Why traditional EAP providers are failing your workforce (and what to do instead)

How do you take care of your people? If you’ve rolled out an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), you’re likely falling short of supporting all aspects of your employee’s health, safety and wellbeing. 

Traditionally, EAP services have been synonymous with counselling services. In the UK alone, EAPs provide over 1.3 million counselling sessions annually. That means they’re mostly operating from a perspective of reaction (not prevention) and only address problems once they’ve escalated to a crisis point.

But this isn’t the only challenge with traditional EAPs. Utilisation rates are incredibly low. When assessing recent research*, the average utilisation rate of EAPs across Australia, the UK and the US tends to sit as low as 5%, if not lower.

Lack of awareness is another major challenge. Despite having access to EAPs, only 27% of employees realise one exists in their workplace.

As a result, employees are no longer able to bring their best selves to work — or even make it into the workplace at all. The Institute for Public Policy Research reports the UK lost £100 billion due to employee sickness last year alone. Plus, presenteeism is on the rise, costing the nation £25 billion in lost productivity annually.

To help you understand the key challenges reshaping workforce wellbeing, we sat down with Brian Long (Group Health, Safety and Wellbeing Director at Wates Groups) and Dr Julian Nesbitt (Founder, Dr Julian Healthcare Platform) to unpack actionable tips and innovative strategies you can implement to support your team’s mental health, safety and wellbeing.

Watch the full recording here, or catch up on the highlights below.

*References:  IBISWorld, Productivity Commission, Society for Human Resource Management, The American Journal of Health Promotion, EAPA UK

One of the biggest drawbacks of a traditional EAP is its focus on reactive care.

Typically, employees can only access care once issues have escalated in severity, leaving your people without the tools, resources and support they need to prevent ill health and address small concerns before they snowball into much larger, more serious problems.

Taking a reactive approach can also mean that employees may take longer to recover and return to work, too. Presenteeism and absenteeism are much easier to tackle at a company level if your people are empowered to build healthy daily habits that proactively prevent them from needing to take unplanned time away from work.

Relying on traditional EAPs often means giving your people access to generic, one-size-fits-all care. Not only are EAP services typically focused on counselling, but many come with a cap on employer-funded sessions, focusing on short-term fixes and quick wins rather than tackling the root cause of an employee’s distress.

Throw in the challenges facing EAP providers (including a lack of trained clinicians, long working hours, limited resources and a high-pressure environment), and it’s not hard to see why employees aren’t receiving the highest level of care.

Dr Julian echoes this sentiment, explaining that “everyone is an individual and unique, and traditional EAPs have always sort of been about a generic response. Most of the time, that doesn’t work, and people need a much more personalised approach to their care.”

As a result, many employees are skeptical about seeking help from employer-funded programmes like traditional EAPs. With a limited scope of care, long wait times for appointments and only generic solutions on offer, engagement and utilisation rates can be incredibly low.

The key to boosting usage and engagement is to offer personalised, tailored solutions that allow employees to choose from a range of services, resources and styles of support. Delivering the right support at the right time (to a high standard) is what will build trust with your people and ensure you can prevent ill health rather than respond to it.

As an employer, you have an important role to play in sharing the culture of your organisation. Simply introducing a traditional EAP isn’t enough to build a company culture that prioritises employee wellbeing, reduces stigma around mental health and encourages open communication.

With EAP alternatives, you’re able to offer flexible, personalised support to your people that will foster and encourage help-seeking behaviour.

But don’t take our word for it. In this webinar, Brian shared a practical example of a workforce initiative he helped to roll out that improved employee wellbeing by reshaping company culture.

“Australia’s largest retailer, Woolworths, implemented an initiative called ‘I Am Here’. The intent was to help thousands of people upskill in caring, considerate and active listening and ultimately learn how to respond when people come to them with peer-to-peer sharing of difficult experiences. Even if employees weren’t in an acute state of distress, having the opportunity to open up to a colleague had a lot more value than assigning someone a form and then going through HR to access an EAP.” 

As a result of this initiative, Woolworths helped to destigmatise help-seeking behaviour, fostered closer bonds between team members and created a feel-good factor around prioritising health and wellbeing at work.

Giving your people access to care beyond traditional EAPs isn’t just good for employee health and wellbeing. In fact, there are tangible benefits when it comes to boosting productivity, reducing costs and lowering the risk of employee turnover.

The key to seeing the ROI and cost benefits of an employer-funded care programme is ensuring the services offered are holistic, tailored to the individual and focused on prevention, not cure.

Want to know what poor worker wellbeing is costing your organisation? Try our free EAP comparison calculator to see how much you could save by moving to a complete employee care platform. 

Ready to introduce an assistance programme your employees will actively engage in? Book a free Sonder demo today and check out our Insider’s Guide to EAPs to learn more about how to track return on investment and return on value.