Counselling through an employee assistance programme (EAP) can provide real benefits in helping people to remain at work, a survey by service provider First Assist, part of Capita, has argued.
The poll found that more than half of those who had received counselling sessions through an EAP felt that, without this support, their concerns would have caused them to miss work.
Just 17% of those questioned felt that their ability to cope with the demands of their job was “good” or “very good” before they had counselling; this rose to 64% afterwards.
The research was carried out among 4,213 employees who had access to EAP counselling services.
On an equally important matter, the results also showed that counselling had the potential to have a positive effect on employees’ personal lives, with just 9% saying that satisfaction with their personal life before counselling was “good” or “very good”, compared with 57% afterwards.
It was the same for relationships with colleagues, with 23% saying that they were either “poor” or “very poor” beforehand, as opposed to only 2% afterwards.
XpertHR provides a policy on setting out an employee assistance programme.
