STILL Choosing an EAP for your Employees

Directors of Human Resources, Brokers, Account and Benefit Managers, we are (still) talking to you. 

What are employees (still) asking for? Employees are asking for mental health support through the workplace.

What does this mean for employers? This means that if you don’t have an EAP in place, you still need one. An EAP supports employee mental health and if you do have one, let's make sure it is working for your employees and providing the reason you invested in this service.

EAP stands for Employee Assistance Program.

An EAP is a benefit, system, and service provider when used helps your employees and their dependents when they need assistance with life’s challenges.

A recent article cited again that EAP’s are only seeing between 3% and 5% utilization. As Northstar wraps another round of Utilization Reviews with our partners, we are seeing double digits usage for every organization. If your group is not seeing this amount of use with your EAP, you can either credit the amazing work culture or maybe a different EAP should be considered.

Not only do we see utilization for most partners in 8%-15%, but we also watch certain stats for integration and employee engagement. This is the entire reason you invest in an EAP benefit. To have your employees access and use the employee assistance and what we label as ‘everything assistance’.

This topic is not shrinking or being pushed lower on the list, in fact, awareness is growing and it’s becoming an easier topic to bring up in the workplace versus a decade ago when this subject was taboo and often surrounded by stigma. It is not perfect or all better, but it’s vastly improved.

Below we pulled together three recent studies, articles, and publications discussing workplace mental health.

This report from Mental Health America helps outline that in addition to an EAP benefit there are additional markers and initiatives that when integrated into the workplace create a sustainable and mentally healthy environment.

In a study sponsored by Michigan’s Labor and Economic Opportunity Office, they point out these issues and symptoms associated with stress:

Among the symptoms of chronic stress, individuals may experience cognitive, emotional, physical and behavioral signs of chronic stress:

• Aches and pains
• Insomnia or sleepiness
• Change in social behavior, such as staying in often
• Low energy
• Unfocused or cloudy thinking
• Change in appetite
• Increased alcohol or drug use
• Change in emotional responses to others
• Emotional withdrawal

From these early symptoms, chronic stress can lead to severe medical and mental health challenges. Chronic stress is linked to other conditions, both psychological and physical. These can include:

• Diseases such as hypertension, heart disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome, Type II diabetes and arthritis.
• Addiction to alcohol, nicotine and/ or prescription drugs, and behavioral related activities such as addiction to the internet, food or gambling.
• Mood disorders and anxiety disorders, which are common secondary diagnoses for people with chronic stress.
• Hypertension, depression, addiction and anxiety disorders.

To help remedy these issues on of the topics they suggest is:

RECOMMIT TO EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS (EAPS)

EAPs are specifically designed to support employees needing certain help including mental health. However, these programs are generally underutilized, with roughly 5% of employees using them. Employers must identify why employees are unlikely to use these programs and find ways to enhance their utilization.

-And this brings us back up to the top. At Northstar, we take the work on for you. We pride ourselves on employees actually using the EAP to give you a better result in the workplace.

As well as the report linked above, SHRM, also had an article in their recent publication titled, “Building a Mental Healthy Workplace”. The information from this article find us a little less enthused, with “45% of a survey of 1,400 employees say their jobs leave them emotionally drained, and 44 percent say they feel burned out”.

The points made in this article emphasize helping and supporting new managers, focus on training, and ensuring you have all the benefits like EAP and whole person health benefits that can assist with Behavioral Health beyond EAP.

“Work environment leadership -or lack thereof- lack or role clarity, team culture, home life- all are significant factors that can impact [someone’s] well-being and performance in the workplace”, says James Peoples. And at Northstar, we agree.

It’s not all bad news however. Human Resources professionals play a vital role in workplace mental health and that’s great news! This gives you the ability to help your organization on a mass level and individual.

The bottom line, is that improving mental health in the workplace is better for the bottom line. If you take care of the people case, the business case often takes care of itself.