Employee Assistance Programmes Continued

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Longer term Assistance

Some valuable employees can suffer from illness, injury, home life difficulties or work related issues which can simply take longer to unpick or resolve. Some people unfortunately do not respond to short term interventions because of their individual character, and some are unable to change quickly because they are still being exposed to the root problem. In these cases a short term intervention process is followed by ongoing sessions of assistance spaced out over time as appropriate. These clients are also encouraged to seek other forms of assistance including building personal support networks and outlets for frustration and stress.

Methods used: Psychotherapy, Counselling, Relaxation Therapy, Behaviour Change, Networking

Group Support

Many issues can be assisted with Relaxation therapy for stress reduction. This is now widely recognised as an effective method of control stress. Psychologists theorise quite logically that this works since it is impossible for stress or depression to exist in a state of relaxation. Thus is provides respite and trains the person to experience a more positive state. Generally the more relaxed the person, the more positive and productive they are. Group relaxation sessions are enjoyable and positive experiences for everyone and can be seen as prevention rather than treating something “wrong”. This assists in take up of the service both as a direct prevention, and in terms of an introduction to the service for other reasons. 

Workshops

Preventative workshops dealing with stress management, assertiveness and relaxation are valuable in terms of breaking down any barriers to seeking support, and also in terms of prevention of what are major causes.

 Additional Services 

There are other services that can be used either by arrangement as part of the EAP, or in addition to it. These include: 

• Hypnosis and motivation for stopping smoking
• Visualisation and NLP for improved sales or performance
• Visualisation for improved presentation skills

 

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Key Words
EAP, Employee assistance programme, counselling, anger management, stress management, staff training, staff assistance, violence in the workplace, anxiety in the workplace, stress at work, absenteeism, low turn out, missing days off work, sickness leave, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Stirling, Scotland.

Intervention Methods Used

When choosing the methods and resources to commit to an EAP, it is vital to consider the size and nature of the company being targeted. The larger the company, obviously the larger the uptake, and therefore there is additional wisdom is committing time to preventative measures which can take the form of group sessions or workshops. These can be used in order to reduce stress levels, teach coping techniques and promote well-being, hence helping to prevent long term stress and absenteeism occurring. These methods serve as a useful introduction or ice-breaker to the service, and ensures positive use of the EAP provider’s time during quieter times of uptake. 

The underpinning method used however is always the face to face session with the employee. Whether this is crisis intervention and only takes two or three sessions, or more long term lasting months, this is the main stay of any effective programme.

 Crisis Intervention

When an employee has a crisis or trauma in their life, whether at home or at work, their ability to cope and function is potentially severely reduced. Normal stress levels or work pressure become intolerable when inflicted on top of this new burden. When this occurs it is commonplace for work performance to fall, and of course for long term sickness leave to result. Sometime the sickness leave is specifically because of stress or anxiety, in other cases the extreme stress level causes other parts of the employee’s well-being to suffer, for example causing repeated infections of back pain. This can sometimes be psychosomatic, sometimes because of undermined immune system.

When a person hits trauma, there are two issues to address: survival and long term recovery. The first is addressed using Critical Stress Debriefing techniques and is a relatively short term or rapid intervention. This is combined with teaching survival skills which may include changing social activity or sleep patterns and ensuring sensible eating patterns while the person recovers. The latter, long term recovery can sometimes follow on without assistance, but sometimes requires ongoing counselling to address underlying or linked issues. Some companies refuse all but short term intervention. This may have implications legally if the cause of long term intervention being needed is work related.

Methods used: Critical Debriefing, Survival coaching, Ongoing Counselling where appropriate.

 Short term Interventions

The therapy world is notoriously split over the long term effectiveness of short term interventions. The theory is that a sufficiently comprehensive intervention will change patterns of behaviour and add coping skills. This will in turn enable the person to overcome underlying issues and simply change the way they cope. This conflicts with the concept of underlying issues being essential to address in full, otherwise issues will reoccur eventually. In practice short term intervention can be used effectively with many people since many continue the therapy process themselves with self-help methods. Therefore for an EAP, this is a very useful modality to use. Typically EAP short term interventions last about 6 one hour sessions. Recently “Life Coaching” has become well known as a brand of short term intervention. 

Methods used: Psychotherapy, Person Centred Counselling, Behaviour Change Techniques 

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