Employee assistance program is a support plan which the employer offers to employees in order to promote their wok performance. This program ensures that personal problems of employees do not affect the performance of the employees at workplace. They are benefits which employees and their family members get through the plan such as health related matters. This plan is designed in a way that the employees’ performance in the workplace is not affected in anyway by personal problems such as death, harassment and substance abuse among others. The program includes counseling, referrals and checkups of the employees and their family members.
EAP services are very important to the employee and the household as there will be concentration of the employee at the workplace and the output will be high. If there is any distraction of the employees’ performance, personal and gross output of the company is affected. EAP services vary depending on the company policies, government and other factors considered vital. They include, provision of support of employees financial matters, legal issues, emotions, safe working conditions, abuse of substance, accidents, deaths, relationships at workplace and family, and problems of aging parents among others (Hodgetts, & Hegar, 2007).
For example, if one of the employees’ children is involved in an accident and is admitted to intensive care unit, counseling the employee and the household is important about the accident and the child’s health. Through the EAP services, the child should be treated for free so as to relieve the employee with the unexpected financial obligations. If the parents of one of the employees are aging, EAP services will be used to guide the employee on what to be done in order to make them enjoy their old age. The employee and the members of household need guidance on how to relate with the aging parents.
Work place violence is any kind of actions in the workplace environment that threatens the employment of the person; the employee is abused, assaulted or intimidated. Such violence includes harassment, verbal abuse, physical incidences, or frightening behavior.
Bullying in the workplace and use of indecent language by other employees are examples of the work place violence which should be discouraged. EAP is very important in handling such problems by guiding the management on how to implement policies which controls and reduce such cases by ensuring that all the employees abide by the set ethical standards. EAP also is useful in addressing the needs of the person by identifying the root cause of such actions.
The employee who is using such indecent language could be under the influence of substances or is stressed hence EAP assists by sharing an in-depth personal and confidential information with the employee and be able to provide guidance which results in long lasting solutions on how to manage stress or stop the use of the substance.
Employees who are healthy are always physically, mentally, socially and environmentally fit to work. They are always cheerful at the workplace and concern about their daily output besides being creative. Unhealthy employees will not be able to work properly since his/her concentration is on the pain or worries associated to the health problems. The employees’ motivation is interfered with hence the delivery is low. This hinders the output of the employee (Mannion, 2004).
Personal experience is bullying in which my immediate supervisor had to leave me alone do the job on my first day of employment yet the content and the system needed an in-depth introduction. The other example is when I was forced to go to work when I was not feeling well hence my output was affected on that day.
On the research, the main concern is on the use of indecent language in which the employees are commonly using which really affects the work of other employees as they do not concentrate on their job. Finally, harassment of the employees by other collogues is not ethical. This involves direct and indirect ways such as use of gestures or fists.
References
Hodgetts, R. & Hegar, K. (2007). Modern Human Relations at Work. Cengage Learning.
Mannion, L. (2004). Employee assistance programs: what works and what doesn’t. Greenwood Publishing group.