In a world where we are overwhelmed with information, stress, and demands from work and home, mental illness is inevitable and it is far more common than we think.

In recent years, companies have been seeing the benefits of providing employees with a relief from their psychological health and safety challenges. The most popular among these is the provision of Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Depending on the size and budget companies set aside for employee well-being programs, EAP can be provided as in-house service or outsourced to an externally qualified institutions that can help with employee well-being programs.

An EAP helps employees who are experiencing any kind of personal challenges including mental illness, which may not require a visit to a psychiatrist or a psychologist. It provides them with qualified professionals who can offer advice or even just a listening ear if that’s all that someone needs at the time. It also provides counselling services for family members in times of need.

If someone is suffering from any issues pertaining to mental health, everything else in all other parts of their life will suffer too.

Shuja Rabbani – Licensed Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) Practitioner

Employee Assistance Program is important because it has been proven that an employee’s psychological health impacts their performance in the workplace, which may be somehow responsible for causing psychological issues. Because of this, mental health matters have become a priority to many organizations in an effort to ensure a healthier and safer workplace.

A company’s EAP is designed to provide its employees with the services they need in order to maintain good physical and psychological health. While historically, mental health is a topic that is often ignored and people don not like to talk about it, it is important to understand what these illnesses and disorders are and how they can affect one’s life.

Is Employee Assistance Program a Benefit or a necessary Universal Healthcare?

Every person with a mental illness needs help, support, and treatment in order to live a healthy life. Employee assistance programs are programs offered by employers for their employees, usually as part of the benefits package in some corporations.

The most important thing to remember is that if someone is suffering from any issues pertaining to mental health, everything else in all other parts of their life will suffer too; so the sooner mental health issues are addressed, the better it is for the overall quality of life and wellbeing.

Depending on the dedication of the leadership and commitment to psychological welfare of employees in workplaces, companies may provide financial or other support for people who need mental health services or other help on issues related to work.

There are many benefits of employee assistance programs, some of them being:

• Psychological safety – helps with increased employee engagement and productivity.
• Mental illness awareness – helps foster a work environment where mental health is openly talked about without any social stigma or feeling of being excluded.
• Mental health care coverage – helps the organization with employment branding and employee value proposition (EVP).

With the most recent news of how social media applications such as Instagram and Facebook have been leading to mental health and self-esteem issues in teenagers, it has become even more necessary for workplaces to prepare for a future influx of a generation of employees who may potentially require mental health support. Further adding on to this issue is the adjustment everyone is still making in going ‘back to normal’ after almost a year of global lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Therefore, companies that are already providing EAP support are already ahead of their competitors in providing a benefit which is more of a necessity in 2021 and beyond.

Help is Available:

If you or anyone in your team is in need of psychological help or emotional support, please do not ignore the signs and reach out to them in offering help.

As part of my human resources corporate solutions, I provide bespoke mental health trainings and offer psychological well-being services using the award-winning techniques of Rapid Transformational Therapy® (RTT®) which can be conducted entirely remotely or in person.

Please reach out to me for more information to learn how you can help your team increase their self-awareness around mental health and overall well-being.