No EA professional that I know of has ever helped a troubled employee learn this strategy, but it will go light years in helping employees with performance problems flip overnight to become outstanding employees if they aren't impeded by a severe personal problems like alcohol or drug addiction. To purchase this fact sheet go to http://www.workexcel.com/. It's reproducible and editable, and you put your name on it, etc. Search for fact sheet E076 after November 10, 2008. That is when I will have it posted.
Understanding Completed Staff Work
Maximizing your effectiveness in providing superiors with realistic and actionable solutions to problems is one of the quickest ways to enhance your value within an organization. Understanding the principles of Completed Staff Work will help you to develop a comprehensive and systematic approach to researching, documenting, and presenting your recommendations to your superiors.
Completed Staff Work is a doctrine originally developed in the U.S. military that describes the standard of responsibility, thoroughness, detail, professionalism, and accountability required when preparing material for a superior.
According to a document prepared by the Office of the Provost Marshall General of the U.S. Army, Completed Staff Work is “the study of a problem and presentation of a solution by a staff officer in such a form that all that remains to be done on the part of the head of the staff division, or the commander, is to indicate his approval or disapproval of the completed action.” (Harari)
Principles of Completed Staff Work
Independence
Creating Completed Staff Work is as much about process as result. When you are charged with finding solutions for your superior, your job is to work without further input or advice from your superior. Although certain matters may need clarification during this process, all details necessary to researching, documenting, analyzing, and providing a solution are your responsibility.
Thoroughness
Your research and analysis should be exhaustive, considering all possible scenarios,
alternatives, and repercussions in determining the best recommended course of action. This recommendation should include thoughtful and detailed steps for implementation, including contingencies for any foreseeable problems.
Clarity
Once your research and analysis are complete, you should prepare your final recommendations to your superior in a short, concise format. Your presentation should present a clear, unmistakable conclusion that leaves no question unanswered.
Ownership
Completed Staff Work requires the individual presenting the material to take a strong, clear position. Bureaucratic doublespeak and tepid conclusions are unacceptable. Your final recommendation should be one that you would be willing to stake your career upon.
Rising to the standard of Completed Staff Work requires the best that an employee has to offer. The default operating procedure in many bureaucracies is to limit personal risk, shift responsibility, and do the minimum required to “get by.”
Consistently presenting Completed Staff Work to your superiors will set you apart from peers and earn you notice as a serious and diligent professional.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Old Trick Pulls Utilization--Table Top Tents
Yes, it's simple. But, if you have a workplace with a large cafeteria, table-top tents (cardstock
paper folded in half with your EAP message on either side placed in the middle of
the table) can be effective at marketing the EAP. MS Publisher -- a common Microsoft Office software program can provide you with a quick do-it-yourself template for this marketing strategy.
Use 100# cover or card stock paper or this strategy to prevent drooping messages! It stays standing.
Consider placing five questions about your EAP that target myths and misconceptions about confidentiality, communication with management, what kind of problem EAPs tackle, and other interesting--tough but contraversial questions--on one side of the card and the answers to these questions on the other side of the card. This will stimulate conversation between employees at the table with one asking questions and the other trying to respond with the correct answer.
Everyone will be talking about the EAP by the early afternoon guaranteed.
Use questions that dispel myths and misconceptions about the EAP. Directly under the answers, consider providing additional information in smaller type that expounds on the answer given to the question on the other side of the card.
Consider these issues: Is the EAP is part of the disciplinary process? Is the EAP is therapy? Biographies about staff. Do supervisors find out what employees use the EAP? Can family members use the EAP? What confidentiality laws that govern EAP records, etc. Why EAPs formed. History of EAPs.
Don’t forget to put the phone number of the EAP on the card!
paper folded in half with your EAP message on either side placed in the middle of
the table) can be effective at marketing the EAP. MS Publisher -- a common Microsoft Office software program can provide you with a quick do-it-yourself template for this marketing strategy.
Use 100# cover or card stock paper or this strategy to prevent drooping messages! It stays standing.
Consider placing five questions about your EAP that target myths and misconceptions about confidentiality, communication with management, what kind of problem EAPs tackle, and other interesting--tough but contraversial questions--on one side of the card and the answers to these questions on the other side of the card. This will stimulate conversation between employees at the table with one asking questions and the other trying to respond with the correct answer.
Everyone will be talking about the EAP by the early afternoon guaranteed.
Use questions that dispel myths and misconceptions about the EAP. Directly under the answers, consider providing additional information in smaller type that expounds on the answer given to the question on the other side of the card.
Consider these issues: Is the EAP is part of the disciplinary process? Is the EAP is therapy? Biographies about staff. Do supervisors find out what employees use the EAP? Can family members use the EAP? What confidentiality laws that govern EAP records, etc. Why EAPs formed. History of EAPs.
Don’t forget to put the phone number of the EAP on the card!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
How to Get a Whopper of High EAP Utilization By Promoting Your Professional Staff
Chances are your EAP staff are a unique bunch of folks, but employees within your organization simply don’t know much about them. Of course, they may have heard a brief bio at an EAP orientation but, this alone is not enough to have a favorable impact on your EAP utilization.
Promote your staff using internal communication like your EAP newsletter or other in-house publications. If an organization that you are serving as an EAP provider has its unique internal newsletter, say at a large bank or other business, go to the public relations department and suggest that they run a series of articles that highlight your EAP staff, their background, and skills. A picture along with the bio is a plus.
Specialities such addiction intervention, mental health treatment, adolescent expertise, family counseling, or eldercare resource knowledge will draw employees who identify with those problems. “Identify” is the key word. Simply telling employees that EAPs deal with personal problems is not as effective as actually talking about the specialties of EA staff directly. You want your potential client to get closer to the EAP, and you do this by creating imagery of expertise that the client will feel attraction to using. This makes it all real. Employees don’t want to see themselves as having “personal problems.” They will however, be attracted to solutions.
They much rather stay in denial about the label, and pursue help for their pain. Don’t profile all your staff at once. This is too overwhelming, and a tactical mistake. Instead, dedicate a whole column to one staff member. Really get in there and supply some detail. Then watch how the phone rings. Two years later, do the same thing, but come at it from a different angle. This time discuss past positions prior to the EAP, hobbies, or unique interests. Make your staff real, and you will get a real return.
Promote your staff using internal communication like your EAP newsletter or other in-house publications. If an organization that you are serving as an EAP provider has its unique internal newsletter, say at a large bank or other business, go to the public relations department and suggest that they run a series of articles that highlight your EAP staff, their background, and skills. A picture along with the bio is a plus.
Specialities such addiction intervention, mental health treatment, adolescent expertise, family counseling, or eldercare resource knowledge will draw employees who identify with those problems. “Identify” is the key word. Simply telling employees that EAPs deal with personal problems is not as effective as actually talking about the specialties of EA staff directly. You want your potential client to get closer to the EAP, and you do this by creating imagery of expertise that the client will feel attraction to using. This makes it all real. Employees don’t want to see themselves as having “personal problems.” They will however, be attracted to solutions.
They much rather stay in denial about the label, and pursue help for their pain. Don’t profile all your staff at once. This is too overwhelming, and a tactical mistake. Instead, dedicate a whole column to one staff member. Really get in there and supply some detail. Then watch how the phone rings. Two years later, do the same thing, but come at it from a different angle. This time discuss past positions prior to the EAP, hobbies, or unique interests. Make your staff real, and you will get a real return.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
EAP Marketing and Utilization: Channels of Communication
One of the secrets to promoting any product or service is becoming a pro at using multiple channels of communication for that product or service in delivering the marketing or promotional message to the customer. In this sense, I am speaking about potential EAP clients (employees or work units) within the organization that can take advantage of your services. Increasing your EAP utilization or marketing EAP services effectively requires analyzing and studying these channels of communication and keeping your eyes open for new ones as they pop up. You may spot one at any moment as it produces an EAP client. That’s a signal to grab it, stick it in your marketing basket, and add it to your marketing mix. A focused discussion with your staff can produce more through a brainstorming process, but arriving at the point where your antenna go up with "Marketing Channel, Alert! Alert!", is the place you need to eventually arrive.
If you worry about your EAP utilization, the answer to increasing it off the charts lies in examining, tracking, and exploiting these marketing channels. Putting pen to paper to identify them and work them strategically can boost your utilization rate, reduce behavioral risk exposure in the organization, and provide evidence to prospective EAP corporate customers that expertise in your craft is going to return big bucks to them in cost-benefit if they go with your proposal. It may also prevent your EAP from closing its doors or getting farmed out to an 800 number in a cubicle on the 24th floor of an office building on the other side of the country. Understanding marketing channels is not only an art, but an essential strategic undertaking in the survival and growth of your EAP.
You are already very familiar with one or two channels of communication that apply to your employee assistance program. One no-brainer is the EAP brochure distributed in strategic locations within the organization. Another channel is your health and productivity, or work-life newsletter given to employees at a frequency decent enough that you are actually remembered. And still another is making short presentations on mental health or work-life topics. There may be 20 to 30, and even more marketing channels that escape your awareness, yet each may potentially contribute to a higher EAP utilization. You should identify these channels of communication so you can work them to your advantage. If you do not make a focused effort on doing this, you can easily miss half of them.
Channels of communication reinforce each other and each contributes to increasing or maintaining your EAP's utilization. In the next few messages, I will begin discussing a few of these with the goal of helping you establish a 6th sense for spotting these gems and mining them for the benefit of your EAP, corporate customers, and most important troubled employees.
If you worry about your EAP utilization, the answer to increasing it off the charts lies in examining, tracking, and exploiting these marketing channels. Putting pen to paper to identify them and work them strategically can boost your utilization rate, reduce behavioral risk exposure in the organization, and provide evidence to prospective EAP corporate customers that expertise in your craft is going to return big bucks to them in cost-benefit if they go with your proposal. It may also prevent your EAP from closing its doors or getting farmed out to an 800 number in a cubicle on the 24th floor of an office building on the other side of the country. Understanding marketing channels is not only an art, but an essential strategic undertaking in the survival and growth of your EAP.
You are already very familiar with one or two channels of communication that apply to your employee assistance program. One no-brainer is the EAP brochure distributed in strategic locations within the organization. Another channel is your health and productivity, or work-life newsletter given to employees at a frequency decent enough that you are actually remembered. And still another is making short presentations on mental health or work-life topics. There may be 20 to 30, and even more marketing channels that escape your awareness, yet each may potentially contribute to a higher EAP utilization. You should identify these channels of communication so you can work them to your advantage. If you do not make a focused effort on doing this, you can easily miss half of them.
Channels of communication reinforce each other and each contributes to increasing or maintaining your EAP's utilization. In the next few messages, I will begin discussing a few of these with the goal of helping you establish a 6th sense for spotting these gems and mining them for the benefit of your EAP, corporate customers, and most important troubled employees.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Mastering EAP Word of Mouth Advertising
Nothing works like word-of-mouth advertising, and the best part is that it's free. Did you know that word-of-mouth marketing is taught to employees at Disneyworld? It's is a major marketing strategy for them. And it can be the same for your EAP. What's more, you can influence word-of-mouth advertising favorably with a conscious approach to a marketing strategy that includes it. You don't have to hope that word-of-mouth advertising works. You can know it is working. Let's talk about that.
There is a single, basic secret to stimulating a high rate of word-of-mouth advertising among employees so your EAP will be well utilized.
The key is this: Purposely, consciously, find ways to do what you do so well and so uniquely that employees cannot resist telling other employees about it. When it comes to Disneyworld, their target for what they do exceptionally well that flips people out is cleanliness and authenticity. That's what sticks in people's minds who visit Disneyworld--how clean the place is, and how real everything looks in those theme parks. When people go back home after visiting, they tell coworkers. The rest is dominos.
You will stimulate referrals if you apply the same formula to your EAP.
A quick digression: Remember, as I have said on numerous occasions, you must market confidentiality in numerous ways. Any EAP client fears a lack of confidentiailty. This "concern" will breed its own counter-measures to your confidentiality message if you do not beat it back by promoting and marketing the confidential nature of your EAP frequently. Without that, not much else will aide your word-of-mouth marketing efforts.
What will give EAP clients a "wow" experience?
Here are few suggestions: Treat employees with tremendous respect--almost as though they are your first client ever, or that they are visitors to the Ritz. Tell them how you store information they provide you and explain the confidential process of how that information is retained. Give them a cup of coffee in the waiting room. Follow-up and find out how clients are doing, and use a tickler system to do so in the future, even if their personal problem is not associated with something major like abstinence from drug use. Use your professional self to communicate a feeling of enhancement--that the client is going to be a happier person as a result of coming to the EAP and something is going to be added to their life. Certainly you believe this is the case, but communicating it in so many words or with your tone and non-verbal approach to the client gets missed. Understand that everything you do relates to word-of-mouth advertising and you may discover a new attitude about service and energy in your EAP work.
There is a single, basic secret to stimulating a high rate of word-of-mouth advertising among employees so your EAP will be well utilized.
The key is this: Purposely, consciously, find ways to do what you do so well and so uniquely that employees cannot resist telling other employees about it. When it comes to Disneyworld, their target for what they do exceptionally well that flips people out is cleanliness and authenticity. That's what sticks in people's minds who visit Disneyworld--how clean the place is, and how real everything looks in those theme parks. When people go back home after visiting, they tell coworkers. The rest is dominos.
You will stimulate referrals if you apply the same formula to your EAP.
A quick digression: Remember, as I have said on numerous occasions, you must market confidentiality in numerous ways. Any EAP client fears a lack of confidentiailty. This "concern" will breed its own counter-measures to your confidentiality message if you do not beat it back by promoting and marketing the confidential nature of your EAP frequently. Without that, not much else will aide your word-of-mouth marketing efforts.
What will give EAP clients a "wow" experience?
Here are few suggestions: Treat employees with tremendous respect--almost as though they are your first client ever, or that they are visitors to the Ritz. Tell them how you store information they provide you and explain the confidential process of how that information is retained. Give them a cup of coffee in the waiting room. Follow-up and find out how clients are doing, and use a tickler system to do so in the future, even if their personal problem is not associated with something major like abstinence from drug use. Use your professional self to communicate a feeling of enhancement--that the client is going to be a happier person as a result of coming to the EAP and something is going to be added to their life. Certainly you believe this is the case, but communicating it in so many words or with your tone and non-verbal approach to the client gets missed. Understand that everything you do relates to word-of-mouth advertising and you may discover a new attitude about service and energy in your EAP work.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Employees Have Questions About Your EAP
Answer Key EAP Questions in Newsletters
Do you issue an EAP newsletter to the workforce that addresses productivity, work-life, and a variety of personal problems that employees and their family members face? If so, you have an excellent forum for answering common questions about the EAP that can increase your utilization and program security.
Here are a few questions I bet you have not been asked by employees, but many employees have them. It is not the common questions--it's the unusual questions--employees want to hear answers to. And your newsletter should be answering them. Not only are they more intriguing, they also inspire employees to use your program because they are memorable.
Employees will read the answers to the following questions with earnest. How many could you answer right now without thinking about it?
“Can the EAP call my friend who is depressed. I’ve asked her to contact the EAP, but I think she is too depressed to make the call?”
“If my supervisor refers me to the EAP can he or she take disciplinary action if I don’t go?”
“How confidential is the EAP, really?”
“Is the EAP ‘counseling’, ‘therapy’,‘assessment’, or all three?”
"Can my supervisor tell other supervisors, and can they in-turn tell other employees that I went to the EAP? How is that confidential? What penalties do they face for disclosing my participation?
Can I choose my own counselor? One of the EA counselors is best friends with my mother.
Do you see how these questions both help employees feel better about the EAP and increase the likelihood of the program being used? If you have your own newsletter, you can answer questions like these and many more. They are not the kind of questions that you are likely to put in a general information brochure. But inquiring employee minds want to know. And there are many more.
Consider calling such a column in your newsletter, “Employees Ask About the EAP” This type of employee education is essential. Many employees in the company or companies you serve have not had a presentation from the EAP to orient them to the program in years. Many may have been absent the day they were supposed to attend their first such presentation. Most companies will never give you a second opportunity to have an EAP orientation program for employees to answer questions about the EAP.
The questions above are just a few of the types of questions you may want to consider. You can create many more qusetions yourself based upon the experiences you have had as an EA professional with the companies you serve. Answering common employee questions will stimulate referrals and improve management’s satisfaction with your program. Guaranteed.
Do you issue an EAP newsletter to the workforce that addresses productivity, work-life, and a variety of personal problems that employees and their family members face? If so, you have an excellent forum for answering common questions about the EAP that can increase your utilization and program security.
Here are a few questions I bet you have not been asked by employees, but many employees have them. It is not the common questions--it's the unusual questions--employees want to hear answers to. And your newsletter should be answering them. Not only are they more intriguing, they also inspire employees to use your program because they are memorable.
Employees will read the answers to the following questions with earnest. How many could you answer right now without thinking about it?
“Can the EAP call my friend who is depressed. I’ve asked her to contact the EAP, but I think she is too depressed to make the call?”
“If my supervisor refers me to the EAP can he or she take disciplinary action if I don’t go?”
“How confidential is the EAP, really?”
“Is the EAP ‘counseling’, ‘therapy’,‘assessment’, or all three?”
"Can my supervisor tell other supervisors, and can they in-turn tell other employees that I went to the EAP? How is that confidential? What penalties do they face for disclosing my participation?
Can I choose my own counselor? One of the EA counselors is best friends with my mother.
Do you see how these questions both help employees feel better about the EAP and increase the likelihood of the program being used? If you have your own newsletter, you can answer questions like these and many more. They are not the kind of questions that you are likely to put in a general information brochure. But inquiring employee minds want to know. And there are many more.
Consider calling such a column in your newsletter, “Employees Ask About the EAP” This type of employee education is essential. Many employees in the company or companies you serve have not had a presentation from the EAP to orient them to the program in years. Many may have been absent the day they were supposed to attend their first such presentation. Most companies will never give you a second opportunity to have an EAP orientation program for employees to answer questions about the EAP.
The questions above are just a few of the types of questions you may want to consider. You can create many more qusetions yourself based upon the experiences you have had as an EA professional with the companies you serve. Answering common employee questions will stimulate referrals and improve management’s satisfaction with your program. Guaranteed.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Helping Disciplined Employees
Click here for New Fact Sheet for Download but read about it first.
Employers and employees equally dislike the dispensing of discipline, also referred to as adverse actions. When discipline happens, a variety of employee reactions are possible. Some employees accept discipline as a constructive experience and opportunity for change. Others react to discipline with anger, resentment, threats, and in the worst cases, violence of the worst kind.
Discipline isn't going away, no matter what kind of reaction employees have to it. Some organizations make it the last resort, but nevertheless, helping employees respond to discipline in a constructive way is a worthy, possibly life-saving endeavor.
Without a doubt, EAPs are in the best position to help employees gain the most from a disciplinary experience, both in heeding its message and gaining the most personal growth from the crisis it represents. Whether it's discovering an unresolved personal problem that contributes to problematic behavior, or reframing discipline as an opportunity for a better future going forward, managing an employee's reaction to discipline remains somewhat unexplored territory for stakeholders.
The most rudimentary steps have been recommended by some insurance companies to prevent violence following disciplinary actions. However, these ultimate payors of enormous sums resulting from violent reactions to discipline have not used EAP processes to their fullest advantage.
This is another argument for EAPs being an essential part of any organization's risk management strategy, not just a service tucked into a benefits package. The excitement lies in advocating for this increasing role for EAPs in work organizations to save lives and money. Is this the shortest distance between two points? Is an all out assault on the goal of incorporating EAPs in risk management strategies to help allay the financial risk of major insurers easier hanging fruit for us? Is it a faster walk to what we all want than searching for next rung on the "EAP ladder of acceptance" using long-term strategies like funding more research to prove our worthiness? I think free markets and market forces have faster solutions for EAPs. Practiticioners must take the lead in the field, not academics. What do you think? (Just thinking outloud here folks.)
This month's editable and reproducible fact sheet, When You've Been Disciplined at Work, is designed to add to your ability to help employees respond constructively to the disciplinary experience. It's part of the new GROUP 5 fact sheets released today at EAPtools.com.
Amend this fact sheet with your own experience. Do collaborate on its use with your HR and management partners. I am certain you will find creative ways to use it--perhaps before discipline happens--to help employees, protect organizations, and possibly save lives. New Fact Sheet for Download http://workexcel.com/discipline.html
Employers and employees equally dislike the dispensing of discipline, also referred to as adverse actions. When discipline happens, a variety of employee reactions are possible. Some employees accept discipline as a constructive experience and opportunity for change. Others react to discipline with anger, resentment, threats, and in the worst cases, violence of the worst kind.
Discipline isn't going away, no matter what kind of reaction employees have to it. Some organizations make it the last resort, but nevertheless, helping employees respond to discipline in a constructive way is a worthy, possibly life-saving endeavor.
Without a doubt, EAPs are in the best position to help employees gain the most from a disciplinary experience, both in heeding its message and gaining the most personal growth from the crisis it represents. Whether it's discovering an unresolved personal problem that contributes to problematic behavior, or reframing discipline as an opportunity for a better future going forward, managing an employee's reaction to discipline remains somewhat unexplored territory for stakeholders.
The most rudimentary steps have been recommended by some insurance companies to prevent violence following disciplinary actions. However, these ultimate payors of enormous sums resulting from violent reactions to discipline have not used EAP processes to their fullest advantage.
This is another argument for EAPs being an essential part of any organization's risk management strategy, not just a service tucked into a benefits package. The excitement lies in advocating for this increasing role for EAPs in work organizations to save lives and money. Is this the shortest distance between two points? Is an all out assault on the goal of incorporating EAPs in risk management strategies to help allay the financial risk of major insurers easier hanging fruit for us? Is it a faster walk to what we all want than searching for next rung on the "EAP ladder of acceptance" using long-term strategies like funding more research to prove our worthiness? I think free markets and market forces have faster solutions for EAPs. Practiticioners must take the lead in the field, not academics. What do you think? (Just thinking outloud here folks.)
This month's editable and reproducible fact sheet, When You've Been Disciplined at Work, is designed to add to your ability to help employees respond constructively to the disciplinary experience. It's part of the new GROUP 5 fact sheets released today at EAPtools.com.
Amend this fact sheet with your own experience. Do collaborate on its use with your HR and management partners. I am certain you will find creative ways to use it--perhaps before discipline happens--to help employees, protect organizations, and possibly save lives. New Fact Sheet for Download http://workexcel.com/discipline.html
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