Beyond Management Consultation

SUMMARY

This case study explores the need for and development of enhanced management consultation in employee assistance programs (EAPs) in academe. The partners in organizational effectiveness team (POET) program created a partnership among central Human Resources (HR) specialists, EAP counselors and consulting professionals, and departmental HR professionals at The University of Iowa, that focused on the use of a systems perspective in dealing with organizational and interpersonal problems. Program structure and content as well as program evaluation is described. Examples of cases, outcomes and estimating financial impact are interwoven into the methodology of Merrill Anderson's model of bottom-line organizational development (OD) to measure the return on investment (ROI) of developing and launching a new program.

Key Words:

• Systems thinking and application
• return on investment
• partnerships
• productivity
• outcome measurement