA so you can see their rationalization and desperation to avoid what AA is about.) Memorize the twelve steps. You don't want to be caught unable to converse about the 5th step, the 4th step, or the conflict in treatment programs that push patients to go to the 4th step instead sticking with only the first three. (See what I mean?)
Not having this information will also cause issues with your clients who will expect for you to know more than they do about recovery initially.
2. Visit the Web site of the American Society on Addiction Medicine at http://asam.org. There is a ton of stuff on this site. Read their position papers. This association represents about four thousand medical doctors who are the leading authorities on addictive disease, alcoholism, and its treatment. They don't get a lot of press. Probably because they get a lot of folks upset who would otherwise report on their opinions. There is a simple explanation: Science and research simply don't mix well with the popular culture, which has a 5000 year head start ahead of them.
It is popular culture that drives belief systems about the disease. You need to separate the wheat from the shaft if you are going to work in this field effectively.
There a lot of people making money off of alcoholics. Whether it's trying to do psychotherapy with them while they are still drinking or drugging, selling them gimmicks, pushing alternative group therapies and "not-necessarily-abstinence" groups, pop-psych ideas about how to drink normally, etc., there is no end to the influx of confusion and interference that keeps alcoholism from being accepted by everyone (like cancer) that it is an authentic, chronic disease that requires abstinence to arrest its progression.
3. Read "Under the Influence" by James Milam and Katherine Ketchum. Still about $5.95 a paperback copy, it is a fascinating book that explains alcoholism as a chronic, genetically based illness so well, it is hard to put it down. Not sure if the author's original, self-published book, 'The Emergent Comprehensive Concept of Alcoholism" is still around, but if you find it, it will blow your mind about the economics and the forces in our larger society that have a vested interest in your not believing that this is a true disease.
Okay that's enough to blog about today, don't you think!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Link Fixed
A link was broken on my last post. It's fixed, or you can click here.
Preventing Workplace Violence
Preventing Workplace Violence
Workplace Violence Video
I finished Video #3 in the Workplace Media Library 2010 series. This module is entitled Preventing Workplace Violence. It runs 12 minutes and I think it covers all of the bases.
While writing this program for EAP web sites and other workplace services, I took advantage of my experience as a victim of bullying when I was working for the CIA in 1978. (I eventually took a position in the CIA's occupational alcoholism program, but just prior, had a job in the Office of Logistics in Langley, VA doing various types of unclassified building work.)
I was able to stop the bullying permanently in a very satisfying manner. I zapped the perpetrator one day when he was arrested by a Federal police office for throwing lighted matches over the top of his head in an effort to hit me with them while I was walking down a hallway following behind. All for no reason. No reason at all. Just "fun". I was the chosen one--this guy's toy.
Luckily, it was all spotted by a Federal Police Officer guarding the hallway. She approached me and asked if I wanted to file a report. "Absolutely", I said. After numerous other events, it was the perfect opportunity.
The rest is a history of no more stress from this jerk, but the point of this story is that horseplay is illegal in Federal office buildings, and no matter where it is, it often turns violent. It frequently has victims, causes property damage, the clear example should encourage you to mentioned it in your training.
I have never seen horseplay mentioned in violence prevention materials, but this one does include it in one strong slide.
You will see other original content in this violence in the workplace prevention Power Point video. I also encourage employees to attend CISD debriefings offered by the organization after a violent incident, tips on avoiding assault, what the organization's EAP can do, how employees should be "change-agents" in promoting respect and avoid provoking a violent response from an employee who may not react rationally from picked on and bullied.
You can see the Preventing Violence at Work video here. Also, you may be interested in the Workplace Video Web Content Subscription as well. The program is designed to drive the cost down for these new products.
While writing this program for EAP web sites and other workplace services, I took advantage of my experience as a victim of bullying when I was working for the CIA in 1978. (I eventually took a position in the CIA's occupational alcoholism program, but just prior, had a job in the Office of Logistics in Langley, VA doing various types of unclassified building work.)
I was able to stop the bullying permanently in a very satisfying manner. I zapped the perpetrator one day when he was arrested by a Federal police office for throwing lighted matches over the top of his head in an effort to hit me with them while I was walking down a hallway following behind. All for no reason. No reason at all. Just "fun". I was the chosen one--this guy's toy.
Luckily, it was all spotted by a Federal Police Officer guarding the hallway. She approached me and asked if I wanted to file a report. "Absolutely", I said. After numerous other events, it was the perfect opportunity.
The rest is a history of no more stress from this jerk, but the point of this story is that horseplay is illegal in Federal office buildings, and no matter where it is, it often turns violent. It frequently has victims, causes property damage, the clear example should encourage you to mentioned it in your training.
I have never seen horseplay mentioned in violence prevention materials, but this one does include it in one strong slide.
You will see other original content in this violence in the workplace prevention Power Point video. I also encourage employees to attend CISD debriefings offered by the organization after a violent incident, tips on avoiding assault, what the organization's EAP can do, how employees should be "change-agents" in promoting respect and avoid provoking a violent response from an employee who may not react rationally from picked on and bullied.
You can see the Preventing Violence at Work video here. Also, you may be interested in the Workplace Video Web Content Subscription as well. The program is designed to drive the cost down for these new products.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
EAPs Can Do Managed Care and Increase Their Value
1. If you work for an internal EAP with a company that is self-insured, consider approaching your human resources and benefits management team to discuss the possibility of getting the mental health component of your EAP "carved out" so you can provide limited managed care services. If you are a very well trusted tenured pro, they just might consider it. Listen up. I am not recommending to you anything that I have not done myself, including this task.
2. If you can achieve this goal, it will increase utilization rates dramatically. Here is the selling angle: 1) The EAP can pre-screen and refer employees to appropriate mental health professionals based upon their clinical evaluations and guidance. This will save money by getting employees to the right provider the first time.
As an incentive, permit 80% coverage for mental health benefits versus 50% for those that don't go through the EAP. Self-insured companies can do this sort of thing. This will also allow the EAP to identify behavioral/medical problems that may underlie existing disorders contributing to the symptoms brought to the EAP session by the client.
3. Even a phone interview with an employee to discuss a referral -- in the event the employee does not perceive the need for a face-to-face interview, or refuses -- can go along way toward identifying primary health problems that can be more effectively treated by the referral source the EAP might suggest.
4. If you succeed in getting a carve-out, the primary services you will provide include: 1) approving therapists; 2) notifying the insurance company who they should approve payment for; 3) re-certifying regularly; 4) selecting providers when a specialist on the managed care panel doesn't exist; and, 5) deciding to pay higher fees than the managed care company is willing to do themselves. This is a good deal for employees and can increase confidentiality. Yes, it will save money for the company, too. That's right, many managed care companies will not require "outpatient treatment reports" and they will accept the EAP's approval of out-of-panel therapists. You decide. You have to be diligent, but remember, "its your money not managed care's money."
5. All of this can limit the amount of clinical information, other than a CPT code, that will go to the massive computer memory at the managed care company. This improves actual and perceived confidentiality. Survey other internal programs nationwide to identify strategies capable of adding this dimension to your EAP services.
If you are interested in seeing the new “Preventing Violence in the Workplace” program (five formats available), reply back here and I will make sure you are on my early release list to view it, and get the limited time discount. This is a reward for being nice enough to sign up for this blog. More to come in the future! The discount won't be as low as the Flash Video Subscription Service (you know about this product, right?) subscripton service, but it will be signficant. The program is in sound in Flash Video for your web site, DVD, PowerPoint, and a self-playing Flash CD.
2. If you can achieve this goal, it will increase utilization rates dramatically. Here is the selling angle: 1) The EAP can pre-screen and refer employees to appropriate mental health professionals based upon their clinical evaluations and guidance. This will save money by getting employees to the right provider the first time.
As an incentive, permit 80% coverage for mental health benefits versus 50% for those that don't go through the EAP. Self-insured companies can do this sort of thing. This will also allow the EAP to identify behavioral/medical problems that may underlie existing disorders contributing to the symptoms brought to the EAP session by the client.
3. Even a phone interview with an employee to discuss a referral -- in the event the employee does not perceive the need for a face-to-face interview, or refuses -- can go along way toward identifying primary health problems that can be more effectively treated by the referral source the EAP might suggest.
4. If you succeed in getting a carve-out, the primary services you will provide include: 1) approving therapists; 2) notifying the insurance company who they should approve payment for; 3) re-certifying regularly; 4) selecting providers when a specialist on the managed care panel doesn't exist; and, 5) deciding to pay higher fees than the managed care company is willing to do themselves. This is a good deal for employees and can increase confidentiality. Yes, it will save money for the company, too. That's right, many managed care companies will not require "outpatient treatment reports" and they will accept the EAP's approval of out-of-panel therapists. You decide. You have to be diligent, but remember, "its your money not managed care's money."
5. All of this can limit the amount of clinical information, other than a CPT code, that will go to the massive computer memory at the managed care company. This improves actual and perceived confidentiality. Survey other internal programs nationwide to identify strategies capable of adding this dimension to your EAP services.
If you are interested in seeing the new “Preventing Violence in the Workplace” program (five formats available), reply back here and I will make sure you are on my early release list to view it, and get the limited time discount. This is a reward for being nice enough to sign up for this blog. More to come in the future! The discount won't be as low as the Flash Video Subscription Service (you know about this product, right?) subscripton service, but it will be signficant. The program is in sound in Flash Video for your web site, DVD, PowerPoint, and a self-playing Flash CD.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Is Your Quarterly EAP Newsletter Placing Your Program in Danger of Being Cut?
What a weird question? Well, it's one of the many elephants in the EAP living room, so let's discuss it.
Can an EAP newsletter that you distribute too infrequently make your program less visible and more likely to be cut? After communicating with hundreds of EAPs and watching what happens internally with EAPs that I have managed, I have slowly gravitated to an answer on this question. It’s “yes”.
It’s convenient not dealing with the distribution of a newsletter more often, but still appearing as though you are “doing something” to promote your EAP. Is this your mindset?
This vintage approach to communicating wellness information in a technological era has become almost an apologetic frequency as your newsletter sheepishly slips into employee in-boxes every three months.
I would like to make the argument that this is too infrequent and makes a statement about the importance of this material and your program, in particular.
Do you disagree? Consider why you do this. Is it because there is a history of EAPs always doing it this way because that is all that was initially available from vendor sources? So, by default, did it become the standard for EAPs, and you copied others? I think this is precisely what happened.
Since I joined ALMACA (EAPA’s early name) in 1978 – 32 years ago I have witnessed the evolution of this service. And, I have watched it grow more important.
With all the stress that employees face, and with the degree of importance that you place on your EAP as a life-saving and cost-saving mechanism, isn’t it a bit ironic that you only distribute a quarterly newsletter to employees when you could do it bimonthly or monthly for less, and with less hassle?
You may have a quick comeback — employees have too much to read! Don’t fool yourself. This is your codependency talking. You're giving in to a HR manager’s phone call telling you to slow it down about other material you may have sent. Or it's simply your imagination, because you haven't received such a phone call at all. You're just making this statement to avoid the work and it sounds damn good. I have caught many EAPs in this argument. It's not reality. This, too-much-to-read line is bogus.
If you are hearing this line, it is all about muscling you around and telling the EAP how to do its job. Why is that the most important thing employees read regarding their well-being and perhaps the one thing that they really look forward to most receiving, is the one thing that should be cut back?
What you’re hearing from HR, if indeed at all, is one HR manager’s opinion, or at best a manager’s opinion relayed via HR.
You need to understand something: HR managers don’t argue with top managers. They are their primary customers. Instead HR managers ask how high to jump. Corporations are on a big outsource-the-HR-departmet kick these days, and HR managers -- like EAPs are a threatened species.
I assure you that you are not getting the results of a survey that is supported by employee opinions.
Here’s the problem. Employee newsletters have historically been four pages. The problem begins and ends there.
Quarterly newsletters are always print or sub-links to the vendors own web site destroying your seamless look. They are expensive, with 500-600 word articles, and they are a vintage solution manufactured for EAPs in the early 1980’s when anything more frequent would be over-kill. Employees had more leisure time then to read these "books".
But the problem today is that they sacrifice your EAP or program visibility. You become less competitive with other things in the organization. You don’t want that. It will jeopardize your program.
You are sacrificing visibility and communicating the message that quarterly life-saving health and wellness information is quite enough. Trust me, you do not want to send this message.
An EAP newsletter is a resource, and visibility mechanism, and item of extreme interest to employees. And it is a way to compete against other things in the environment that are targeting the employee’s attention. You must not give in to the “stop distributing this material because our employees don’t have time to read it” mantra.
Instead, stop sending 4-page newsletters. Send two-page newsletters bimonthly or monthly.
Employees do not generally finish or complete four-page newsletters in my experience and in my view. This is another reason that you are locked into a 4-page solution distributed quarterly. It’s nuts to send it more often! And its expensive. So, change the model to the 2010 solution. Get out of the 1980's.
In this era, go for less content, shorter more action-oriented tight copy, and more frequency with the ability to edit the content yourself on the fly. This way your EAP will stay visible, be perceived as being more valuable and relevant, and be more effectively mainstreamed. Anything less and you’re in danger of being seen as expendable during next budget cycle.
Distribute EAP-wellness-productivity newsletters via PDF. Post them on your web site and send a link to employees when they are added to the site.
Distribute print to employees without computers, or send copies to appropriate locations. Your utilization will increase, your visibility will be enhanced, you will spend less, and employees will read more, more frequently. Your EAP will be talked about more often, and this is what you want.
A two-page monthly newsletter is 50% more content than a quarterly four-page newsletter! (Read that again.) And, the two-pager is more likely to be completely read. Are you with me?
You’ll will also reduce waste, motivate more self-referrals, and reduce more risk to the organization with a two—pager, monthly newsletter. Oh, and it will cost less than print. Everything I am writing here is pure logic and it holds up in real life.
Still need paper, make copies from your clean PDF supplied by the vendor. Can’t get permission from the vendor? Dump the newsletter vendor!
FrontLine Employee and WorkLife Excel are your modern day solutions to effective employee and EAP newsletters.
You can get brochures here:
FRONTLINE EMPLOYEE EAP WORKPLACE NEWSLETTER
WORK-LIFE-EXCEL WORKPLACE NEWSLETTER
Can an EAP newsletter that you distribute too infrequently make your program less visible and more likely to be cut? After communicating with hundreds of EAPs and watching what happens internally with EAPs that I have managed, I have slowly gravitated to an answer on this question. It’s “yes”.
It’s convenient not dealing with the distribution of a newsletter more often, but still appearing as though you are “doing something” to promote your EAP. Is this your mindset?
This vintage approach to communicating wellness information in a technological era has become almost an apologetic frequency as your newsletter sheepishly slips into employee in-boxes every three months.
I would like to make the argument that this is too infrequent and makes a statement about the importance of this material and your program, in particular.
Do you disagree? Consider why you do this. Is it because there is a history of EAPs always doing it this way because that is all that was initially available from vendor sources? So, by default, did it become the standard for EAPs, and you copied others? I think this is precisely what happened.
Since I joined ALMACA (EAPA’s early name) in 1978 – 32 years ago I have witnessed the evolution of this service. And, I have watched it grow more important.
With all the stress that employees face, and with the degree of importance that you place on your EAP as a life-saving and cost-saving mechanism, isn’t it a bit ironic that you only distribute a quarterly newsletter to employees when you could do it bimonthly or monthly for less, and with less hassle?
You may have a quick comeback — employees have too much to read! Don’t fool yourself. This is your codependency talking. You're giving in to a HR manager’s phone call telling you to slow it down about other material you may have sent. Or it's simply your imagination, because you haven't received such a phone call at all. You're just making this statement to avoid the work and it sounds damn good. I have caught many EAPs in this argument. It's not reality. This, too-much-to-read line is bogus.
If you are hearing this line, it is all about muscling you around and telling the EAP how to do its job. Why is that the most important thing employees read regarding their well-being and perhaps the one thing that they really look forward to most receiving, is the one thing that should be cut back?
What you’re hearing from HR, if indeed at all, is one HR manager’s opinion, or at best a manager’s opinion relayed via HR.
You need to understand something: HR managers don’t argue with top managers. They are their primary customers. Instead HR managers ask how high to jump. Corporations are on a big outsource-the-HR-departmet kick these days, and HR managers -- like EAPs are a threatened species.
I assure you that you are not getting the results of a survey that is supported by employee opinions.
Here’s the problem. Employee newsletters have historically been four pages. The problem begins and ends there.
Quarterly newsletters are always print or sub-links to the vendors own web site destroying your seamless look. They are expensive, with 500-600 word articles, and they are a vintage solution manufactured for EAPs in the early 1980’s when anything more frequent would be over-kill. Employees had more leisure time then to read these "books".
But the problem today is that they sacrifice your EAP or program visibility. You become less competitive with other things in the organization. You don’t want that. It will jeopardize your program.
You are sacrificing visibility and communicating the message that quarterly life-saving health and wellness information is quite enough. Trust me, you do not want to send this message.
An EAP newsletter is a resource, and visibility mechanism, and item of extreme interest to employees. And it is a way to compete against other things in the environment that are targeting the employee’s attention. You must not give in to the “stop distributing this material because our employees don’t have time to read it” mantra.
Instead, stop sending 4-page newsletters. Send two-page newsletters bimonthly or monthly.
Employees do not generally finish or complete four-page newsletters in my experience and in my view. This is another reason that you are locked into a 4-page solution distributed quarterly. It’s nuts to send it more often! And its expensive. So, change the model to the 2010 solution. Get out of the 1980's.
In this era, go for less content, shorter more action-oriented tight copy, and more frequency with the ability to edit the content yourself on the fly. This way your EAP will stay visible, be perceived as being more valuable and relevant, and be more effectively mainstreamed. Anything less and you’re in danger of being seen as expendable during next budget cycle.
Distribute EAP-wellness-productivity newsletters via PDF. Post them on your web site and send a link to employees when they are added to the site.
Distribute print to employees without computers, or send copies to appropriate locations. Your utilization will increase, your visibility will be enhanced, you will spend less, and employees will read more, more frequently. Your EAP will be talked about more often, and this is what you want.
A two-page monthly newsletter is 50% more content than a quarterly four-page newsletter! (Read that again.) And, the two-pager is more likely to be completely read. Are you with me?
You’ll will also reduce waste, motivate more self-referrals, and reduce more risk to the organization with a two—pager, monthly newsletter. Oh, and it will cost less than print. Everything I am writing here is pure logic and it holds up in real life.
Still need paper, make copies from your clean PDF supplied by the vendor. Can’t get permission from the vendor? Dump the newsletter vendor!
FrontLine Employee and WorkLife Excel are your modern day solutions to effective employee and EAP newsletters.
You can get brochures here:
FRONTLINE EMPLOYEE EAP WORKPLACE NEWSLETTER
WORK-LIFE-EXCEL WORKPLACE NEWSLETTER
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