Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are interventions, which focus on helping employees with any life issue, concern or problem, which directly or indirectly affects the job performance of the employee.  In our country, since the 1980s, EAPs have been steadily gaining in their importance to employers, employees, their family members and to organisations as a whole.  They have been found to be an important service and resource for proactive, prevention-focused management of problems workers bring to the workplace.  An estimate of the total effect of human problems on our nation and within the workplace, in terms of marital/relationship problems, mental illness, alcohol and other drug abuse, together with other forms of abuse (i.e. physical, emotional, sexual, social, spiritual), stress, financial problems, addictions such as gambling, smoking, catastrophic diseases, etc. is virtually an unknown.  However, based on data obtained from personal reports, anecdotes, some surveys and case studies, we can conclude that indeed employees do not leave their life problems outside on the doorstep.   As they enter the workplace, employees bring the full compendium of themselves, in a totally holistic fashion, right at the feet of the employer.   Too often they also bring with them the expectation, that the employer would understand, accommodate, empathise, accept or in some cases ‘fix it’ for them.

From international studies of the effect of life problems on the workplace, we note that the cost of pain, suffering and even lives lost due to personal problems is enormous and takes its toll on the worker, co-workers, and the organization as a whole.  The Employee Assistance Professionals Association, the accreditation body for EAP Providers, estimate that 15% of any adult population exhibit some potentially serious symptoms related to stress, and a large number experience financial problems, and live beyond their means. A recent survey conducted by one of our prominent scholars stated that ten percent of any population might be suffering from a sexually transmitted disease.  This reality also is present in the workplace.

Services
The good news for all of us is that a growing number of companies and some public sector organizations in our country have made EAP services available for employees and their family members.   These programmes are unique in that, according to Blum, 1988, they provide at minimum what is termed “EAP Core Technology” of services.  These include:

1)  Identification of employee’s behavioral issues based on job performance concerns. – The identification of a ‘troubled employee’ is based on job performance measures, not the subjective diagnosis of a supervisor.

2)  Provision of consultation services to supervisors and managers, on how to reach workers who are distressed, and on how to make informal and formal referrals to the EAP

3)  The use of EAP techniques to confront employees, in a constructive manner, to appropriately communicate to the employee, early in the development of deteriorating job performance and to offer assistance, and support through the EAP

4)  To offer access, linkages and referrals to the community of specialists and providers of various professional services (outside the scope of the EAP Provider) which employees may need.

5)  To provide the link between the organization and the employee’s treatment by understanding the balance between the needs of the organization and the role of the clinical concerns the employee is experiencing.

6)  To provide assessment, short-term, brief, face-to-face counselling, referral and follow-up services for each employee, who may be experiencing issues which affect their job performance (including but not limited to stress, alcohol and other drug use, financial, relationship, family, etc