What is an Employee Assistance Program?
Employee assistance program is an approach where an employee can get reward which inculcate help in her/his personal problems or any problem the employee is facing during her/his workforce that may include their performance at the job and other specific programs for their well beings.
The agenda behind Employee Assistance Program is to improve the conditions of the employee health for the sake of profit of both the individual as well as the organization.
It helps in taking care of the personal responsibility associated with the employee and these programs aids in providing an asset to the employee by lowering down their pressure and helping them to grow more.
Pros and Cons of Employee Assistance Program:
| S.no | Pros of Employee Assistance Program | Cons of Employee Assistance Program |
| 1 | Increased productivity | Limitation in boundary |
| 2 | Focused and dedicated employees | Redundancy |
| 3 | Highly motivated | Mandatory policies |
| 4 | Reducing the Stress | Managers at risk |
| 5 | Supporting in cost | Lack of information |
| 6 | Security of time | Problem because of the unemployed |
| 7 | A more Happy employee | Misguidance |
| 8 | Assurance to confidentiality | Expensive |
| 9 | Access to additional resource | Too much involvement |
| 10 | Easy off-side | Globally accessible |
Advantages or Pros of Employee Assistance Programs:
Following are the advantages of the Employee Assistance program that aims at helping the employees:
1. Increased productivity:
Employee Assistance Program helps the employees by providing them enough help both personally and professionally that eventually bring out the best performance out from any employee.
This scheme helps in increased productivity by the individual as the more the employee will be satisfied with what she/he has got, the more dedication she/he will put in their work. This will help the individual to grow and provide the employee a long term security goal.
2. Focused and dedicated employees:
Often it is seen that the programs meant for the development of the employees helps them to grow more and bring out the best performance out of them.
Employee engagement is an important aspect and it only happens when employee is free and has no trouble poking them in their work irrespective of the work being personal or professional.
A focused and dedicated employee is the real outcome which is why this program aims to be delivering.
3. Highly motivated:
The employees seek to perform their duty with full determination keeping aside the problem she/he is dealing with in her/his daily life. This helps keeping them self motivated and achieve whatever goals they have set for themselves.
This is why a highly motivated employee responses to a successful business and help the dependents that are associated under them to grow more and also helps in building a good and motivated working environment around them.
4. Reducing the Stress:
The more relaxed an employee will feel or the more satisfied she/he will be with whatever they are doing, the more less stress they will feel.
Stressful mind never helps in producing fruitful result but on the other hand if there are such policies that will light up the daily work of an employee, it is surely a boon.
This is often seem that by developing a healthy relationship between employees and other people working in the organization helps reducing the stress occurs. With a healthy mind both the individual as well the organization will eventually grow.
5. Supporting in cost:
The security offered by not reducing the cost of the employee if she/he is not there to work in their workplace due to some urgent reason is a boon to the organization.
The cost cutting is not at all favored by the individual employee unless and until they are not taking it for their personal benefit. This can only happen when the employees start treating their organization as their own and not of anyone else. Security provided by helping in cost is the most important security provided to any employee.
6. Security of time:
Under this scheme it is assumed that the amount of time assigned for the individual employees if is not meant for some or the other reason that that employees under this program has the power of compensation that she/he can work extra and compensate for that day.
Time is the most valuable asset and it is what an organization need to bound so that no employee take this for granted but by the activation of this policy that can get a compensation which eventually will help them to grow.
7. A more Happy employee:
A happy employee is not a myth and that is what this policy has helped in proving. A happy employee is the one who in their workplace views no pain and even if they do, they make sure how to get rid of it and under this assistance policy they will get help up to each possible extend.
Especially in time of recession they will be paid and rewarded so that they don’t feel them unhappy. The primary need or impetus of establishment of this is to make the country more economically stable.
8. Assurance to confidentiality:
By keeping the content of each employee safeguard by either assigning them a unique key and a password they can make sure no one else apart from them can peak in to their personal policy. This is important as every individual has some or other personal issue which they don’t want their organization to know or react to.
There confidentiality is maintained thoroughly and will be maintained. By helping the individual grow they need to feel safe and secure and that is the major purpose of this policy.
9. Access to additional resource:
If any employee at any given time need to access any new resource in their policy they can upgrade them at any time and enjoy them.
Direct access is an additional boon for the employee as it helps the employee to call any one directly on to their office at any specified time they are in need of them. This helps in helping them and save their time of going out.
10. Easy off-side:
For various counseling an individual will be required to leave their office and go on side but again this is also appreciated under this scheme as employees and their growth is the only Motto with which this policy work into.
Seeing this, they can consider few of the things and ignore mistake that are not hindering or causing any fault to the company.
Disadvantages or Cons of Employee Assistance Programs:
1. Limitation in boundary:
These services often are not supposed to be technically always working and can stop any time. While majority of them are situated off-site but the once that are online often come across with such problem.
Likewise, The professional or the friendly behavior or supervision often tends to make the employee unhappy or feel over the top. They tend to want more personal space and less of involvement from outsiders.
2. Redundancy:
There are many employees who often feel that the services provided to them are of no specific use to them and they feel they are bounded in some kind of force which leads them to become what they don’t want to become.
They might not be aware of the problem they are facing and eventually will be disappointed with everything going across them. The redundancy is often the cause which is keeping the employee policy in hindrance.
3. Mandatory policies:
This making the mandatory scheme, often creates problem with the individual as they might happen to be not happy if anything is made compulsory to them without their permission and that keeps disturbing them often and keep them occupied even if they are dealing with something important. They keep on indulging them in their work or talk.
By making everything mandatory they are either not paying attention to them or they are merely just there to do their job irrespective of what the other person is getting out of it
4. Managers at risk:
The higher authorities are often termed off with this policy and are made out with no advantage. This is a lack of education about the type and availability of the policy across different forum of employees in the organization.
Other people might not be aware of the existing policies they can upgrade in their existing policy and may end up being in a trouble.
By avoiding the employee assistance policy one can seek help from others but this again is not always possible to achieve due to the internal problems between the employees and other people working for the upliftment.
5. Lack of information:
The most common problem faced is the lack of information about the policy in which they are being assigned. It is only the case when the employees tends to get into account the polices they don’t want to get associated with.
The employee remains unaware for majority of the time and this may reflect their outcomes. This should be avoided as it may creates a problem in the organizations. This drawback needs to be removed as soon as possible.
6. Problem because of the unemployed:
If there are people in an organization who are unemployed or not properly employee or meeting the specific employment they should be having, then that might create a trouble.
They won’t be happily admitting the changes brought up to them nor they will accept any specific change at any time nor they will be contributing to any.
Having an educated employee is a must and this should be achieved previously for the sake of a company’s profit.
7. Misguidance:
This is often arising due to various policies acting over an individual at the same time making them get misguided and unknown to the outcome.
A person should be avoided being misguided but often the policies aims at providing only the good for the people associated with the policy making. This should be avoided to make full utilization of the policy by each and every employee.
The less there will be misguiding the less there will be trust. Fraud is not a good asset for any program to place themselves into.
8. Expensive:
The cost associated with various EAP program are not offered at free of cost and are often very expensive so it becomes difficult for an individual employee to enjoy its full services truly without any outer consent of other employees.
Not every individual employee program will be needed to maintained or properly pay attention to, but despite of this they are being maintained or we can say money is being taken from the employees for its proper maintenance which is eventually going to be used for their personal benefit.
9. Too much involvement:
The employees are necessarily required to pay on time for the services that has been offered to them. This often creates a hell lot of problem within the organization.
People residing in any organization catches with some minor or major issues when it comes about the security of the individual or revealing one’s pay.
If any individual is not good at fighting her/his bad habits then that should not be a concern for the whole organization.
10. Globally accessible:
This is one thing every policy maker should keep in mind. This programs associated with the employee assistance are very much for only a group of individual or for some organizations and not for the whole. This often creates hindrance in the small company as they remain unknown to such programs.
They should be made available to every individual so that they can contribute for their own growth and upliftment. Global accessibility is the utmost need for any employee.
Conclusion:
In order to conclude that, one should enjoy the program that is meant for the upliftment of every individual employee and should understand truly all the services they are providing. In case of any trouble, one should feel free to ask for their help and get the problem solved.
One should treat this program as an asset for the growth of every employee and thus the process of putting evaluated efforts will help in delivering fruitful result. This program is only aimed to achieve a unit of transparency in the individual’s life and should be made available to one and all.
Every employee should take up the responsibility and should focus on the better so that the programs that are being entitled to them are fully and totally enjoyed by them.
