What is an EAP and Why is it important?
Finding innovative behavioral health tools that augment outpatient counseling, has never been more important than in 2022. As wellbeing hubs for the workplace, top-tier Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) have been leading the way in identifying, vetting, and deploying innovative behavioral health solutions for employees. These full-service EAPs go well beyond counseling. They understand the corporate culture, coach managers on mental health issues, provide training, and respond to crises. Strong EAPs track each organization’s employee benefits to educate employees about options for care. This puts them in a position to be the hub for integrating innovative behavioral health solutions.
EAPs drive 3 things - prevention of BH problems, behavioral risk reduction, and treatment. Within this context, it is a win-win when EAPs help organizations find, vet, and introduce innovative behavioral health solutions.
Innovative behavioral health solutions become critical when most of the workforce report that they are experiencing significantly more anxiety and depression than before the pandemic. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 45% of Americans felt that the pandemic was harming their mental health and Pew Research Center indicated that 73 percent of Americans reported feeling anxious at least a few days per week.
As a “hub” for workplace wellbeing programs, top-tier EAPs quickly create solutions that provide immediate access and support for employees dealing with behavioral health issues, work life challenges and crises.
As demand expands, organizations and their benefits brokers/consultants are all struggling to understand the new and expanded behavioral health ecosystem and the efficacy of various solutions. EAPs provide a way to combine deep knowledge of employers’ benefits, the company’s corporate culture, and integrating that into how they help employees. Increasing the variety of ways in which employees get help creates multiple pathways for immediate support and assistance.
At MyAdvisor, our team address not only crisis intervention and prevention within the workforce, but also provides the tools necessary for holistic health and well-being. Our award-winning contact center handles thousands of calls per month, across the United States, to give ongoing support in the areas of holistic health, financial management, career guidance, and referral management. When both clinical and non-clinical services are provided together, it treats symptoms in concert rather than discreetly, leading to a more productive and healthier workplace.
Additionally, our MyAdvisor experts utilize technology to provide 24/7/365 access directly to those in need, whenever and wherever they need it. Even before the pandemic, MyAdvisor stayed ahead of the curve offering not only distance counseling and coaching, but also Virtual World collaboration through our work within the DoD.
What’s really important in the end is that every employee who wants or needs help finds it easily and immediately. A stellar personal user experience is critical when employees are under stress because they may not know which way to turn. The telephone alone is no longer a sole entry point different generations access care in different ways. As EAPs have expanded their roles they are now providing many “doorways” to care, including seamless access via text, chat, email, app, or phone. It is critical that workplaces simplify all they have to offer by making sure that the services are well vetted and organized before demand for services increases further.