This is How an Employee Assistance Program Benefits Your Employees

It’s a competitive world out there for businesses. It’s harder than ever to stand out in the crowd and attract the best talent. A business is only as good as it’s worst employee, but how do you ensure you can get the very best to come work for you?

Providing the right perks and the proper workplace environment can be a big part of this process. People want to work where they know they will be taken care of. Implementing an employee assistance program in your workplace can be a big help.

There are many employee assistance program benefits that are worth considering. A program can help your workers and your business in ways big and small. Read on, and we’ll walk you through what you need to know.

What Is An Employee Assistance Program?

If you’re not familiar with what an employee assistance program is, you wouldn’t be the first. It’s a relatively new idea in the modern workplace. Simply stated, an assistance program is an employment benefit that offers support and problem-management counseling to workers.

A program could, for example, help an employee work through mental health issues, financial trouble, or excessive stress. It’s an extra layer of counseling and guidance given through the workplace.

An EAP can be administered in various ways. In many cases, counseling can take place with a representative over the telephone. In some cases, an employer may have someone in-office who works with employees in this way.

Employee assistance is not the same as therapy, but in some ways, they serve similar functions. Employee assistance is intended to talk through an employee’s issues and how they relate to the workplace specifically.

Obviously, if you plan to integrate employee assistance programs into your workplace, you need to make sure your employees know how they work and how best to approach this service.

What are the benefits of bringing this kind of program forward in your own workplace?

Strengthen Morale and Mental Health

A strong team will be a team of individuals who are excited and incentivized to get to work. Today’s workforce has more up against them than any before, and it can be hard to not let this get to one’s mental health.

Having the support system of an EAP in place can help stabilize many employees, or keep them from going off-the-rails to begin with.  It’s amazing how much help just having someone to talk to can be for many of your employees.

An EAP will be able to guide your workers through stress and anxiety-related issues. With these coping mechanisms in hand, they’ll be better prepared to show up for work happy and focused.

It’s worth remembering that positive office morale means good things for all other areas of your business as well.

Keeps Your Business Competitive for Hires

As we mentioned initially, it’s hard out there today to ensure your business will attract the kind of top talent that you want. Today’s workers are really looking for a workplace that has taken steps to demonstrate it cares about its employees.

Having an EAP in place is one of the easiest and most obvious ways to display to potential new hires that you care about their well-being. Many companies today have them, and to not include one may actually lower your standing in the eyes of many new graduates.

There are many other things you might need to do to attract top talent, of course. But providing a warm and welcoming workplace can’t be understated in terms of its potential importance.

Reduce Absenteeism and Increase Productivity

Let’s face it, stress can very easily lead to illness. Illness means days off of work, and that means a blow to your productivity in the workplace. Having a program in place that can help employees to properly mitigate their stress can help to avoid this problem overall.

Some EAPs even offer health counseling, giving employees the advice they need to stay in tip-top shape.

Not only will this help to decrease absenteeism in the workplace, but it may also even help to save you on worker’s compensation or health insurance, were these illnesses to get serious. Productivity will increase, and you’ll see better work for employees who are happy and healthy.

EAPs Can Save You Money In The Long-Run

How badly can poor performance affect your company in the long-run? You don’t have to be a business guru to know that even one bad day from an employee could potentially result in thousands of dollars of lost profit.

This may vary depending on exactly what kind of industry you work in, but for the most part, this holds true: you need your employees at the top of their game while they are on the clock.

The best way to do that is to ensure they have a support system in place. With EAP help, your employees should stay strong. Though it might be a little investment on the front end, the money you can save from ensuring your employees have this kind of assistance can be humongous.

The Many Employee Assistance Program Benefits

There’s been a larger focus these days on looking out for the long-term health of employees through services like an EAP.

Luckily, an employee assistance program benefits the entire business as a whole in a variety of ways. The reasons mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this kind of program can really offer.

Need more advice for your small business? Check out our blog for more.