Helping EAPs Make a Comeback

The EAP field for about a 20 years has been bombarded with very powerful interests seeking to take what EAPs offer, carve out a piece here or there, and call it their own. Many have borrowed the name EAP and sold it as a service for a secondary purpose like helping contain behavioral health dollars. Few if any other functions are offered in many cases, but the product is still defined as an EAP. 

Although EAPs focus on helping troubled employees and our key activity is the assessment and referral process, the gift within the discovery in the core technology is the ability to manage and intervene with many types of human behaviors and risks the emanate from them. The association, which is us, can shepherd EAPs back to their original value proposition by making it NOT okay to calling anything that sort of smells like an EAP, an EAP.

Although internal EAPs frequently possess the political clout to get behavioral risk projects initiated in an organization – external EAPs still hold the future of the profession in their hands because most American businesses are small and require vendor services.

HR Journals like HR and WorkForce Magazine have not been helpful to EAPs. Even when they mention EAPs and you and I are pleased to see the acknowledgement of what EAPs do, look closer, because almost 100% of the time EAPs are misrepresented as employee benefits, counseling, and clinical services within the 800# context. 

These messages have been consumed by the HR community and benefits consulting industry, and these folks are the primary purchasers and influential persons responsible for making EAP purchasing decisions. A proper definition must begin to be delivered and it would be helpful if the association or a recognized group of "core technologists" would be charged to "codify" the Core Technology so a recognized program represents the spirit and intent of what EAPs were always supposed to be based upon the complete continuum of capability they offer to business and industry. Do you have a copy of the WorkExcel.com Catalog? You can get one here.

EAP Utilization Tip: Partner with Local Gyms & Exercise Merchants

Gold’s Gym and other franchises are privately owned. This means you probably have opportunities in your town to negotiate with such gyms to get free passes for your EAP clients. You'll boost worksite wellness, too. This is a very cool draw to improve your EAP utilization, and it works. I've done it.


The Gold’s Gym in our area (Arlington Virginia) agreed to give us one month passes for clients who we felt needed to take better advantage of opportunities to improve their health. Good preventative health means pursuing an exercise program, and what better way to get started than with a one-month free pass to a local gym. Word of mouth that the EAP offers clients free passes to a local gym can increase your EAP utilization. It doesn't take much. Just make this a quiet way in which your EAP helps employees. Don't promote it. Simply let it happen and watch the vote of confidence your EAP will soon get.

Imagine being able to hand a free monthly pass to an employee suffering with depression. You know reactive depression and milder depressive disorders benefit from exercise, so visit the local gym. Meet with the decision maker and claim the high ground on this improving the EAP utilization strategy.

Training and Reaching Supervisors with EAP Essentials

How do you reach supervisors who are unable to attend supervisor training and other related educational programs offered by the EAP?

Unless your supervisors are communicating regularly with the EAP, they will slowly come to misunderstand it, not trust it, or simply forget to use it as tool to manage difficult behavior and performance problems. The risk to the organization is troubled employees being referred too late or not at all. If one of these employees has serious emotional issues, especially the potential for violence, the organization obviously is at increased risk from an inadequate relationship with the EAP and supervisors. (This is on of the strongest argument for avoiding an EAP "product" wrapped in an insurance plan, largely only a 800# call-in service, that omits an aggressive interface with supervisors.)

So what's the solution for increasing communication and training of supervisors when EAPs can't get "face time" with them? Supervisor training sessions are “iffy” things for companies. Some department managers will work against you, believing they can’t spare the time or give up their supervisors. Frequently, troubled supervisors skip out of training if it is not mandatory. Experienced employee assistance professionals have observed that supervisors with alcohol problems may shy away supervisor training sessions.

Without training in EAP essentials, these managers will remain ignorant about how to use the EAP as a management tool to refer troubled employees. To accomplish this goal, you should subscribe to The FrontLine Supervisor EAP newsletter. The FrontLine Supervisor is the only education tool in the EAP field to educate supervisors continuously about EAP process and supervision skills, while it increases supervisor referrals. A subscription to it increases the rate of supervisor referrals, and the publisher guarantees this outcome.

Supervisors must have ongoing education. One training session won’t cut it. Some HR departments or EAPs may publish their own supervisor education newsletter. Great! It should be distributed on time and it should appear monthly. Quarterly newsletters and the like are simply too infrequent to make an programmatic impact. By default, they tend to be four pages, and therefore too much to read before they are discarded. The FrontLine Supervisor’s question and answer format has proven success rate after 16 years of being irresistible to busy supervisors.

EAP Marketing Tip #2:

This is marketing tip #2. (By the way, the reason I am offering these tips is because they make you think more deeply about how your EAP can help the business customer. More specifically, they allow you to both educate the customer, debunk myths about EAPs, improve the likelihood that the customer will acquire a more effective model, and deprogram the customer from the brainwashing they have thoroughly received via their trade journals and benefits consultants and financial advisors. Hopefully you and especially new staff witll acquire a new appreciation of value of your own product.

MARKETING TIP/DISCUSSION WITH YOUR CUSTOMER #2:
Discuss and provide information and contrast about the experience of your EAP staff, their turnover rate, workload, and pay?

POINTS: Experienced EA professionals are difficult to find and recruit. Have you kept good ones on your staff for awhile? That's a big plus. This stability is a selling point and a product advantage. Certified Employee Assistance Professionals with master's degrees in mental health disciplines are particularly hard to come by, but represent the best pick of those who should be servicing your company. Add a mental health license and/or alcohol and drug counseling certification, and you got yourself a rare find. A recovering alcoholic and addict with any of the forgoing can be worth their weight in gold if their diseases are well-managed.

Most managed care cubicle workers delivering EAP assessment by phone are not experience EAP pros. Many, even if CEAPs, may have no experience outside the phone cubicle on the 14th floor of an office building sitting on the outskirts of town. Most are poorly paid, overworked, and mimic the guy on the Ed Sullivan show you may have seen who spun plates on the top of 24 sticks dashing from one problem to the next with a few smashing to the ground periodically. That is likely to be your EAP customer if they don't choose an effective EAP provider.
 
Solid and professional EA staff turnover fast in managed care companies leaving quickly when not adequately paid. Such turnover is deadly and risky to the well-being of employees and family members who tend to not only use an EAP service but "connect" to the staff member's personality because of their need to bond with the helper. This is an important dynamic to explain.
 
Most private EAP providers and managed care companies are notorious for paying low salaries to their line staff. They need to be adequately paid so the stick around.
 
So, just when everyone in the host company knows the employee assistance professional by name, they leave for few thousand more dollars in their paycheck! This is a serious consequence of commodization. Everyone suffers especially employees.

The Power of Understanding and Using EAPs As "Programs of Attraction"

Is the EAP a place where employees should go to complain about things like harassment, ill-treatment by supervisors, or other injustices, even racial, religious, or sexual discrimination?

Or should the human resources department be the only avenue for such complaints?

If the answer is yes, that EAPs can be avenues of such help, should this be promoted as a parallel avenue of assistance?

Then again, if not, and an employee phones the EAP with one of these complaints, should the EAP reject the appointment and tell the employee only HR deals with those matters? Is there risk in rejecting such inquiries? Could a more serious underlying personal problem exist or be in tandem that needs to be discovered?

Answer: Employees should absolutely be encouraged to seek support and help from the EAP for these types of problems along with HR, even though later they may find redress via the HR department.

What is the justification for this opinion? The answer lies purely in reducing risk to the organization and getting more expedient help to employees who may not trust HR, feel their concerns won’t be held in the same confidence, or don't feel comfortable venting and processing with the HR manager (who may not be an trained empathic listener).

But doesn't my position interfere with traditional HR functions? Is this the EAP doing the HR department's job?

The answer is no, of course not. EAPs are programs of attraction. This is a seldom discussed concept in the EAP field but it was frequently discussed in the 70's and 80's.

A program of attraction model wicks risk from the organization. It draws out opportunities to reduce risk--employees who may be violent in the future, angry with management, or likely to file employment claims or lawsuits for the missteps of the organization.

EAPs help these individuals get their needs met in healthier ways. And the cost-benefit is incalculable.

There are opportunities for attracting more at-risk employees to your EAP. EAPs are underutilized however as tools to reduce risk when they are walled off because of turf issues in the organization.

Promote your EAP as a program of attraction. And explain this dynamic in marketing and promotion to prospective business customers. They will quickly grasp the idea of value in your proposal and your philosophy of how EAP programming can do more for them. Any proposal discussion with the prospect will shine with this discussion.

An EAP, like Alcoholics Anonymous, is a program of attraction when properly installed in an organization. This paradigm has been lost as a discussion point over the past 30 years. Reviving it could be a significant way for the EAP field to regain much of it lost perceived value among business customers who farm it out for an 800 #.. 

Here a product that discuss EAPs in effective ways.

And, here is another.

Confusion about Alcoholism: When Will It End

Tell me if this makes sense to you:  

The risk of an alcohol use disorder, which includes alcoholism and alcohol abuse is higher among those whose parents had an Alcohol Use Disorder. The increased risk is independent of other major predictors, such as gender, parents' social status and the psychiatric hospitalization of parents. The key message for the general public is that there is an increased risk associated with parental alcoholism, but obviously many other factors determine whether an individual develops an AUD.

This is language from a press release I received today. The only difference is that you are only reading the beginning and the end of it to illustrate my point in this post.

Of course this does not make sense, but it is typical double speak I frequently see in research articles about alcoholism where genetics overwhelmingly is evident as the contributing factor, if not the sole factor evident in  acquired alcoholism. These end of the story caveats that contradict research and alcoholism science are not uncommon. It leaves a wonderful opening to the continued psychological treatment of alcoholics and allows the mental health community analyzing why alcoholics drink to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Now, here is link to the rest of the full press release so you can see it in full.

http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docID=651844

You may want to see this alcohol in the workplace education and awareness tool.

EAP Marketing Tips: 1 of 10: Talk about Risk Reduction More Deeply

I am going to discuss marketing related issues for EAP providers. Many have complained about low balling, managed care, and "commodization". Commodization is not a problem by the way. It is a symptom of the problem. That problem is lack of definition and codification about what EAPs really are, what they should be, and how they ought to be defined by a nationally recognized organization that both promotes and protects the parameters of the EAP program definition so corporate customers and potential purchasers pull away and are less likely to be attracted to inferior, well marketed knock-offs. (Okay that was a little rough, but this is a blog.)

Back on point. The issue in in free markets is usually also about having a better product and the ability to communicate that. I think a piece of the problem lies here. The problem it seems to me is that EA professionals don't really know their own product very well. Let's discuss this over the next couple weeks and see if my notes transcribed to this blog from the jotted scratches on gum wrappers I possess can assist you with additional insights that will make you better prepared to discuss your program and better able to standou in a crowd because you are able to define a better product.

Issue #1 of 10 for Marketing Discussions with Potential Purchasers of EAP Services:
With the increasing risk to employers of being sued by employees, how does the EAP play a role in reducing this risk beyond simply seeing employees referred for personal problems?


Because CT-EAPs (the CT stands for true core technology-driven programs. Since anyone can call themselves an EAP and get away with it handily, I often like to write "CT-EAP".) deal with troubled employees, many of whom have problems with management, they are frequently the first to learn of an employee’s interest or intention to sue the company. For example, my supervisor did such and such, I am angry, I wonder if I can sue. Such statements, if handled properly, make the EAP an early, front line defense against employment claims and related lawsuits. EA professionals help employees seek solutions to personal problems and will steer employees to more constructive alternatives to meet their needs. In many instances this is accomplished by referring them to human resources, providing conflict resolution assistance, or seeking other alternative dispute resolution channels. Although not researched, EAPs certainly save money by helping ward off lawsuits long before they ever are filed. These are precious dollars recovered from loss. It is more crucial than ever for today’s EA professionals to understand federal laws that govern the employment relationship. EA professionals should know these major laws and have a basic understanding of their tenets. Armed with this knowledge, they can better consult with supervisors in the course of managing troubled employees. Every EAP should respond to an additional question, “How do you respond when an employee comes to your office and states that he or she is interested in suing the company?” Communicating to customers that your EAP is a program of attraction like a magnet for troubled employees and those like to agress against the company financially, where they can get their needs met in "healthier ways" is a huge and attractive marketing point ignored by the most experienced EA professionals and related marketers. A business hearing this may respond very quickly with "where do I sign up!"