It is no secret that employees are the foundation of every business. They can make or break a company’s success depending upon the environment and personal stressors from daily life.
Perhaps this is why many businesses are now actively looking into designing an employee assistance program (EAP) to help employees.
Even recent studies conclude that introducing an EAP led to an 86% improvement in work productivity and a 64% reduction in absenteeism amongst employees.
What is an Employee Assistance Program anyway?
According to the Employee Assistance Professional Association of Australia – an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a work-based intervention program.
It is specifically designed to enhance the emotional, mental and general psychological well-being of all employees and their immediate family members.
Although EAPs are often used for mental health counselling, they can also support your employees in a variety of other ways, such as helping them with:
- Childcare
- Domestic Violence
- Elder Care
- Grief Counselling
- Counselling Referrals
- Alcoholism and Substance Abuse
- Crisis Management and even
- Buying a home for the first time
Why are Employee Assistance Programs so important?
Did you know that almost 83% of the US workforce suffers from work-related, stress-causing businesses to lose up to $300 billion annually?
Not only this, but according to the American Institute of Stress, only 43% of the employees think that their employees care about their work-life balance.
Ongoing stress among employees can often lead to burnout.
Luckily by introducing an Employee Assistance Program, problems like these can be prevented by providing employees the much-needed support before their stress spirals out of control and starts to impact their productivity.
8 Ways an EAP can help employees
Now that you know how important an Employee Assistance Program is for your business, let’s look at some of the ways how EAP can help employees:
- Increases Productivity
Did you know that businesses lose 36.6% of their productivity every year due to employees? When your employees are distracted or focused on things other than their work targets, they become less creative and demotivated at work.
EAP helps employees by counseling and inspiring them to excel at their given tasks. Thus automatically leading to increased productivity and even higher profits.
- Helps in encouraging a positive work environment
It is no secret that a happy employee is far more productive than one who’s not.
Introducing an EAP helps employees feel like a part of a large family, thus fostering a positive work environment.
By doing so, businesses end up building trust with their employees allowing them to feel at ease and receive instant support whenever they face a personal crisis.
This ultimately creates positive vibes within the workplace and creates a positive work environment where employees strive to give their best.
- Allows employees to find a work-life balance
Although an employee’s mental health and well-being is a personal issue, its effects can be far-reaching and even impact their work-life.
Countless studies have concluded that a majority of people feel overwhelmed while trying to juggle between work and home life all at once.
However, introducing an employee assistance program can help employees ease some of that burden.
From offering advice to finding child care or even elder care, the EAP experts now offer a range of services to help ease some of the stress that employees may be feeling in their day-to-day lives.
This ultimately allows employees to be more focused and create a healthy work-life balance.
- Boosts employee retention
Engaging employees is imperative for any business that wishes to boost employee retention.
Luckily, when businesses have an active EAP in place, it allows employees to know that they have a support system to help them deal with any difficulties that may come their way.
This creates a culture of support and care while increasing productivity and decreasing employee turnover.
- Affordable to implement
One of the significant benefits of introducing an EAP at the workplace is its cost-effectiveness.
Did you know that introducing an EAP costs less than 1% of what a businesses pay for employee health insurance?
As a result, choosing to opt for an Employee Assistance Program can lead to fewer labor disputes, disability claims and even workers’ compensation claims.
- Reduces employee absenteeism
According to a recent Gallup study, businesses with healthy and highly motivated employees witness a 41% reduction in employee absenteeism. An EAP is designed to do just that.
From focusing on their mental and physical well-being to helping them with their personal issues, these programs help set your employees up for success.
Thus when your employees are emotionally and physically healthy, they tend to arrive at work on time, are more productive throughout the day and end up taking fewer sick leaves.
- Keeps employees’ mental well-being in check
In one of its studies, Mental Health Foundation indicates that almost 14.7% of employees encounter some sort of mental health problem at work.
Women working full time are twice as likely to struggle with stress and mental health issues. As a result, this could often negatively impact your business and your annual targets.
To avoid such circumstances, EAP helps employees by offering them a range of services, including mental health support.
Alternatively, it also trains team leaders and supervisors to create an inclusive way of leading, thus creating a culture where employees are encouraged to step out of the closet and talk openly about their mental health issues.
- Providing Outplacement Services
No matter how big or small, every business goes through rough patches. During these economically challenging times, businesses are forced to restructure and lay off some employees. EAP helps both employers and employees during such periods.
Its outplacement services connect employees to new opportunities while at the same time protecting employers from any potential labor disputes or litigation.
The bottom line:
With stress grappling our lives now more than ever, employers are responsible for supporting employees and contributing to their well-being.
Implementing an EAP to help employees is one way to protect your employees and create a happy and a productive team.
If you are seeking an EAP Counselling in Perth and Western Australia, contact Vision to find how we can help your business and your employees by supporting their mental health.
