Tammy Stoner, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, provides presentations, coaching and counseling services. As the developer of the Teddy Bear Technique® Toolkit she demonstrates fast and fun ways to engage in storytelling for adults and children, and quickly reach the hard to reach. As author, presenter and coach, services are guaranteed to create breakthrough results!
EAP Programs Provide Benefit For
Employers And Employees
In the early 1900s the United States workplace began a rapid transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. Family members began working in factories away from the home setting. The onset of the change from agricultural to industrial brought new problems into the workplace. By 1917 companies throughout America began to see a need for helping with the personal problems as a way of improving workplace productivity.
In the 1940s, the Macy Company was the very first company to establish a employee assistance program as a method of addressing alcoholism that was beginning to appear in white collar workers. It wasn’t until the 1970s when grants were established to form workplace employee assistance programs that the EAP became firmly planted in our workplace and developed widespread popularity.
There is a growing awareness that problems faced by employees affect workplace productivity. Alcoholism, drug abuse and marital issues can have a negative impact on employee performance and diminish workplace productivity. If an employee is dealing with divorce, death, or insurmountable stressors at home, they will produce less work than the employee who doesn’t face these issues.
As companies gain increasing awareness that issues outside of work do impact productivity the need for employee assistance programs grows.
From an employer standpoint the motivating force in hiring EAP counselors is to make more money. It is far less expensive to address personal issues than it is to ignore them for a company’s profitability.
Employee Assistance Programs are designed to help a worker improve productivity. They offer short term counseling services in stress management, family issues and substance abuse counseling. They often utilize referral services such as private counselors, doctors and community mental health centers to help employees with personal problems as a method of improving productivity, which will then improve profitability.
However, like everything else in today’s economy, businesses are complex and multifaceted. There is a growing recognition that one on one counseling is sometimes not enough. There are other issues faced by organizations. Issues such as team work, organizational development and leadership skills and training, and so EAP also addresses them. As if that isn’t enough for an employee assistance program to tend to, growing cutbacks and layoffs create internal stressors, not necessarily related to problems outside the workplace but inside the workplace. As a result, EAP has become more complex as it tackles internal stressors faced inside the workplace.
Employee Assistance Programs are frequently multifaceted with counselors in these settings wearing many hats. Responsibilities of counselors in these settings have expanded from one on one counseling for workers dealing with personal issues outside the organization, to training and education about stressors occurring inside the organization and having an impact on work performance.
Reprint permission granted in part or whole when the following credit appears: Reprinted with permission from Tammy Stoner LCSW at
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