Opioids Abuse Education Awareness and Prevention

EAP presentation product for educating employees about the opioid addiction crisis.

Increasing EAP Utilization Hack #13: Ask for Referrals

Asking EAP clients to refer a friend is one of the most powerful approaches to increasing your EAP's utilization. Do you practice this promotional strategy?

Nothing is more convincing and influential than word of mouth referrals because they are tantamount to a walking live testimonials. Referrals from friends are trusted. If a good friend of yours says a restaurant is fantastic, it will motivate you more than a $5K full page display ad in the local newspaper. Clearly, this is a cost-beneficial EAP utilization improvement hack for you to consider.

The time to ask for a referral is at the moment of positive excitement when your EAP client says, "Wow, thank you so much for helping me." This is your cue to speak up and ask the EAP client to refer a coworker if the opportunity arises. It's that simple. You aren't asking every client to refer, but take advantage of those who would be obviously willing.

When you have an employee-client spread the word about the EAP, a lot is happening at that moment, and all of it is quite synergistic.

The employee client is promoting your program effectiveness, improving its reputation, decreasing resistance of would-be clients, helping others overcome the fear of asking for help, and intervening with your most ferocious and negative force, concern among the workforce that the EAP is not confidential.

All EA professionals believe their program is confidential, but not all employees do. The reason is simple. Confidentiality is so important that the fear associated with it creates its own anxiety and "disturbance in the force." Let's call it "EAP confidentiality perception attrition."

This anxiety gets passed along to the workforce where it is propagated. This is also what makes EAP supervisor training so important. You must tell supervisors in EAP orientations to not repeat, disclose, or otherwise imply knowledge of an employee's EAP attendance or even suggest an employee has attended the EAP. This is also a legal issue, but you want to impress upon supervisors the impact on the program's integrity and how this can negatively impact the perception of confidentiality among employees. If you want to make a bigger impression, say that the most at-risk worker--the one that might go postal--just might not attend the EAP because of something the supervisor said. (You can embellish from there.)

Fighting the natural attrition of perception of confidentiality requires promoting confidentiality, and employees who refer friends or coworkers to the EAP are naturally assisting in this effort.

I routinely make mention that the EAP is confidential in Frontline Employee EAP Newsletter to help you boost your utilization. But since articles are editable, you should insert this where, and as needed. It's vital. You want lots of touches during the year on this key point.

Do you have an EAP utilization improvement hack that you would like me to pass along or expound upon? Pass it along here at publisher@workexcel.com

Happy World Mental Health Day!

Each year, on October 10th, World Mental Health Day is celebrated, which is a proclamation initiated

by the World Health Organzation. This year is a bit special: The theme is "The Workplace" (Did you know?)

Work is sometimes--often--a 24/7 experience for many employees in the Western hemisphere (and beyond.) Suffice it to say, that work is on our minds a lot!

Our mental health is directly affected by work, and our mental health affects the workplace, productivity, and the bottom line. It's a two-way street, and enhancing mental health wellness is crucial to human welfare.

Depression and anxeity affect well over 500 million people worldwide. And the cost to productivity is a cool $1 trillion dollars.
Celebrate today by bringing attention to the importance of any work organization's employee assistance program, and remind employees and managers that the EAP stands ready to assist them.

You will find more information about World Mental Health day at these links, and consider any of the tip sheets from WorkExcel.com to help you celebrate it -- they are always reproducible, editable, brandable, and web-usable.

http://www.who.int/mental_health/world-mental-health-day/2017/en/
http://www.who.int/mental_health/in_the_workplace/en/
Resources
Tip Sheets for Workplace Wellness
Catalog of Products
2-Page Catalog
EAP Newsletters
Training/Awareness for Employees
Training/Awareness for Managers
EAP Tools and EAP Resources

Daniel Feerst, BSW, MSW, LISW-CP
Email me: publisher@workexcel.com
Publisher 1-800-626-4327
WorkExcel.com

Office Romances and Productivity: Information for Employees and EA Professionals

​Busier lifestyles have made finding romance more difficult today than in recent memory.

With communication technology often reducing human interaction to abbreviated text messages and shorthand emails, many find the office

Romance in the workplace, think twice before the plunge

to be a rare exception where they are still able to engage in meaningful, face-to-face interaction with others. Romance at work can be a natural consequence. And it can feel quite compelling.

Many companies suffer productivity losses from workplace romance issues, which is why policies against workplace romance sometimes exist. They are not illegal.

The following are the top concerns from a poll of HR practitioners according to research from the IRS Employment Review:

https://www.workexcel.com/blog/hmm-should-i-or-shouldnt-i-romantic-relationship-and-dating-someone-at-work-advice-for-employee-assistance-professionals-offering-guidance/

EAPs Massively Overlooked as Customer Risk Reduction Tools by Property Casualty Insurers and Risk Managers

EAPs Massively Overlooked as Customer Risk Reduction Tools by Property Casualty Insurers and Risk Managers: Risk Managers overlook employee assistance programs as tools to reduce risk for insurance customers and enhance their marketing efforts

Property Casualty Insurance Markets: The One Resource Overlooked in Workforce Risk Reduction

Lew sat quietly in his office at the Chino Mines in the 1950's trying to find a solution to a

massive problem he was hired to fix. Lewis Presnall, D. Div.-- was a pastoral counselor hired by Kennecott Copper Corporation to deal with a massive alcoholism problem among workers and their associated problems placing the company at risk.

These problems included injuries, morale problems, insubordination, harassment, absenteeism, tardiness, property damage, stolen property, firings, conduct and attitude issues, violence in the workplace, and family members coming to work and bringing domestic squabbles with them. Kennecott Copper was at wits' end. Perhaps this Lewis Presnall could figure it all out and solve the problem. He did and his work is what truly led to the creation of broad brush comprehensive EAPs 20 year later. Read more.

Value Added EAP: Burnout Contagion and Employee Assistance Programming

In light of new research, EAPs may want to consider screening for burnout contagion in employee assessments, identify patterns emerging with the workforce, and proactively propose EAP programming to make a impact on the work organization with interventions that reduce risk.

Humankind is, collectively speaking, a social animal. We are aware of one another on certain levels, and if one was to make a map of the world solely based on how relate to one another, you would also be looking at the travels of shared ideas, sickness, love and hate.

We connect with one another through various means and ways, including empathy, emotion, success and defeat. These ribbons of relation changes not just day to day, but sometimes minute to minute.

Among those, though, is something that simply does not get enough credit: burnout.

A new study by Michigan State University education scholars are proving how the culture of an environment (such as the workplace an EAP may find themselves in) can contribute directly to a contagious spread of burnout.

Do consider the information presented here: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/is-teacher-burnout-contagious/

Burnout is a terrible affliction--an insidious slow boil process--that can strike in just about any workplace, especially in a workplace environment that is not keeping the employees health and well-being into consideration. Late nights, unfair workloads, time away from family and home - all of these are indicative of a ticking time bomb!  Eventually the human animal will break down, and pretending that such a thing will never happen to you can only bring harm to the workplace.

Consider, if you will, the fast-paced and emotionally charged setting of a hospital. RN’s bustling about, residents doing 20-48 hour shifts and worse. All it takes is one person to suffer from the various symptoms of burnout before it begins to spread like wildfire, causing mayhem within the personal lives and habits of the entire staff.

“Wherever there is smoke, there is fire,” or so it’s said. There are plenty of symptoms to be on the lookout for, and recognizing overpowering workload per person is one thing to keep in consideration. A culture that does not promote the mental well-being of their employees is one that will eventually suffer in quality of produced work and overwhelming turnover rates, costing a company in both time and money.

The modern day professional, no matter what level of employment they are at, should be aware and mindful of what kind of environment they are empowering within the workplace. Listen to one another, and hear one out. Pay heed to stressors and how they are affecting the workplace and the workers themselves.

Do consider such resources as found here: https://www.workexcel.com/stress-management-training-powerpoint-ppt-presentation-with-stress-management-tips-for-employees-or-ppt-dvd-web-course-video/
The benefits of having such an employee awareness program will easily pay dividends and help counter burnout within your company! Stress management is more than an art form, it’s a daily awareness.

By recognizing stressors and how to properly manage them, paying heed to co-workers, employees, and employers alike one can certainly fight back against such a negative culture, creating a workplace that will positively affect output and production as well as the mental health and well-being of all involved. #burnout #eap