About the author

Rob Blake is a respected insurance industry leader with 15 years of experience covering lead generation, sales, operations management, and customer retention.

 

 

Disclaimer: This article is intended for your general knowledge and does not substitute for the advice of a medical professional. It should not be used to diagnose or treat a problem.

Why your practice should take advantage of the EAP

There are clear benefits to your employees using the EAP service, as figures show that, after engaging in structured therapy, the Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) average score reduced from 1.9 to 0.9.

The results show the value of the EAP and the positive impact that the service is having on employees.

They also show that at the start of therapy 23.3% of employees were absent from work, but after engaging in therapy this reduced to 10.0% with 57.0% of employees returning to work.

57% of those out of work at the start of therapy are back in work at the end:

Three main reasons why people do not use EAPs

Reports from Health Assured have shown the three main reasons why people do not take advantage of the EAP are:

1. They are not aware of it - and therefore unsure how to access it
2. They do not believe it is fully confidential – they fear others may obtain their information
3. They believe the EAP is only for when in need (counselling being the obvious example), rather than offering proactive services too

Our Employee Assistance Programme is completely confidential and, as we can see from the findings above, in these uncertain times this service is more important than ever for employee wellbeing.

Speak to us if you would like to find out more about how the Employee Assistance Programme could benefit your practice.

Source: Health Assured, April 2020 - March 2021

Since April 2020, the EAP has recorded a high volume of calls, 89% of which were ‘Counselling’ related, and 11% of which were ‘Legal Advice’ related.

32.4% of overall counselling engagement were telephone-based counselling sessions to help with Anxiety.

Divorce & Separation was recorded as the most common reason for the Legal Advice related calls, accounting for 22% of overall engagement.

As the call summary chart, below, illustrates, call volumes increased slightly between April 2020 and March 2021, with spikes in November 2020 and in March this year, which are potentially the result of restrictions being lifted and individuals returning to work.