Employee Assistance grows the bottom line
Unproductive employees are liabilities and not assets to organisations, making the well being of workers a priority issue on the business agenda and necessitating a shift in corporate thinking.
The modern workplace is a complex environment that places dynamic demands on employees. These demands can often spill over and sap your employees' coping resources. Over a sustained period this can lead to burnout. Burnout is growing to epidemic proportions globally and is fast becoming a concern for South African businesses. Business owners and HR managers will be familiar with complaints of constant fatigue, the lack of motivation and dried up creativity, and the impact thereof on productivity.
Reducing business risk
The reason for a shift in corporate thinking should be clear. Business is beginning to see the benefits of having a happy and healthy workforce. By focusing on a preventative health model using an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) platform, companies are saving significant amounts of money in the medium to long term for a relatively small investment. South Africa is rapidly entering the age of the EAP. These programmes are aimed at reducing a business risk by investing proactively in the health of employees. Companies are prioritising employees' health as their most valuable commodity.
Prevention
The objective of an employee assistance programme is to identify and prevent problems before they become unmanageable and start affecting every other aspect of the employee's life. Effective EAPs are those that assist employees to share the load by offering practical advice and problem solving.
"A good employee assistance programme should take a holistic view and not only deal with issues at work," says Cleone Bakker, General Manager, Marketing at Europ Assistance SA.
"For many, issues at work take a back seat when one of two bread winners is retrenched and financial institutions are threatening law suits. It may not be up to the employer to bail them out, but what if the employer can help and still maintain a degree of non-interference ?"
Choosing the right solution
"There is no doubt that a good EAP can result in a reduction on staff turnover and increase productivity," says Bakker.
A good EAP should include comprehensive educational and awareness campaigns to build employee awareness and trust, which is a critical element to the success of such a programme. This in turn allows those employees needing the services to feel confident enough to access the programme. The principles of self-management, peer referral and self referral are supported and promoted through such campaigns.
