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A Fortune-500-based survey offers a clear answer
Conventional wisdom among corporate benefits specialists today is that employees are less likely to use an employee assistance program (EAP) with onsite counselors because of concerns about confidentiality. This coincides with a marked trend toward outsourcing and taking formerly internal programs offsite. EAPs that use an 800 number for a triage call and then refer the employee to a community-based EAP affiliate are less expensive than programs providing onsite personnel to deliver the full range of EAP services. However, whether offsite programs provide the same cost-benefit as onsite by doing an equally effective job for less money is a question addressed in a recent survey conducted by EAP Support Systems of Orinda, Calif.
This survey found that onsite programs had an average utilization rate that was one-third higher than offsite programs. The survey also determined that supervisors were more likely to make a referral to an onsite program, by a ratio of five to one. Onsite programs were also more effective in identifying employees with substance abuse problems by a three-to-one ratio. These findings suggest that onsite programs might be far more effective in addressing the typical 15% of the employee population who have the most serious personal problems, such as substance abuse, that result in deteriorating job performance.
In this survey, 54 Fortune 500 companies were asked about their overall EAP utilization rates, the percentage of employees referred by supervisors and those employees who came into the program with substance abuse as their primary problem. The survey differentiated EAPs that used the same counselors to regularly visit the worksite, provide training to supervisors, meet with human resources staff, cultivate referral relationships and acquire specific knowledge of company policies, procedures and corporate culture from those that did not.
The survey determined how the EAP calculated its overall utilization rate. Standard practice within the EAP profession is to divide the number of employees using the EAP over the year by the employee...