An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a workplace benefit that helps employees manage everyday challenges that could negatively impact work or life. EAPs provide easy access to counseling services to address mental health concerns and information and referrals to help with life’s other challenges.
Employee assistance programs (EAPs) were introduced in the 1930s as a tool to improve workplace safety and job performance by helping workers address alcohol abuse. Since then, EAP providers have expanded their services to address a variety of challenges.
Different types of EAP services
However, not all employee assistance programs have evolved equally. When searching for an employee assistance program, it’s important to review the different types of EAP services offered and the provider’s approach to care. To learn more about employee assistance programs, check out our EAP Guide.
The need for employee assistance programs continues to grow. In its latest report, Stress in America 2023, The American Psychological Association explains that America is “a nation recovering from collective trauma … with the pandemic, global conflicts, racism, racial injustice, inflation, and climate-related disasters all weighing on American’s collective consciousness.”
As discussed in our Stress Guide, long-term stress can have a debilitating impact on employee mental health. When left unaddressed and untreated, stress can also impact an individual’s physical health and behaviors and negatively impact their families, workplaces, and society as a whole.
A whole new approach to employee assistance programs
At AllOne Health, we fully understand that mental health remains one of the most critical issues of our time. However, we also appreciate the strides made in medicine and psychology that recognize the importance of the mind-body connection. This is the belief that our thoughts, feelings, and emotions influence our physical health–and that our physical health influences thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
This recognition of the mind-body connection has led to a transformation in healthcare, where traditional medicine acknowledges and addresses the whole person and not just their physical symptoms. This “whole health approach” includes traditional therapies, such as medication, along with other evidence-based therapies, such as mental health services, physical activity, and other wellness and strategies, like healthy eating, mindfulness, and yoga.
A whole health employee assistance program
Having been in the business of care for more than 50 years, we recognize that mental health, physical health, and behaviors are all intertwined, and they’re influenced by relationships, finances, surroundings, and other aspects of life. To meet the needs of the whole person, we’ve expanded our employee assistance program benefits to provide a “whole health approach” to wellness.
AllOne Health employee assistance programs are designed to strengthen the whole person. By helping employees and their family members recognize and address the underlying causes of stress, our whole health approach helps strengthen mental health, physical health, and behavioral health. Our EAP services also help individuals strengthen relationships, build financial wellness, address family issues, and obtain resources and referrals for family care and lifestyle support.
A whole health approach to employee assistance programs
Here’s a closer look at the many types of support services included in an AllOne Health employee assistance program, and how our EAP services build stronger individuals, stronger teams, and stronger organizations.
Support for the whole person
- Short-term mental health counseling services help employees and their family members with stress management, anxiety, depression, personal relationships, and issues that negatively influence their mental health or everyday lives. Short-term counseling sessions have proven very effective in helping employees address mental health issues, substance abuse, and other personal problems that interfere with work or life.
- In-the-moment counseling support is available by phone 24/7/365 from licensed clinicians to support employees or a family member who may be experiencing emotional distress or acute mental health concerns requiring immediate attention.
- Life coaching sessions help individuals reach personal and professional goals, manage life transitions, overcome obstacles, strengthen relationships, and achieve greater balance.
- Financial coaching helps people build financial wellness related to budgeting, buying a home, paying off debt, resolving general tax questions, preventing identity theft, and saving for retirement or tuition.
- Legal referral services help employees with personal legal concerns, such as estate planning, wills, real estate, bankruptcy, divorce, custody, and more.
- Work-life resources and referrals help people obtain information and resources for childcare, adoption, special needs support, eldercare, housing, transportation, education, and pet care.
- Personal assistant referrals help people save time with referrals for travel and entertainment, professional services, cleaning services, home food delivery, and managing everyday tasks.
- Medical advocacy referrals, to help employees navigate health insurance, obtain doctor referrals, secure medical equipment, and plan for transitional care and discharge.
Support for teams and organizations
- Dedicated account managers. Our account managers work closely with an organization’s human resources department and leadership teams to help with program planning, implementation, management, reviewing utilization reports, and strategic planning. Their services help ensure an active partnership, aligning both parties toward mutual goals and maximizing program effectiveness.
- Program implementation. We work closely with organizations to launch employee assistance programs that align with your organization’s values, culture, and environment. We can help develop referral protocols, drug and alcohol policies, critical incident responses, and workplace violence protocols.
- Orientation and training. We offer virtual orientation sessions for all employees. We also provide supervisor training on how the employee assistance program works and how to refer employees to the program for personalized support.
- Program promotion. Managers and supervisors can access tools and resources to enhance employee engagement, manage performance, and facilitate referrals for personal issues. Team leaders also have access to a promotional toolkit that includes digital flyers and orientation videos.
- Utilization reporting. We offer detailed reports on the success of your member assistance program, presented in aggregate form for confidentiality. These reports provide a qualitative analysis of service delivery, activity, and customer satisfaction to ensure that your EAP provider is meeting your goals.
So, which EAP services are the most popular?
At Allone Health, we provide an annual summary of the state of mental health at work. According to our most recent report, mental health support is our most popular EAP service. Here’s a closer look at our EAP usage trends.
To learn more about AllOne Health and our EAP services, check out the following resources:
- 5 Benefits and Challenges of Employee Assistance Programs | AllOne Health®
- 5 Ways to Increase EAP Utilization: How to Make Sure Your Employees Know About and Use Your Program | AllOne Health®
- EAPs: An Excellent Tool for Employee Retention | AllOne Health®
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