An Employee Assistance Programme is a worksite-focused programme to assist in the identification and resolution of employee concerns that effect performance. These concerns typically include, but are not limited to: 

• Personal matters - health, relationship, family, financial, emotional, legal, anxiety, alcohol, drugs and other related issues.
• Work matters - work demands, fairness at work, working relationships, harassment and bullying, personal and interpersonal skills, work/life balance, stress and other related issues.

An EAP includes a mechanism for providing counselling and other forms of assistance, advice and information to employees on a systematic and uniform basis.

Benefits of an EAP

Organisations continue to face unprecedented pressures and demands from increasing competition, heavier workloads and longer hours, all of which have to be dealt with at a personal level. It is inevitable that these continuous pressures will cause problems both for every organisation and many individuals.

In this climate EAPs help individuals, managers and organisations to:

• Cope with work-related and personal problems and challenges that impact on performance at work.
• Improve productivity and workplace efficiency.
• Increase support for employees
• Lessen absenteeism and staff turnover.
• Promote better workplace co-operation.
• Position the organisation as a caring employer.
• Reduce grievances.
• Assist in addiction problems.
• Improve staff morale and motivation.
• Demonstrate a caring attitude to employees.

In short, EAPs represent a proven, cost-effective solution to many of the people problems employers face today.