Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) & The Workplace Wellbeing Market
Last month, one of the major Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs), went under scrutiny for how they dealt with a caller’s suicidal thoughts ‘go on a date with your wife’.
Whilst it is Health Assured that are currently being investigated by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), it would not be surprising if other EAPs followed & similar findings about their conduct emerged. Why? Because mental ill-health is on the rise, and has been in recent years, further exacerbated by the pandemic & global socio-political and economic challenges.
As any other business, a major goal of any EAP provider is to stay profitable. With the increasing mental health challenges & thereby demand, the EAPs‘ promise of delivery gets compromised-if for no other reason, than for the sheer volume of calls & EAPs‘ internal policies for dealing with the higher volumes so as to remain profitable.
When I entered the world of workplace wellbeing, I was surprised by the number of providers & solutions on offer, a crowded market place full of promises that I did not know existed! I thought to myself, how are we witnessing the rising rates of mental ill health & in workplaces, burnout, absenteeism, presenteeism if the solution is already out there in the market place?
With so many ‘subject matter experts’ shouldn’t workforce wellbeing be figured out by now? Sure, the demands of the workforce in response to their environment constantly evolves & differs across generations & there is a continuous need for adjustments- as with any other field. But that does not take away from the fact that workplace wellbeing interventions to date have proven themselves largely ineffective, trying to zoom in on what ‘seems’ to be an isolated problem but losing sight of how it inter-connects with the bigger picture & other key determinants of health.
Health, of which mental health is a part, is informed by a complex interplay of physiological, psychological, environmental factors. Add to that, the organisational factors impacting the work we do & how we do it- all shaping our sense of wellbeing.
Addressing mental health crises & workforce wellbeing is going to take the coming together of disciplines – & I would argue disciplines which currently seem far-removed from existing fields of psychology and occupational health to look at the puzzle of workforce wellbeing & engagement with minds that are not restricted by the conventional methodologies or closed off to alternative ways in which this holistic pain can be alleviated & better yet -prevented.