Momentum - Business to Business Online Magazine MOMENTUM November 2019 | Page 34

SHARON BAYUS, MA, LPC-S
President & CEO
Innovative Alternatives, Inc.
http://innovativealternatives.org
Are You Getting the Most
From Your EAP—Employee
Assistance Program
For Your Company As Well As Individual Employees?
M
ost companies have Employee
Assistance Programs (EAPs) these days,
but few utilize them enough to get
their money’s worth. Every EAP offers a
different mix of services but counseling,
training, substance abuse screening and Critical
Incident Stress Management are the most commonly
offered.
When should you refer employees to the EAP?
Ever have a high performing employee who becomes
unproductive? The most common reasons are relational
problems at home, serious illness or death of a loved
one, disasters, financial concerns, and/or substance
abuse. These obviously distract from
work and EAPs assist with all
these issues.
Mood disorders often
prevent employees from
getting along with others.
Functioning becomes
impaired, you may want
intervention not just
disciplinary warnings, in
case they can’t control it.
Send them to counseling
through the EAP. Require
that they follow the counselor’s
recommendations as a condition for
maintaining employment. While you can’t know content
of sessions, you can ask for agreement to allow the
counselor to report 1) whether they attend weekly, and
2) if they are participating in a meaningful way.
You can gain valuable training for employees from
your EAP—soft skills everyone needs to get along in
the workplace such as communication and conflict
resolution skills training, diversity training, etc. More
importantly, when employees cannot get along, a team
is embroiled in divisiveness or you as the owner have
a difficult relationship with an employee whom you are
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trying to salvage, mediation is an option through your
EAP. Ensure you ask them to secure a mediator who is
very experienced in Workplace Mediation, specifically
with multi-party mediation and preferably one with a
psychology rather than legal background—that is, if you
want real resolution and not simply ‘settlement’.
I once performed an Intervention Mediation for an
employer who had a long-time employee, known to
have had a substance problem 2 decades earlier in his
youth. He’d been extremely loyal, and high a performer
for a decade at this company. His behavior began to
change however, to include tardiness, absenteeism,
failure to complete assignments, fatigue, nervousness,
leaving for numerous ‘emergencies’, etc. The
employer opted to perform an Intervention
Mediation to confront the change in
behavior, drug test him and offer
an agreement to allow him
to return to reapply for
work after 6 months of
sobriety—to any open
positions available
at that time. The
employee was touched
by the fairness of the
employer, recognition
of his past contributions to
the company and the care for him
as a person. He confided the problem had arisen again
and asked for help. EAP services were utilized to pay
for this mediation and the counseling that followed his
inpatient program--which his employer offered to pay
for personally in mediation. The employee received
hope, achieved and maintained sobriety, was rehired
with an agreement for monthly drug testing, and
many more years of loyal service were realized by the
company.
Remind your employees of this benefit. You pay for it,
utilize it—your company benefits as well.