What We Are Doing in the Employee Assistance Program

Abstract

Using the Integrated Model of Occupational Assistanceas a framework, a review of 88 organizations from across Canada with active Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) was conducted. It was found that the majority of programs provide services primarily to meet individual employee needs with fewer EAPs offering services targeted at enhancing the overall wellness of the workplace. Some form of mutual aid-self help programming was a component of nearly half of the EAPs though less than one quarter of programs took this form of assistance and applied it to the organizational environment. Neither workforce size, location, sector, having an existing EAP policy or committee nor who the program initiator was, were associated with the provision of enhanced mutual aid or organizational-focused services. The survey did discover, however, that the evolution of standard and traditional EAP practice into a more integrated wellness-focused approach is no longer merely a theoretical conceptualization but has begun to be put into place to a limited extent at several diverse Canadian work sites.

Key Words:

• Service provision
• wellness
• mutual aid
• social control