The evolution of Employee Assistance Programs
To survive, EAPs, have begun offering more than just alcohol counseling
The Wellness Corp.'s office on West Main Street in Shrewsbury alone can serve as proof of just how far employee assistance programs have come.
Antique-looking on the outside, with red brick and sharp, Victorian architecture, the inside is sterile, with eat-off-them clean carpets bordering mostly sterile walls, decorated by the odd, meticulously straightened picture. Right down to the smell and the magazines in the lobby (a stack of Ladies Home Journals, next to some Motor Trends), it's a medical doctor's office, if you don't know better.
Clearly, it's been a long time since the 1940s and '50s, when "EAP" stood for "employee alcohol program," and the help they provided consisted largely of an on-site sobriety counselor, typically in a back office rarely ventured to.
These days, EAPs are professional health catch-alls; multi-million-dollar businesses serving what Wellness Corp. CEO James Carbone estimated as 70 percent of U.S. businesses, and growing numbers of colleges and municipalities.
They're a little bit of everything - the Arlington, Va.-based Employee Assistance Professionals Association's 2003 "Standards and Professional Guidelines" handbook checks in at a solid 48 pages, with chapters on everything from "crisis intervention" to "organizational consultation" to "short-term problem resolution."
"They realized they had to offer more services to stay alive," said Carbone, a former emergency room nurse who started Wellness Corp. in 1984.
Broader spectrum
The goal of EAPs is, according to Gwen Carelli, the EAP manager at Worcester-based nonprofit Family Services of Central Massachusetts, is providing counseling services employees need to deal with personal problems before they affect their job performance. Far beyond mere drug and alcohol counseling (though those facets still play a role), EAPs are increasingly active in heading off family and financial issues, as well as providing training for supervisors.
It doesn't matter, Carelli said, whether the issues stem from work or home. The goal is always the same: stop little problems before they become big ones.
"In some ways, the issues from the workplace are in the broader spectrum," Carelli said. "We do have a lot of knowledge about workplace issues and we're a great resource for companies. But it's a broad-spectrum counseling service to deal with any personal problem."
Wellness Corp., which prides itself on offering "24-hour telephonic access to professional counselors," has gone even further. In addition to providing EAP services to some 400 companies in the U.S., Canada and western Europe, Carbone's company specializes in student assistance programs (or SAPs), which provide similar services to college students.
The company offered pro bono counseling services to Virginia Tech students in the wake of the April 16 campus shootings.
What's the benefit?
Of course, the services come with a price tag. Wellness Corp. charges businesses between $1.30 and $5.50 per employee per month, depending on the size of the company and the type of plan provided. Carelli said Family Services' prices are "right in line" with Wellness Corp.'s.
Wellness Corp.'s SAP runs colleges roughly $1 per student per month.
The return, Carbone said, comes from decreased turnover, increased productivity and morale and risk management, from nipping instances of domestic violence before they become a major problem to cutting down on employee theft carried out to feed addictions.
"It's hard to come to work anxious or depressed and do the job you're supposed to do," Carbone said.
He said between 7 and 15 percent of employees at Wellness Corp.-covered companies utilize EAP services.
Carelli said that every dollar spent on EAP programs saves a company four in health care costs.
"It's in addressing a lot of the stress issues before they become medical issues," she said.
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