Eap Employee Assistance Programs (Eaps)

EAP

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and dealing with workplace violence

Happy, well-adjusted employees are productive employees. This is one reason that EAP (Employee Assistance Programs) have increased in popularity and significance in the past decade. Employee Assistance Programs offer free and confidential assessment and counseling services to employees as well as refer employees to the appropriate outside channels if they need additional help with personal problems. One of the most important issues EAPs have tried to address is the issue of violence in the workplace. Almost every federal agency has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in place "which serves as an excellent, confidential resource available to all employees to help them identify and deal with problems" regarding violence in the workplace (Workplace violence, 2009, USDA).

Sadly, workplace violence can occur at any time, in almost any conceivable context, to any employee. The government defines such violence to "be any act of physical violence, threats of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening, disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. Workplace violence can affect or involve employees, visitors, contractors, and other non-Federal employees" and it is the responsibility of the EAP to make all employees aware of its existence, and the stringency of this federal definition of violence (Workplace violence, 2009, USDA). "Employee Assistance Program (EAP) participation can be important to the success of an agency's workplace violence program. The EAP's role generally begins with participation on the agency planning group where decisions are made about the role the EAP will play in the workplace violence program. EAPs usually play an active role in early prevention efforts, sometimes participate on the incident response team, and generally assist with organizational recovery after an incident of workplace violence has occurred" (III. 4 EAP Consideration, 2009, OPM).

Ideally, of course, prevention is the best 'cure' and EAP counselors and administrators can offer workshops to supervisors about what to look for if violence may be occurring, can offer assistance to all employees about effective ways to diffuse workplace tensions, and also can make employees aware about how to report and respond to violence. They should also keep employees well-informed about legal concerns pertaining to issues of reporting violence, and when they are legally bound to do so. Addressing such legal issues must go hand-in-hand, but not circumvent the supportive and caring role EAP counselors can provide to employees during times of need.

EAP counselors must often delicately balance the requirements of confidentiality with legal demands pertaining to their services regarding this issue. On one hand, they want to encourage workers to solicit aid if necessary and to be candid if they are referred to an EAP counselor by a supervisor. On the other hand, counselors have legal obligations about reporting dangers to others in the workplace, if the referred individual seems to pose a threat to others or to his or her own personal safety. For example, in one case study an employee directly contacted the in-house Employee Assistance Program (EAP) counselor because his supervisor recommended this course of action due to the employees' poor attendance and quality of work. The EAP counselor recognized the employee as manifesting symptoms of depression, including listlessness, lack of interest in his job, and inability to sleep. The counselor recommended the employee seek counseling with an outside psychiatrist with this area of expertise and provided a reference (Case Study 9, 2009, OAP)

Recommending outside sources is often necessary if the needs of the employee are outside the scope of the resources of the EAP or if issues of confidentiality may make it more expedient for both the counselor and the referent to discuss the incident off-site. However, if a personal conflict is extremely detrimental to the workplace functioning, the counselor may have to engage in a mediation effort between the perpetrator and victim. In this case, t the follow-up visit, the employee stated he had discontinued his outside therapy and seemed manic rather than depressed. Because of his threats of violence to his managers, the counselor was concerned about the threat the employee posed to those he worked with, and was forced to broach the confidentiality usually expected of the counseling process. However, in most instances, "agencies do not use the EAP as the office responsible for taking incident reports on workplace violence. Agencies give the following reasons: Because confidentiality requirements prohibit EAP counselors from disclosing information, putting a counselor in the position of informing the other members of the intervention team about the report could lead to serious misunderstandings among agency employees and harm the credibility of the EAP. It sometimes takes years to build the EAP into a viable program trusted by employees to keep any contacts confidential and the dual role could diminish this viability" (III. 4 EAP Consideration, 2009, OPM).

The message the EAP strives to communicate to employees can best be summed up in some EAP posters created as part of its prevention program: "Reach out: We can help," reads one. Another advises: "Talk or walk it out." These types of poster campaigns and brochures, although they may seem simple upon their surface, are a critical aspect of the EAP's mission: awareness promotion. Awareness of the possibility of violence and the responsibility of employees in violence-prevention are a critical aspect of ensuring violence does not occur, as the prevention of the potential personal and legal consequences that can ensue is really the best 'cure' in the long run. The EAP is designed to communicate to employees that they "can and should expect management to care" about violence in the workplace and strive to "provide as safe a working environment as possible by having preventive measures in place and, if necessary, by dealing immediately with threatening or potentially violent situations which occur (Workplace violence, 2009, USDA).

Therefore official responsibilities of the EAP counselors are to provide short-term counseling and referral services to employees at no cost but also to help in the prevention of workplace violence through involvement in organizational change to create an environment that strives to deemphasize violence, rather than to turn a blind eye. As well as a facilitator, an EAP also acts to train individual employees themselves to engage in effective conflict resolution techniques, and consult with supervisors to foster such techniques and translate them into action plans to make conflict resolution part of the workplace, as well as to encourage employees to contact the EAP officials for individual counseling (Workplace violence, 2009, USDA).