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EASA leads the EAP Race
2008/02/01
The modern workplace is a complex environment that places dynamic demands on employees. These demands can often spill over and sap the capacity of your coping resources. Over a sustained period this can lead to burnout. Burnout is growing to epidemic proportions globally and is fast becoming a concern for South African businesses. All you need do is to speak to people around you and slowly but surely they will speak of the constant fatigue, the lack of motivation and the dried up creativity. Unproductive employees are liabilities and not assets to organizations, so the well being of workers becomes a priority issue on the business agenda.
The reason for the shift in corporate thinking should be clear. Business is beginning to see the benefits of having a happy and healthy workforce. By focusing on a preventive health model using an EAP platform they are saving significant amounts money in the medium to long term for a relatively small initial investment. South Africa is rapidly entering the age of the Employee Assistance Programme. These programmes are about reducing a business risk by investing proactively in the health of employees. Companies are prioritizing employee’s health as their most valuable commodity.
The objective of an employee assistance programme is to identify and prevent problems before they become unmanageable and start affecting every other aspect of the employee’s life. EAPs that truly help are those that assist employee’s to share the load by offering practical advice and problems solving. Successful EAP’s include comprehensive educational and awareness campaigns to build employee awareness and trust, which is a critical element to the success of such a programme. This in turn allows those employees needing the services to feel confident enough to access the programme. The principles of self management, peer, as well as self referral is supported and promoted through such campaigns.
“A good employee assistance programme should take a holistic view and not only deal with issues at work,” says Cleone Bakker, General Manager, Marketing at Europ Assistance SA.
“For many, issues at work take a back seat when one of two bread winners is retrenched and financial institutions are threatening law suits. It may not be up to the employer to bail them out, but what if the employer can help and still maintain a degree of non-interference?”
Europ Assistance South Africa have a proud history in the assistance market, and their most recent innovation, LifeBalance was ranked in the top three at an international product development competition held in France in 2007. LifeBalance has a systemic focus on finding areas in people’s lives that can be made easier with professional and efficient services ranging from household repairs, health and legal advice to emergency services.
“There is no doubt that a good EAP can result in a reduction on staff turnover and increase productivity,” ends Bakker. Cleone Bakker is General Manager of Marketing at Europ Assistance South Africa and EAP is the latest creation to come out of a dynamic team effort that helped bring EAP to fruition.The power of the Europ Assistance SA Integrated Employee Wellness Programme is that it looks at an employee as an individual with more than just a work life; intervenes at the onset of daily challenges, whether it be related to debt, ill health, abuse or any issues that may impact productivity. Cleoné and her committed team proud to take this valuable new product to market.
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