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. Can the EAP help me stop worrying about whether others are judging me as a new supervisor? I don’t want to go through a big therapy process. I just want to stop being so self-conscious so I can engage with my peers, be more relaxed, and stop worrying about whether others are judging me.
A. Discuss your goals with the EAP. The program can help you by giving you a plan to practice, monitor, and gauge progress in overcoming these habits of thinking so you feel more confident. Your struggle is a common one many people are hesitant to admit, but you can learn social and engagement skills that will help. You will discover positive self-talk affirmations, how to avoid becoming preoccupied with these thoughts, how to focus on others rather than yourself, and how to overcome false beliefs about what people are thinking in social settings. You will learn to stop thinking about making an impression and instead concentrate on engaging effectively. After an assessment, or later on, you might become interested in exploring other challenges related to your immediate goals. If so, the EAP can offer ideas or other sources of assistance.
Q. How can I be less stressed out as a supervisor? Yes, I know about work-life balance, finding a mentor, and even relaxation exercises, but there must be more generally helpful ways to cope. Perhaps other supervisors who are less stressed than I am have some tips they can share? How can the EAP help?
A. Unfortunately, many supervisors are stressed, and it might be getting worse. A Gallup survey last year found that 35% of supervisors report being extremely stressed out. Being stressed and experiencing burnout grew after 2020and was worse in 2021. With the EAP’s help, examine your stress more closely. Often, stress management requires a closer look at a person’s unique circumstances. For example, you know you are overworked, but is being bullied on the job making it worse? You are overworked, but is feeling you don’t measure up to the job making it worse? You are waking at night with work worries on your mind, but is drinking heavily before bed a contributing factor to sleep disturbance? A discussion with the EAP can help you see the bigger picture so that you can employ proper strategies that are more likely to be effective. Later, the EAP can help monitor your progress.
Source:www.gallup.com/workplace/357404/manager-burnout-getting-worse.aspx
Q. Did the COVID-19 pandemic influence the way workplaces run be-sides the remote and hybrid models we have seen emerge? Specifically, I am talking about the supervisor-employee relationship, communication, and supervision models?
A. One study examined the impact of the pandemic one employee and supervisor relationships. In June 2022, a survey group found that employees are more desirous of, and more productive with, a boss who is empathic, authentic, emotionally available, and willing to be flexible in responding to the needs of workers. Forbes has also written about this topic, labeling it “human leadership.” Is the pandemic contributory to a desire for employees to experience this type of leadership, or has it always been present? That question isn’t answered. Today’s employees might be more responsive to authority figures who are less aloof. We know supervisors play significant roles in facilitating employee engagement and that engaged employees are more productive—research shows them to be up to 27% more productive. Whether supervisors can learn to be more “humanistic” in their supervision style may be discovered in the future. Right now, only 29% of employees report having a humanistic supervisor.
Source: www.gartner.com [search “identifies human leadership evolution”]
Q. My employee is an outstanding performer and until recently was my best salesperson. Sales performance has lagged, however. Is it appropriate to refer this worker to the EAP for the sole purpose of increasing sales? No personal or emotional issues are apparent.
A. For decades, the accepted practice was to base supervisor referrals to EAPs on employee job performance issues. The most valuable metric of your employee’s performance appears to be sales units. If so, any reasonable attempt to help improve sales performance is justifiable. Can the EAP help? It depends on what factors influence the ability to close more sales. There could be a personal issue requiring some help or intervention. It may be something beyond the scope of your ability as a supervisor to influence. The EAP may be the best resource for help because some issue beyond sales management skills could be influencing the decline in performance. Your problem with this worker illustrates another important convention in EAP programming–don’t diagnose or rule out the cause of performance issues you can’t correct. In this case, it would be tempting for some managers to assume the EAP is not an appropriate source of help.
Q. I am now supervising remote staff. I can see how communication, trust, and engagement (trying to ensure remote employees are happy and delivering their best) will be challenging. What are the supervision challenges that will delay my referral of a problem employee to the EAP?
A. Communication is the key issue that affects remote workers and your relationship with them. The other two concerns you cite—trust and engagement— have mostly to do with the effectiveness of your communication strategy. It is crucial to create communication protocols and systems so those you supervise do not feel left out or unsure of what you want them to do and are working with recognition, value, and parity with office employees despite being off-site. Any deficits in these three areas likely would result in cynicism, coworker conflicts, loss of engagement, and diminished loyalty and turnover. Employees may compensate for their feelings of disconnection by reducing productivity or splitting their work time between work and personal needs. Some of your employees may have productivity issues even under the best workplace conditions. The degree to which you measure the quality or quantity of work assigned to their essential functions will determine the ease of being able to refer them to the EAP if they need assistance of some type.
Q. I have wondered about the EAP experience and employees getting attached to the counselor at the program but then perhaps not wanting to establish another relationship with the mental health professional to whom they are referred. Can you comment on this?
A. EAP employee-clients are assessed with “the end” in mind. This means assessing an employee to understand fully the nature of a problem, if any, contributing to job performance issues but not bonding with the client so thoroughly that referral to a specialist would be resisted and difficult. Trust is important, and so is the client’s willingness to disclose information, so a limited therapeutic engagement is important. This is another key professional skill important to well-functioning EAPs. Clients may be told directly that the goal is to understand the nature of the issues at hand and then get them to the right resource. This often has the intended effect of helping the client prepare for a resource referral without bonding with the EAP. The need to have several interviews in order to accurately gauge the client’s needs makes referral resistance more likely, but it is the skill of the EA professional that helps the employee get to the right resource.
Q. If an employee comes to the EAP with general complaints indicating they are depressed, I imagine such employees are referred to a medical doctor like a psychiatrist for further assessment. What else does the EAP do beyond determining the need to refer?
A. When an employee visits the EAP for symptoms of depression, much more happens than a routine depression screening. Typically, the EA professional will assess psychosocial or environmental/lifestyle issues that are either symptoms of the depression or distinct from, yet exacerbating the primary condition. These issues must be addressed or they risk undermining the work of the psychiatrist to whom the employee is referred. Many psychiatrists manage medications extremely well, but they often resist spending copious amounts of time helping the worker address the nonclinical issues. It’s a team approach that ultimately helps employees with these chronic disease conditions that can’t be treated without attention to the factors that may undermine medical care.
Q. EAPs don’t provide legal advice, of course, but I hear they can reduce legal exposure with regard to managing difficult employees. How does this happen if there are no lawyers on the EAP team?
A. Frequently, lawsuits arise out of an employee’s belief that he or she is not being treated fairly in some way. Negative interactions with supervisor soften contribute to motivation to eventually take action against the employer. Preventively, EAPs train supervisors, encourage early referrals, and engage employees in commonsense actions to raise their productivity and address personal problems. This constructive engagement often occurs long before tension and dysfunctional relationships on the job create risk where problems would ultimately have to be resolved by management actions. Although
EA professionals don’t profess to be completely knowledgeable about anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and anti-retaliation laws in the same way a legal counsel might, the natural role they play obviously touches on many aspects of the supervisor-employee relationship that are reflected in these laws.
Q. What is a key method to keep an employee from becoming defensive when confronted with ongoing work quality, conduct, or attendance problems?
A. There are many aspects of the corrective interview that can lead to an employee’s unfavorable reaction to being confronted with poor performance, but one overlooked approach is the use of the supervisor’s prior documentation in the history of addressing the performance problem. Prior documentation, known to the employee and may have also been acknowledged with a signature, is one of the most certain ways to gain cooperation. Without it, the supervisor is forced to rehash prior discussions from memory, and these stories may be less accurate when recalled than the notes and documentation that have been previously accepted and agreed to.
Q. I know how to formally refer an employee to the EAP, no problem. However, is it helpful to speak to the EAP anyway before I make a formal referral?
A. Although there is no fast rule regarding consulting with the EAP beforehand regarding a formal referral, there are advantages to doing so. Even if you know how to help arrange a referral, use documentation effectively, and communicate later when following up, every referral to an EAP involves an employee whose issues are unique. Employee assistance professionals are extremely attuned to performance issues and the nuances of how they present themselves in the workplace. This is where the art of the interview exists. Based on patterns you experience with an employee, an EA professional will make decisions about what interviewing techniques to employ. If you phone the EAP to inform the program about a pending referral and speak with a staff member about issues such as the type of interactions you have with your employee, prior cooperation, patterns of performance problems, environmental influences, and history of other concerns not relevant to the current matter, this may help the EA professional consider the assessment approach that will ultimately make the referral more successful.
