Employee Assistance Program

Employee Assistance Programs

Employee's mental and physical wellbeing is an important factor if a company wants to be successful and enjoy annual growth and profits, but there are many factors that can distract an employee from performing their duties to the best of their abilities. Many employees suffer from problems such as alcoholism, drug use and rehabilitation, depression, financial and family issues as well as many other others that can affect their behavior and performance on the job. Corporations recognize this threat and have implemented Employee Assistance Programs (EAP's) into their organization to help their employees deal with personal problems to get them back into better health. These programs are set up to be a confidential
If employees are more educated on the programs they would be more inclined to use it. As expert Carrie Reuter puts it, "the most important thing for the employee to know is that they can utilize the program for a wide variety of issues, not just critical issues, but life balancing issues." In Mazloff's findings, she wrote that the majority of Harding's employees were aware of the programs; they did not understand their overall function . Many of employees felt that if they were sent to an EAP it would be a form of punishment for behavior detrimental to their job and it was an alternative to being terminated. Others felt that the programs were put together help employees with more serious issues such as drug and alcohol dependencies and not on marital or financial binds so they would not consider the program. Still others would not turn to the company's EAP because they felt that although it was advertised to be completely confidential, it was not and it would surface that they used this program when chances for a promotion were brought up. Harding needs to clear up all gray areas and work on presenting this program
Some experts say that it is hard to encourage EAP use when the workforce is widely dispersed. This could be what is happening at the Harding Company since they have a very dispersed workforce. With hundreds of workers in different departments such as the transportation and distribution laborers who are generally part of a union, as well as managers and executives who work more structured hours, Harding needs to set up an EAP liaison or group or liaisons to better communicate the benefits in their own way. By implementing this strategy, each liaison can talk to each other within the group and share what the programs have to offer instead of watching a mandatory screening of a corporate