Is your EAP service a waste of money?

EAP (employee assistance programmes) have traditionally been used by organisations to employee wellbeing at work in the form of;

  • Financial advice
  • Child and eldercare information services
  • Legal advice
  • Information on workplace issues
  • Short term counselling services

The average cost of an EAP service, according to the Employee Assistance Programme market watch, is around £14 per employee per year.

Therefore if, for example, if you employ 250 people, the annual cost of the EAP service would be £3,500 per year.

While on the surface, this doesn’t appear an excessive financial cost, the question is ‘what return on investment (ROI) does that £3,500 provide?’

As Henry Ford said, “If you always do what youve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

Very wise words when it comes to reviewing if your EAP service is delivering any positive return on investment in the form of employee wellbeing at work and if it’s been utilised by your employees.

An EAP service is traditionally a reactionary service, one which employees can utilise when they have reached the point they need held – a crisis point. An employee may them get help in the form of information or counselling sessions.

However, it’s worth taking a step back and asking what are you aiming to achieve in investing in such a scheme and how does that support a prevention over cure approach?

In order to establish how your EAP service is providing a tangible return on investment in the field of employee wellbeing, take a few moments to consider the following.

Does your EAP provider help your organisation to…

  • Reduce the cost of absence by providing employees with proactive training and resources on how to build emotional, physical and mental resilience and wellbeing?
  • Reduce absence figures overall by providing consistent advice and training to employees on what is needed to be a healthy, happy and energised individual?
  • Improve employee engagement levels by having regular presence in the workplace in the form of on going resilience training?
  • Improve the performance levels of your employee’s by teaching them exactly how to change the way they think, feel and behave on the inside so that they excel on the outside?
  • Provide expert consultancy on how to develop and implement a comprehensive wellbeing strategy?

If you answered no to one or more of the above points, it may be time to question whether you need a different approach!.

EAPs can be helpful when an employees has reached crisis point, but what if our employees didn’t need to reach that point?  What is the world of employee wellbeing was one where employees learnt to thrive instead of simply survive?

Sound good?

Book a free consultation call with us today to find out how we can help you create a holistic wellbeing strategy which supports your people at all levels.

“The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyper-consciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.”
Frank Herbert 

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