Hello,
I am a trustee for a small local charity. They recently completed a staff survey and one of the biggest negatives of the survey was staff feeling their workload was sustainable. I ran a session with them about their workload and it became apparent to the Chief Executive during this session that a lot of the staff are stressed, not just about workload but about the difficult cases they are handling. One of the solutions she has identified is to purchase an Employee Assistance Service.
I was just wondering for those of you who work in HR the following
1) Which company do you use and how do you feel about them?
2) Do you have any stats on how often the service is accessed or have you had any good feedback from staff about the service?
We have a trustee meeting on Wednesday and would love to take along to the meeting any of your thoughts/suggestions.
Many thanks
Laura
Replies
Hi Laura,
I spent a lot of time digging into this area recently, as most of the EAP provision out there is tied to something else such a medical wellbeing/ health assurance type programme that as a Charity,we simply can't afford.
I managed to find the solution though. Health Assured provides a standalone EAP which is very affordable, and offers an excellent service. Several staff have used the service, and have reported that it has been of great use to them. There is the added bonus that it is also available to dependants of employees that live at the same address.
They provide a quarterly report on usage, maintaining confidentiality of course which is essential for staff to feel comfortable in using it.
I would highly recommend having a look at what they offer. It's been a great success for us.
Regards
Steve
Hi Laura
Where I used to work we used Simply Health for our Employee Assistance Programme and we used to get monthly reports of the numbers who had accessed it and the broad types of reasons why they had accessed it. I don't have exact figures but do recall being surprised how I thought the usage was higher than I thought it would be.
My other observation is about the approach you day that the Chief Executive has identified the solutions, has she asked the employees what support they feel would help as it may well be something which she has not considered? Also have you considered getting someone external to run a focus group, as again employees may be more likley to share what they see as the underlying issues with someone not connected with the business?
Hope this helps
All the best
Sarah