- EAN staff is available when our office is closed to help you manage personal crisis or traumatic events in the workplace. Call our office at 828-252-5725 and press ‘0’ to reach our crisis management team member by phone.
This is an ongoing content series on the current EAN website. We have set it up again here so you can continue to use it (if you like.)
Q. EAPs help employees and protect the bottom line by reducing absenteeism and costs, including those related to workers’ compensation. But what about improved morale? How does one put a dollars-and-cents measure on it so the EAP gets credit?
A. When employee assistance programs help employees resolve personal problems, happier and healthier employees result. If we can assume happier and healthier employees have a positive effect on morale, then it’s obvious that EAPs can be a major contributing factor. But your question is about dollars and cents. Although it is not possible to pin a dollar figure to low or high morale, there are other measurable values that morale is known to directly affect. One of them is turnover. Research is plentiful on the hard costs of turnover. Productivity is also affected by morale. And, of course, this can be measured. So, if an EAP is proactive within the organization, helps employees resolve problems, and contributes to high morale and lower turnover, there is some significant confidence that the dollars-and-cents impact can be safely attributed to the EAP. There are dozens of other factors that also influence the bottom line.
Q. My employee injured his foot playing soccer over the weekend. The story is suspect, but he is on crutches and wants to avoid lifting for a few weeks. I asked for a doctor’s note, but honestly, it looks fake. Do EAPs get involved in situations like this? Our small company doesn’t have policies or procedures.
A. Typically, larger organizations manage situations of this type with service vendors, policies and procedures, and human resources consultation. If none of these procedures, services, or advisors exist, contact the EAP for guidance and about its capacity for assisting you. At this moment, you can only accept what the employee is telling you. You must accept on good faith that an injury exists, how bad it is, and how it occurred. You can’t question or examine “functional capacity” to verify the need for the accommodation. You must also assume the doctor is real, the note is valid, and that nothing else(i.e., substance abuse, etc.) influenced the cause of the injury and could become a bigger problem in the future. Those are a lot of factors! An EAP assessment and coordination of communication regarding medical needs would cover all these bases and allow you to focus on job issues rather than external factors.
Q. When an employee seeks help from the EAP, how is it different from counseling services offered in the community by a mental health clinic?
A. When employees seek help for personal problems in the community, there is usually no input other than the employee’s view or understanding of his or her issues. The community clinician may complete an assessment or a psychosocial history to gain insight into the origin and to understand key aspects of the problem, but the employee’s account is the sole source of information. When an employee visits with the EAP first, an assessment helps steer the employee toward appropriate resources that match the identified issues. With the employee’s permission, this information is shared with the referral. This gives the clinician additional context about the nature of the problem and is aided by the EAP’s expertise and proximity to the workplace. As a result, the treatment resource counselor will establish a realistic treatment plan more likely to help the employee.
Q. Many personal problems are very difficult to overcome. Addiction is one of them. How do EAPs help employees with this illness if a client only self-refers because of some trouble or symptom related to the addiction? People in total denial are going to pay attention only to an immediate fix, right?
A. Symptoms of a problem, not “the problem” itself, lead people to seek help. This dynamic is practically universal in the helping process. Regarding addiction, self-referral to a doctor, counselor, or EAP is usually prompted by an adverse work-life incident (symptom). Misinformation and stigma feed denial, so “self-diagnosis” of addiction is often a slow discovery process. The path includes many small and larger crises before acceptance. This process can be accelerated, however, with accurate information and motivational counseling that overcome the addict’s misunderstanding of addiction. This misunderstanding may include a definition of addiction that doesn’t match his or her symptoms. This is where EAPs play a role. Most alcoholic drinkers in denial will have some definition of convenience, one that allows the individual to “compare out” of the diagnosis. If and when symptoms worsen, the definition may change. Still, as awareness grows, the likelihood of accepting treatment increases with a crisis.
Q. Please offer a few important tips, perhaps including a few of the most overlooked, supervisors should consider when making a referral to the EAP.
A. When making a formal referral to the EAP, success means that the employee actually makes it to an appointment. To increase this likelihood, consider the following. 1) Assure employees of confidentiality. This is their key concern even if they don’t say so. 2) Promise the employee that you will not discuss the referral with his or her coworkers or other managers who do not have a need or a right to know. 3) Promise the employee that participation in an EAP has no bearing on job status, future promotional opportunities, or job security. Only performance-related matters can affect these things. 4) Talk to the EAP ahead of time. Communicate details to the EAP about performance issues upon which the referral is based. Tell the employee you have spoken to the EAP and have given them the exact same performance information discussed with the employee. 5) Say that you anticipate hearing the appointment was kept.
Q. My employee’s father died of COVID-19 last fall, and there was no real funeral. She appears depressed, and some days not very functional. Friends are worried because she was previously treated for drug addiction and is now drinking. How should I approach EAP referral?
A. Consult with the EAP when employee situations are compounded by multiple issues, like this one is. If your employee is drinking now but had previously been treated for drug addiction, then she is considered to be relapsed. Addictive disease patients in recovery are directed to abstain from alcohol and psychoactive drugs as part of their recovery program. If your employee is no longer an EAP client, encourage her to self-refer for the sadness and the difficulties she is having on the job. Many people experience a phenomenon known as prolonged grief disorder (PGD). This is a recognized condition that can result from the inability to participate in a normal bereavement and grief process. If her ability to function at work diminishes, consider more formal steps to encourage EAP participation.
Q. Complaints and problems that employees seem to “drop on my desk” are the part of my job that I like least of all. Sometimes I snap at employees when they walk in and “deliver” me problems. How do I better manage this process for less stress and so I feel like the boss, not a support desk?
A. Show supervisees how to implement a process for bringing problems to you that maximizes their opportunity to solve problems on their own and properly conveys only the problems needing your attention. Here’s a possible start to a dialog: “When bringing problems to me, please 1) share the impact the problem is having on your work situation or work unit. 2) Share with me what you’ve done or tried to do in order to solve the problem. If it did not work, let me know why. 3) Give me a recommendation. 4) If there are options, share them, but be specific so I do not try a solution that won’t work. 5) Let me know which solution you think is the best one and why. 6) Offer ideas for how to go about implementing the solution. This is one approach for teaching a process to solve more problems faster, but avoid being so strict that employees don’t come to you at all.
Q. EAPs help resolve personal problems such as stress, depression, work-place conflicts, and sub-stance abuse. What about the EAP’s ability to teach critical skills, like better listening? That’s what my boss recently said I should consider improving.
A. The history of employee assistance programs has caused them to naturally be associated with resolving personal problems, but EAPs can offer other types of help. Further, EA professionals also specialize. Some may have expertise in organizational development, while others are seasoned pros at addiction recovery, imparting supervisory skills, conflict resolution, parenting, and more. Meet with the EAP, but zero in on the aspect of the skill about which you are trying to be more efficient. For example, regarding listening skills, key aspects include active listening, summarizing, using empathy, following up, running meetings, listening to learn, listening to evaluate and analyze, listening to understand feelings and emotions, and more. What about your listening skills are you trying to improve? Are you a good listener but experiencing problems that interfere with listening? Meeting with the EAP can help you explore these questions, too. It might lead you to a different approach or solution for improving listening skills.
Q. My employee is a hothead, but most of us are used to it. When does anger become a performance issue?
A. Consider whether your employee’s anger management problem is a serious performance issue right now. Don’t reinforce toxic behavior by adapting to it or encouraging others to do the same. Coping with inappropriate displays of anger enables the employee and may encourage his or her bad behavior to grow worse. You can bet that not all employees feel this behavior is benign or that it should not be addressed by management. Anger is associated with violence in the workplace, and the anger issue you describe might benefit from a professional evaluation. So, the behavior is a risk issue. Could an explosive incident in the future lead to some tragedy? If the behavior creates an offensive and hostile work environment, which it does by virtue of the need to adapt to it, take steps to have the employee correct the behavior by referring him or her to the EAP.
Q. Can the EAP sit with me and my employee to serve as a mediator in a conflict we are having about performance, strategy, and my expectations for what needs to be done in her position?
A. There is nothing to preclude the EAP from mediating issues; however, success in getting the changes you want depends much on the nature of the conflict you are experiencing. Is the conflict only about agreeing on a work unit strategy, or does it concern the employee making changes regarding performance? Whereas the former may be useful and lead to a satisfactory outcome, the latter could reinforce your employee’s unwillingness to make changes. Why? The nature of mediation naturally gives, and will be perceived by your employee as allowing, options and choices. In effect, it elevates the worker’s role in deciding whether change will occur at all. Meet alone with the EAP first. Discuss your goal, and examine whether it is your need to be more assertive or some other refinement in the position’s duties that lies at the heart of the conflict.
