ARE YOU GETTING THE ROI FOR YOUR EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME?
By Ashley Galliard
(This article appeared in the SABPP Newsletter, June 20017
http://sabpp.co.za/getting-roi-employee-assistance-programme-employee-wellness-programme-ashley-galliard/)
Over the next few weeks we will be exploring whether
your company’s Employee Wellness
Programmes (EWP) and Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) are giving you bang
for your buck and are achieving what they are designed to do – improving the
wellbeing of your employees! (For the purpose of this article we will discuss
EAP’s and EWP’s together in an attempt to cover the broadest possible spectrum
of employee wellbeing). Available research (primarily out of the USA) strongly
supports the benefits of effective EAP and EWP interventions, for example,
Johnson and Johnson leaders estimate that wellness programmes have cumulatively
saved the company $250 million on health care costs over the past decade and a
return of $2.71 for every dollar spent between 2002 and 2008. (Leonard L.
Berry, Ann M. Mirabito and William B. Naun Harvard Business Review Dec 2010.)
Many companies however still see wellness as something intangible and difficult
to measure, and so opt for a ‘bare minimum’ approach to EAP and EWP solutions.
This tends to lead to disappointing returns on investment and little or no
improvements in employee wellbeing. This will be the focal point of our
discussion.
In our fast paced world, we are required to devote over 50%
of our waking hours to the companies that employ us. In addition, with
technology, it is common place to take work home to meet stringent deadlines,
conduct conference calls after hours, service client needs after hours, take
calls from the office and so on…..We never get to switch off, and being
constantly ‘switched on’ in loyal
service to the company is considered a badge of honour! People are suffering
the effects of the fast paced lifestyle that modern business demands and
chronic physical and mental illness are reaching epidemic proportions in many
industry sectors.
Against this backdrop, it stands to reason that the need for
companies to look after the wellbeing of their biggest assets, their people,
has never been greater. Companies have a very real ethical responsibility to
its devoted employees and what’s more, a healthy staff means greater
productivity and bigger profits. Enter EAP’s and EWP’s.
EAP’s and EWP’s are in principle very necessary and have the
potential to effect significant change on the wellbeing of employees, and some
undoubtedly do. Broadly speaking EAP’s are employee benefit programmes that are
concerned with your employees mental and emotional wellbeing providing
assessment, support and referral to help employees find relief or assistance on
matters that may impact or affect their ability to function properly on the
job. They cover areas such as substance abuse, family matters, emotional
distress, work relationship issues, work life balance, financial matters and
almost anything relevant that makes the life of the employee a little easier
both at work and outside of work, for
example, assistance with the enrolment of children into schools, etc.
EWP’s on the other hand aim to keep your workforce fit and
hardy and cover primarily areas of physical wellbeing. They include services such as health
screening, education about the prevention and treatment of health conditions;
they may offer medical advice/support services including education, support and
the provision of opportunities for exercise, relaxation and healthy eating.
EAP’s and EWP’s may overlap depending on the way they are structured and
together they complete a comprehensive and holistic picture of employee
wellbeing.
EAP’s and EWP’s are often driven through Interactive
software programmes in which employees have their own personal online wellness
portal, a ‘one stop shop’ that provides seamless access to the above mentioned
services, as well as access to call center and online support and other
valuable resources to employees and HR/ wellness professionals including:
information resources on topics related to health and wellbeing ; marketing
resources to create awareness around health campaigns eg HIV/AIDS; peer
education programmes in the form of online courses, workshops aimed at
equipping wellness champions with the skills to drive the company wellness
agenda; software to track absenteeism, compliance and the like.
In addition, EAP’s and EWP’s are delivered in part through
medical insurers offering wellness days at which assessments are conducted and
professional support provided both onsite and online. Furthermore,
comprehensive executive medical programmes offering assessment and
interventions addressing a broad spectrum of mental emotional and physical
components of wellbeing may form part of the EAP/EWP offering. Some companies
also offer onsite clinics/gyms and wellness centers.
As you can see, EAP’s and EWP’s are often delivered
together, seamlessly as a comprehensive employee wellbeing solution. So how is
it possible that something seemingly so valuable may not be delivering bang for
your buck?
An over-reliance on technology
Companies in which there is not a well-established culture
of wellness tend to view EAP’s and EWP’s as a necessary evil, an
intangible that simply has to be
complied with to keep staff happy and ensure the necessary health and safety
legislation boxes have been ticked. In such cases, the simplest, most cost
effective solution to reach as many people within the organization as possible,
with minimum input from HR departments (who are already over -burdened with
what the company views as more important issues) is opted for. These are your
software driven, automated EAP and EWP services, like the online programmes
providing information, online and call center support, data analytics, peer
educator campaigns and the like for which companies would typically pay a
nominal monthly per person rate (say R10 or R20) for a bouquet of services.
On the face of it, the thought of paying R10 or R20 per
person for a comprehensive bouquet of services
is very attractive for companies, the information they provide is often
very good and there is a great deal of
perceived (and potential) value in them. The way in which these services are
structured and marketed by service providers: a turn-key solution into which
companies can plug, giving staff access to private online wellness portals,
call center support , information resources, analytics software etc, it is
tempting as wellness or HR professionals
to fall into the trap of thinking you can simply plug in, sit back and
watch the health and wellbeing of you company’s staff improve. What’s more, you
reason, that if the staff don’t make use of the amazing services on offer, hey,
well that’s their choice, management has played their role, they’ve provided the necessary tools, wellness is taken
care of, time to focus on the hard issues of business, making money!
So, ultimately, the
company is happy, it has ticked all the wellness boxes with minimal expense
incurred, the EWP/ EAP provider is happy, it has sold the company a bouquet of
services (primarily automated software driven solutions that doesn’t cost them
very much, and is not likely to be used extensively by staff (software alone
does not create compliance), and so gets paid per person to service a high volume of people but
actually does relatively little, it’s a good business model. What about the health of the employee? Well,
in many cases that deteriorates or remains unchanged year on year despite all
the sophisticated software driven EWP and EAP solutions on the market.
A service is only of any value if people use it, and in
wellness and behaviour change, technology alone does not drive participation
and compliance, for that job you need PEOPLE! If people drive compliance with
wellness programmes internally, for example, a well-organized wellness
committee and wellness ambassadors, logic dictates that staff will use the EAP/
EWP services more, (including call center support and the like). For non-automated services, if every
organization made full use of their EAP/EWP bouquet of services, this would
ultimately drive up the costs of running the services in the long run as the
need for man power would increase (more personnel required to run call centers
or respond to queries, more onsite services or coaching services would be
required to meet employees needs etc). These costs would ultimately be passed
onto the consumer, in this case the company. All of a sudden, EWP/EAP services
don’t look so attractive to those companies who are simply looking for an
inexpensive solution to tick a wellbeing box. Off course, if staff were that
driven to improve their wellbeing, the additional investment into them would
pay handsome dividends in the long term, seen in reduced absenteeism, greater
productivity, reduced risk of injury, lower medical insurance costs, better
staff retention etc (something some companies see as intangibles that they
can’t see the value in, which I’m happy to say is a trend that is changing).
Good software is an incredibly valuable tool, I use it to
great effect in my own online coaching business, but it is just that, a tool to
be used strategically BY PEOPLE to effect change. When you rely on software as
your primary EAP/EWP driver, in our experience you’re unlikely to see any
significant uptake in participation and compliance rates and therefore minimal
or no change in employee wellbeing. There is a need for a healthy balance
between software driven solutions and strategic thinking by management and
staff, driving wellness initiatives internally.
So the question that faces companies is this: do we spend a
nominal amount per person for a software- driven, automated solution that
fulfills a basic requirement, and expect little or no improvements in the
health and wellbeing of employees? Or do we invest in creating a wellness
culture, driven internally by staff within the company that may require more
additional capital outlay, but for which we are likely reap the rewards in the
long term? For us the answer is simple: as a business there is no sense in
putting money into something that is unlikely to yield returns. Success is
always a long game (wellness initiatives need to be developed and nurtured long
term) and investing in the development of people can never be money wasted. So,
invest in software driven EAP/EWP solutions, but only once you have invested in
the development of a wellness team that can maximize their benefits as one of
many valuable tools to drive a wellness culture.
Wellness is a team approach and driving a wellness culture
requires foot soldiers with a shared knowledge base, passion and vision. No one
can do it alone, and as a standard recommendation companies should aim for one
wellness ambassador for every fifty to one hundred employees. In a corporate
climate in which employee volunteer programmes (EVP) are taking center stage in
driving CSI initiatives in many
companies, finding passionate volunteers to train and upskill as wellness
ambassadors is not a hard sell, particularly if it means greater opportunities
to improve the wellbeing of health conscious volunteers whilst at work. Here
are some pointers to help you in the process:-
- · Develop a team of wellness ambassadors consisting of representatives from all tiers within your company, from senior management, to department heads, supervisors, office workers and team leaders (the committee)
- · Choose your team according to their passion and the example they set for living a healthy lifestyle. These are your role models.
- · Upskill your team with the knowledge of company policies procedures, a holistic knowledge of wellbeing and understanding of systems to drive the wellness agenda.
- · As a team, create a shared vision, values and objectives for wellness, aligned to those of the company.
- · Understand the wellness needs of your company through conducting and analyzing surveys and assessments.
- · Look for the business case: Ask yourself as a committee, what is the company’s vision, goals and objectives, what is the current wellbeing profile of our staff, and where does it need to be in order to achieve that vision, objectives and goals? Companies have great ambition and it’s going to take a strong, healthy and resilient staff contingent to achieve its objectives. This is a great opportunity to use your software wellness analytics to determine wellness parameters and objectives that will translate into rands and cents returns.
- · Set short, medium and long term goals, and plan your wellness programme accordingly monitoring continuously for improvements. Remember, you’re in this for the long haul.
All this sound like a lot of work, but with the right
training, guidance and the implementation of good systems, it is possible and
with minimum capital outlay. Ultimately, employee wellbeing is about good
business and developing your greatest asset, not only to retain their loyalty
and to do the right thing but to drive
your company’s success well into the future.
Ashley Galliard June 17
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