Your Complete Guide to EAP Benefits

Employee assistance programs (EAPs) are one of the oldest—and most popular—tools HR leaders have to create healthier, more supportive workplaces. Originally created in the 1930s to help employees cope with alcohol misuse, EAPs have since evolved to address a list of common challenges employees and the organizations they work for face today. 

While the list of EAP benefits has grown longer since its start, many still think of EAPs as an umbrella term for “employee mental health services.” And yes, modern EAPs do offer the necessary tools and resources employees need to achieve greater mental wellness, but this narrow definition reveals only a small part of their potential to do good for workers and workplaces.

Ultimately, understanding the complete narrative of a modern EAP gives HR leaders the information they need to make a bigger, better impact at their organizations. This comprehensive guide to EAP benefits tells that story, a detailed look at one of the most important tools available in the modern workplace. 

What impact do EAP benefits have on the workforce?

EAPs exist to help organizations improve workplace wellness. They offer in-person, over-the-phone, and digital tools and resources to help employees cope with life and work challenges, as well as grow as professionals. 

EAPs have survived their near 100 year evolution because demand for these services only continues to grow.

To lay the foundation for why EAP benefits are so necessary, let’s look at the mental health crisis as one example of this demand. The data tells the story of a need for more resources with easier access. In the United States alone:

  • 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year [Source]
  • In non metropolitan areas, only 48% of people with a mental illness received treatment [Source]
  • Compared to urban residents, rural Americans need to travel 2x as far on average to get mental health treatment [Source]
  • Workplace stress reached an all-time high in 2022 [Source]

When we don’t feel our best, we won’t perform our best. For employees, struggles with mental health can have a direct impact on how they show up for work. One study showed that depression interferes with a person’s ability to complete physical job tasks about 20% of the time and reduces cognitive performance about 35% of the time.

Still, the mental health crisis is only one piece of a larger puzzle HR leaders need to consider when developing strategies to support their organizations. Topics like financial health, physical health, and even critical response to crises all contribute to how a workplace culture functions—all areas that a modern EAP can also support.

How can EAP benefits help employees?

EAPs offer an answer to employees when they’re left wondering, where can I turn to for qualified, confidential support? The services offered by an EAP mirror the diverse circumstances we encounter throughout life, addressing several dimensions from mental health to legal guidance. They create a safe and effective space that employees can access anytime, anywhere, and without fear of cost or employer retribution.

The benefits of services offered by a comprehensive EAP are well documented. As a baseline, an effective EAP can lead to stronger:

  • Performance and productivity
  • Workplace engagement
  • Internal communication
  • Physical health
  • Mental health

What’s in it for employers?

An EAP helps employers as much as it helps employees. It helps employees feel better, produce more, and stick around longer, leading to a healthier company culture that people want to work in and employers want to maintain. 

Want proof? The data doesn’t lie: A recent study found that absenteeism decreased 27% for workers who used an EAP. Simultaneously, the engagement of that same group of employees increased by 8%, and their life satisfaction skyrocketed by 22%. 

EAPs are also a gateway to capturing important employee data that can help organizations make more informed decisions about where to spend their money, and how to create a working environment better tailored to their unique teams. 

The 5 categories of EAP Benefits

Employee assistance programs have come a long way from their humble roots in helping employees manage alcohol misuse. Today, EAP benefits span a litany of topic areas and life challenges, supporting employees with anything from finding reliable childcare to responding to natural disasters. 

These benefits fall into five main categories: mental health support, management support, work-life support, emotional wellbeing & behavior change, and critical incidents. Combined, they offer a comprehensive support system that can help entire organizations thrive.  

Mental Health Support

Mental health is one of the most important topics in the HR world today. With so many struggling across the nation, organizations have both an ethical and practical imperative to help employees cope with their challenges.

EAP healthcare and mental health support provide employees with confidential and effective care options. EAP solutions like Carebridge connect employees to a range of resources, including in-person or virtual counseling, digital tools, and proven strategies aimed at enhancing employees’ mental wellbeing. 

These services can help employees with: 

  • Managing anxiety
  • Coping with depression
  • Navigating conflict
  • Getting through grief
  • Managing addiction

Some EAPs like Carebridge offer mental counseling only a click or call away, with 24-7-365 availability to chat with a live person who can help. By nature, the mental health services offered by an EAP are confidential, helping to break the stigma of raising your hand for help. 

Management Support

Leaders in every organization benefit from empathetic support to help them rise to the challenges of the modern work environment. From navigating conflicts, to honing leadership capabilities, and fostering a healthy workplace culture, your organization’s management carries heavy responsibilities. 

EAPs offer the critical management support that leads to more resilient and effective workplace leaders. These services can help your management team with:

  • Conflict resolution
  • Team building exercises
  • Personalized coaching sessions
  • Strategy planning and execution
  • Access to experienced management coaches
  • Real-world solutions and communication strategies

Work-Life Support

Employees’ personal lives and professional responsibilities are deeply intertwined, with each influencing the other. To support employees in managing both spheres effectively, a top-tier EAP will provide a range of guidance, referrals and resources from Master’s-level experts.

Key services provided by work-life support programs include support for:

  • Parenting & childcare
  • Eldercare
  • Relocation planning
  • Financial wellness
  • Legal guidance
  • Education planning
  • Career development opportunities

Emotional Wellbeing & Behavior Change

With workplace stress at an all time high, the need for emotional wellbeing support has never been greater. Employees bring their full selves with them to work—what happens outside work hours affects what happens within them, and vice versa. To help employees navigate difficult times and cope with life stressors, EAPs provide tools and resources to help employees prioritize mental health, boost productivity, and achieve better work-life balance.

Some of the services EAPs offer to help with emotional wellbeing & behavior change include:

  • Mindfulness training and resources
  • Coaching for actionable goal setting
  • Career planning
  • Strategies for stress reduction
  • Substance use disorder counseling 

Critical Incidents

Nobody wants to think about them, but traumatic experiences happen. In a workplace crisis, an EAP can help you respond to mitigate any of the negative effects. These crises can include the death of an employee, serious workplace injury, robbery, or even natural disaster. Whatever the incident, HR leaders can turn to an EAP to navigate workplace trauma, and even prepare for if and when the next event happens.

When facing a critical incident, an EAP can help by providing:

  • 24-7 management consultation and assessment
  • Immediate intervention via tele-defusing
  • On-site critical incident stress debriefings (CISDs)
  • Post-response support and follow-up
  • On-site and/or virtual grief and loss sessions

Traumatic workplace incidents require a quick response, effective intervention, and real care for employee wellbeing—three pillars that an EAP can help you uphold. 

5 Tips to successfully implement an EAP in your organization

EAPs are not a “build it and they will come” kind of service. For the impact of an EAP to reach its full potential in your organization, you need to take the proper steps to plan, implement, and maintain its benefits.

What do you need to keep in mind? Research shows the following things are critical to get the most out of your eap:

  • Conducting an organizational assessment
  • Winning leadership support
  • Setting utilization targets and implementing tracking
  • Providing managerial training

Here’s what that looks like. 

Conducting an organizational assessment

Before designing and offering an EAP package to your employees, understand first what they need most. Building a solid foundation for your EAP is critical for its future success. Review existing reports, data, and costs in your organization to get a feel for how and where an EAP can make the most impact. In addition, collaborate with key stakeholders to set goals, KPIs, and a plan for implementation. Ultimately, these actions help you create a measurable strategy, a necessary step you need to take in order to calculate the ROI of your EAP.  

Winning leadership support

Building a culture of wellbeing starts at the top. When leadership understands the value of an EAP and shows excitement for its possibilities to help employees, its impact widens in your organization. Garnering this support from leadership often requires a clear demonstration of business impact and ROI (which is why conducting the aforementioned organizational assessment shouldn’t be skipped!).

Setting utilization targets and implementing tracking

Set a target for how your employees use your EAP benefits—but don’t stop there. People are busy and need reminders that not only your EAP exists, but that it’s also relevant for them. Achieving the utilization target you’ve set requires repeated promotion, reinforcing the fact that services are complimentary, available 24-7-365, and confidential. As you track utilization over time, consider sending regular employee surveys to capture qualitative data on what your team wants most from an EAP. Combined, these data points give you a foothold to optimize usage over time. 

Managerial Training

As the closest ones to workers on the frontlines, managers play an outsized role in promoting and educating employees on the benefits of your EAP. Hold training sessions for your management team so they feel confident in taking a proactive approach to making referrals, while always providing the most up-to-date information on the services offered. 

These trainings should have a heavy focus on honing managers’ empathy muscle. By being more in-tune with changes to individual employee’s moods, performance, and behaviors, managers can more effectively connect them with the resources that will help get them back on the right path to wellbeing.

What makes EAP benefits effective? Here are 4 things to consider.

When it comes to selecting an EAP, you have no shortage of choices. So many, in fact, that it can be hard to know what to look for. 

Don’t be fooled: Not every EAP is built the same. Making the right selection can mean the difference between a happy, thriving workplace, and a poor investment that fails to support your employees in the ways they need it most. 

When evaluating an EAP and its benefits for your organization, keep in mind the following four things.

1. Options for Employee Access

One of the most common reasons employees cite for not utilizing their EAP is time. Employees are busy. They often have significant responsibilities both at work and at home, making it difficult to make space for seeking support.

Modern EAPs confront this challenge by removing barriers to access, and providing multiple pathways for employees to get the care they need. Look for an EAP provider who offers a variety of solutions, including digital, virtual, in-person, and telephone support. The data supports this trend toward alternative care options, too, with 6 in 10 people saying they would use telehealth services for mental healthcare.

2. Implementation Support

To see the full potential of an EAP, regular communication with employees is critical. The right solution will serve as a partner to you in developing an implementation and ongoing promotion strategy so employees know where to turn when they need support.

More than thinking about how many promotional emails to send or how to put together an effective poster, the best EAP partners will understand the most common roadblocks organizations face around increasing utilization and how to overcome them. For example, many employees look at EAPs as a “last resort” resource to care. With the proper communication strategy, organizations can address this stigma and encourage employees to have a low-threshold to turning to their EAP for help. 

3. Dedicated Account Managers

EAPs are most successful when they’re in-tune with the needs, goals, and culture of your organization. Only humans can provide this level of personalized support, and when the stakes are the health and wellbeing of your organization, anything less won’t cut it.  

Look for an EAP that will provide personalized support from a dedicated expert. This account manager should not only understand best practices for enhancing employee wellbeing at an organization, but will also take the time to understand what it will take enhance employee wellbeing at your organization. 

4. Satisfaction Rates

How do existing clients rate the EAP? One of the most meaningful metrics you can look at when evaluating a solution is its client satisfaction rate. This KPI tells a more holistic story than other data like utilization rate, as it also speaks to the level of support, strategy, and services clients receive. 

The complete solution for improving employee wellbeing

Carebridge EAP helps the nation’s leading organizations thrive by supporting their employees with the services they need most. Learn more how we can support your organization next: Get a Personalized Quote