Employee Assistance Program

Should your company be thinking about an EAP program?

According to a 2016 Sanofi Canada health-care survey, employees when asked how much they value their EAP in comparison to other benefits, 60% of respondents said they valued it as somewhat or very important.

One of Canada’s leading providers of Employee Assistance Programs currently handles about 600,000 calls each year. Although these calls involve 35 core issues that people can call in about , almost 60% of calls have to do with the top 5 areas: relationship issues, personal and workplace stress, depression and anxiety.

Overlooked is the fact that you don’t have to have a problem to use an EAP. There is a proactive side to it as well. Depending on the provider, typically you would have available a website or other resources aimed at maintaining issues that aren’t necessarily of a critical nature but more meant to keep you healthy … and help you keep your life on track so you may not need the reactive side.

Since Bill 168 was introduced in June 2010 as an amendment to the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act employers now have a responsibility to minimize as much a possible stress in the workplace by putting tools in place to mitigate cases of mental-health related incidents. Stresses at home usually have a way of spilling over into the workplace. We have several practical tips for employers, and the first would be to offer an EAP program.

Here at Gary White Insurance, we work with employers of all sizes to help them choose the right EAP provider for them. The success of an EAP program lies in communication, something we are good at delivering on.

Call us today to further explore this very important benefit.