This morning, I read something that really disturbed me. It was a blog about Roy Hobbs, a Chicago native, veteran journalist and weekend television anchor in Birmingham, Alabama who was arrested in April on drug charges. He was a prominent personality who was afflicted with drug addiction and needed help.
Roy Hobbs, a Chicago native, veteran journalist and weekend television anchor in Birmingham, Alabama arrested on drug charges
To make matters worse, he claims that his employee assistance program (EAP) failed him. One article stated that “he wants people to know that many employee assistance programs are ineffective. When he needed a professional to “talk me off the ledge” on that fateful Friday, all who were available until Monday were volunteers, he said. Monday would have been too late.”
I’m not sure who his EAP was but is not standard for EAPs to have volunteers on call. (I’d be interested to know if that was actually the case.) In fact, any EAP worth its weight in salt will have professionals on call after hours and on weekends.
EAPs are there for this very purpose; to assist those in need when they need the help with professionals who understand depression, alcoholism and drug abuse and many other issues that can have devastating effects on the lives of employees and their family members.
So, maybe this is s a good time to plug high quality, high touch EAPs.
Unfortunately, there are many EAPs out there that are “free” or “are bundled into some insurance product.” The main problem with these, as I have stated before, is that they don’t promote their value or even their existence. This is a problem because prevention and early intervention should be one of the main goals of a good EAP.
So, audit your EAP and ask the following questions:
- How active are they in promoting their services to employees and what are they doing to promote them?
- How easy is it to access their services?
- Who does answer the phones after hours (hopefully not an “answering service” with no experience or qualifications)?
- What kind of utilization is your program getting & what kind of utilization?
- Is it online or are their phone people actually speaking with and helping callers?
For more information, see “If EAP Is Invisible, You’re Not Seeing ROI” on our website if you want to dig deeper and are looking for more probing questions to ask. And if you don’t have an EAP, get a GOOD & VISIBLE ONE!
Tags: audit eap, Bernie Dyme, drug abuse, drug charges, EAP, employee assistance, Perspectives, Perspectives Ltd, Roy Hobbs
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