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  • When employees are set up for success, companies often enjoy the benefits. Happy, motivated employees are more likely to be more productive. Unfortunately, there are several factors outside of the workplace that have a direct impact on the overall wellbeing of your employees.

    An Employee assistance program (EAP) is one tool employers can use to help stressed-out employees and improve both morale and work performance. Let’s break down what an EAP does, how it benefits both employers and employees, and how your company can get the most out of its program.

    What Is An Employee Assistance Program?

    The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) defines an EAP as “a work-based intervention program designed to assist employees in resolving personal problems that may be adversely affecting the employee’s performance.” These intervention programs are designed to give employees support for private matters until they can find a more permanent solution. An ideal EAP should meet the criteria listed below:

    • Confidential – Given the personal nature of employees’ issues, EAPs should allow employees to privately and anonymously seek support.
    • Accessible – Services provided by an EAP should be accessible online and easy for employees to contact during and outside of work hours.
    • Available – Services should be readily available to any employees and immediate family members who are eligible for the program.
    • Short-term – EAPs aren’t meant to be permanent sources of aid. The services an EAP provides are designed to give employees access to key services and short-term help until they can find a good, long-term solution for them.

    The exact form of support can differ greatly from program to program, but an average EAP is typically designed to assist employees in a variety of ways. While the services may differ, the goal is the same – to give employees the support they need to address factors that impact their mental and emotional health.

    Examples Of Employee Assistance Programs

    EAPs vary greatly depending on which services they include. The average EAP provides a wide range of services aimed to provide critical support for your workforce, but the exact selection can vary from program to program. However, it’s common for EAPs to address a number of personal issues, including the following concerns:

    • Relationship challenges
    • Grief over loss of a loved one
    • Financial or legal problems
    • Stress management
    • Mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, or PTSD
    • Substance abuse
    • Workplace or domestic violence
    • Crisis management

    While EAPs were traditionally developed to support these personal issues, modern programs have expanded to include further services. Employers have found that there are a number of additional stressors that impact work-life balance and future plans. EAPs can also include the following forms of support:

    • Child care
    • Elder care
    • Adoption specialists
    • Retirement planning
    • Living wills
    • Pet care
    • Academic and tutor resources
    • Personal and professional development

    Benefits Of Employee Assistance Programs

    More stress means more problems for both employees and employers. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workforce Report, a whopping 57% of U.S. employees reported feeling stress on a daily basis. By alleviating that stress, EAPs can help businesses enjoy the following benefits:

    • Reduced absenteeism
    • Increased productivity
    • Better morale
    • Improved retention

    Reduced absenteeism

    Outside stressors can often lead to employees taking additional sick days or simply calling off to attend to personal issues. EAPs give employees the means to alleviate those stresses. A study by Federal Occupational Health (FOH) found that companies that offer EAPs saw a 69.2% decrease in absenteeism by giving employees access to various means of personal support.

    Increased productivity

    Just because employees are at work doesn’t mean that they’re productive. Behavioral health concerns like stress, anxiety, or depression directly impact how engaged employees are at work. That same FOH study found that employees with access to assistance programs were 22.8% less checked out while on the job and more invested in their work.

    Better morale

    Another benefit the FOH found was that EAPs can improve employees’ sense of overall wellbeing. Studies found that EAPs increased users’ life satisfaction by 24.2% by addressing stressors that caused personal distress. In turn, employee morale is substantially better when employees take advantage of EAP services.

    Improved retention

    Simply put, stress makes good employees leave. EAPs show employees that your business cares about their wellbeing, making them less likely to suffer burnout or look for a fresh start somewhere else.

    Assistance programs can also entice talent to join your business. According to SHRM, 76% of employees “consider mental health benefits to be a critical factor when evaluating new jobs.” An EAP is a clear sign that your business takes employees’ mental health seriously.

    How To Maximize The Value Of Your Employee Assistance Program

    Offering an EAP is one step. Getting employees to use it is another. National studies find that EAP utilization averages just under 10%, but not because the programs are ineffective. SHRM reports that there are a couple of key reasons for the low usage rate:

    • Privacy concerns – Employees either feel uncomfortable sharing personal issue or are afraid that employers will gain access to this personal health information.
    • Lack of promotion – Companies either don’t promote these programs enough or employees aren’t aware of how they can access these services.

    Even with low participation numbers, employers who offered an EAP typically enjoyed an ROI of at least $3 for every $1 spent according to the 2020 Workplace Outcome Suite. Still, there are ways that businesses can encourage better EAP participation and receive even more value from their programs.

    Regularly promote EAP awareness

    It’s not uncommon for employees to only hear about their EAP once during the onboarding process or when the program was added as a benefit. It’s best to give employees regular reminders about your EAP and how to access these services. These reminders can come in multiple forms – during annual meetings, email updates, etc. Regardless of how you send the message, multiple reminders will only increase the odds employees will utilize these services.

    Stress privacy

    It’s not always easy for individuals to admit they need help. With that being said, it’s essential to communicate that employees can privately access services online or on the phone around the clock.

    In addition, employees should understand that their interactions with these services are completely private and are not shared with others within the company, including the employer. By stressing the private nature of an EAP, employees are more likely to explore these services on their own terms.

    Work with HR advocates

    It’s not always easy to manage the various aspects of benefits administration by yourself. Fortunately, you don’t have to promote and manage your EAP alone. The right EAP provider can help you maximize the effectiveness of your program.

    For example, GMS partners with businesses to offer critical assistance and educate employees about how to best utilize these services. We work with employers to help them offer a quality benefits package without having to spend the time to administer these benefits by themselves, including group health insurance, assistance programs, and more.

    Ready to enhance your employee benefits package? Contact us now about how GMS can help you save time and money through expert benefits administration.

  • One of the largest contributors to mental health problems in the workplace is stress. Not only are mental health issues difficult to recognize, we also cannot assume an employee’s stresses from everyday life are checked at the door when they arrive at work every morning.

    Everyday life stresses coupled with the pressures that work brings could be detrimental to both the employee and the business. This can have serious impact on an employee’s overall health and employers must take the appropriate steps to protect both the employees and the business.

    Image of a stressed out employee.

    Stress in the Workplace

    This begs the question, how can stressed out employees affect a business? Several factors combine to impact the business negatively:

    • Poor performance
    • Increased human error
    • Mental lapses
    • Lack of motivation
    • Workplace accidents

    These factors combined could determine the employee’s likelihood to quit or could end up being the reason for their termination. The resulting increase in turnover costs a businesses, and even the economy, a lot of money. 

    Workplace stress, according to Dr. David Posen, “is costing the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars each year in lost productivity and health care expenses.” Beyond the workplace effects, the stress and mental health issues could have serious physical implications on the individual, including: 

    • Heart disease
    • Headaches
    • Depression
    • Anxiety
    • Medication abuse

    What Employers Can Do About Stress

    There are numerous steps employers can take to prevent mental issues from entering the workplace. This process can start with proper management training to promote:

    • Effective communication
    • The setting of achievable goals
    • Adequate lifetime training for employees
    • Teamwork/team first workplace 

    On top of these steps, many companies offer Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) to help make sure their stress is appropriately managed. It’s important to set expectations with each employee and keep these expectations realistic and reasonable to help employees manage their workload and stress levels. Coupled with heavy workloads and daily stresses from everyday life, it is imperative to offer your employees paid time off (PTO) and encourage them to take full advantage of it to help them minimize their stress and maximize their workplace efforts. Lastly, employers can offer their employees a corporate wellness program to help promote the overall physical, mental, and emotional health of their workforce. 

    Partner with a PEO to Limit Workplace Stress

    Workplace stress management is a lot to keep up with, especially while you’re trying to simultaneously run a successful business. 

    A PEO can help your employees stay happy, healthy, and productive while you make sure business is operating smoothly and successfully. GMS offers one-on-one management training to help you with employees’ stress, difficult situations that arise, and several other areas of concern. GMS also partners with a company called ESPYR to provide a completely customizable Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to help promote overall company wellness. Customizable GMS EAP services can include:

    • Legal consultation provided by attorneys
    • Financial consultation 
    • Prenatal program
    • Child care information and referrals 
    • Elder care services
    • Adoption specialists
    • Academic resources 
    • Pet care services 
    • Life event services 
      • Such as birth, death, marriage, divorce, natural disasters, end of life services
    • Special needs services and referrals

    The EAP offered through GMS also provides:

    • Up to four sessions per problem for face-to-face counseling and referral for a full range of personal, family, and work concerns
    • Telephonic and video access to counseling 
    • 24/7 toll-free telephone access to mental health professionals 
    • Multilingual counselors and staff and multilingual interpreter services available in 140 languages

    GMS recognizes that a business’ most important assets are its employees. If business owners can take the appropriate steps to promote the well-being of their employees, it can only help to maximize the company’s potential. Contact GMS today to talk to one of our experts about taking the next step toward managing workplace stress.

  • When your employees are ailing, your business is also likely to suffer. The health and wellbeing of your employees can play a big part in your company’s success, as a happy, healthy workforce has several benefits, including:

    • Increased productivity
    • Reduced absenteeism
    • Decreased medical costs

    Many small business owners have turned to workplace wellness programs to help improve the wellbeing of their employees. Over time, these programs have evolved to address specific issues to better serve employers and their employees. Here are some recent wellness trends than may be a good fit for your business.

    An office worker stretching as part of the company’s workplace wellness program.

    Programs That Cover More Than Physical Wellbeing

    Physical health isn’t the only concern for your employees. While health concerns like chronic disease is a major issue for businesses, the stress caused by other factors can be a major source for lost productivity and morale. That’s why some businesses are expanding the definition of wellness to include areas like emotional, financial, and other types of wellbeing. 

    According to BMC Public Health, a peer-reviewed health journal, stress can increase health insurance costs for a business by 50 percent. This trend has led to the addition of skills training, financial counseling, and other outlets to some wellness programs. In addition to providing avenues for weight loss or smoking cessation, these programs focus on other avenues that can help improve both the physical and emotional health of employees by giving employees the knowledge and skills they need to reduce the stress placed on them by outside forces.

    Architectural Wellness

    You may not think about it, but your workspace can play a part in the wellness of you and your employees. Architecture and design magazine Metropolis notes that “new research about the effects of noise, light, and air quality—among many other factors—reveals direct links to long-term human health, not to mention daily productivity.” This means that certain changes to a workspace could help improve the overall wellbeing of employees, allowing them to be more productive while potentially limiting the number of sick days taken.

    Of course, most small businesses can’t do a complete redesign of an office. However, there are small changes you can make to create a healthier workspace. These include:

    • Air quality – Replace air filters and allow for fresh air flow to limit levels of carbon dioxide and other contaminants
    • Ergonomic furniture – Invest in seating and desks that relieve physical stress on employees over long periods of time
    • Private spaces – If possible, clear out some rooms or open spaces where employees can work privately when they need some space to focus
    • Noise control – Establish quiet zones for employees who need to get away from distracting conversations and use sound-deadening materials or furniture to help absorb noise

    Personalized Programs

    This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but every employee is different. This means that each worker can have certain preferences about what should be included in a workplace wellness program. Instead of trying to push aspects of a wellness program on disinterested employees, some businesses are personalizing programs so that users can take advantage of what they want.

    A wellness coordinator can meet with each employee to go over their health and to identify exactly what he or she wants to achieve through the program. Some employees may want to aggressively work to lose weight or quit smoking, while others may just want to maintain their level of health and learn other ways to improve their wellbeing. Coordinators can create personal health guides to provide workers with individualized information based on each specific user. 

    You can also offer “health hours” to employees to allow them to personalize their wellness on their own. This concept gives employees a set number of hours per week or month to go to the gym, take walks, or do some other healthy activity during company time. This can help workers who can’t find the time to work out on their own while still giving them the freedom to choose their own route to wellbeing.

    Small Business Guide to Health & Welness

    A Focus on Musculoskeletal Pain

    The U.S. Department of Health & Humans Services released a study back in 2015 that found nontraumatic joint disorders to be one of the five most costly conditions for American adults. Thanks to issues like back pain, arthritis, and carpal tunnel causing higher absentee rates and workers’ compensation claims, small business owners are now starting to realize that they may need to be proactive about musculoskeletal pain.

    A wellness program with a focus on musculoskeletal pain will help educate employees on how to prevent these issues. This may include:

    • Educating workers about what is considered a musculoskeletal disorder and how these injuries happen, which can include heavy lifting, bad work posture, and other practices that can lead to pain over time
    • Teaching prevention tactics such as important warmup stretches and proactive processes
    • Highlighting ways to improve workplace ergonomics

    Find the Right Workplace Wellness Program for Your Company

    While wellness programs can benefit small businesses, they’re only beneficial if they’re run effectively. At GMS, we can set up a customized workplace wellness program that’s designed around the needs and questions of your employees and features a quarterly review of claims and the impacts of your program. Contact GMS today to talk to one of our experts about how we can improve the wellbeing of your employees and your business.

  • Over time, it’s becoming more apparent that people’s personal and professional lives will occasionally overlap. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 63 percent of families with children under the age of 18 had both parents employed. Add in millions of single parents trying to balance home and work responsibilities and you have a lot of employees who seriously value a family-friendly workplace. 

    Managing work and family obligations can take a serious toll on people, which can have a direct impact on your business. Not only can this balance impact the quality of their work, but it can also lead frustrated mothers and fathers to look for more family-friendly workplaces. Fortunately, family-friendly policies are beneficial to employers as well as employees. According to the University of Kansas, a family-friendly workplace can help you:

    • Make employees more productive
    • Create a less stressful work environment
    • Attract more top talent
    • Retain quality employees

    So what can you do to make your business more family-friendly? Here are four policies that can help your business appeal to existing and potential family-oriented employees.

    An employee working at home with her daughter thanks to a family-friendly workplace policy.

    Flexible Schedules

    A little flexibility can go a long way. Back in 2017, the Harvard Business Review asked 2,000 U.S. workers which benefits they’d consider when deciding between a higher-paying job and a lower-paying job with better perks. According to that survey, a whopping 88 percent of people said they’d consider a lower-paying job that offered more flexible hours, with roughly 40 percent of them giving the offer heavy consideration.

    While the Department of Labor defines a traditional schedule as a 9-to-5, 40-hour workweek, family responsibilities can wreak havoc on such a schedule. Whether employees need to drop off or pick up kids at school, stay home to watch over the little ones, or adjust their hours for any other reason, a flexible schedule can help them maintain a regular workload (and their sanity). 

    Another option is to offer employees the ability to opt for condensed workweeks. Instead of five eight-hour days, your workers can choose to work four 10-hour days and take off Friday, do four nine-hour days and work a half-day Friday, or some other weekly schedule. Regardless of which option(s) work best for your employees, having the flexibility to come in late or leave early can help relieve stress, reduce absenteeism, and increase productivity for workers who now have less to worry about while they’re at work. 

    Another big advantage is that flexible hours are a free benefit you can offer. It doesn’t cost extra money for you to provide employees some wiggle room and you can offer ground rules as to what is and isn’t allowed, such as maintaining core hours where employees must be present. In return, you’ll have a happier workforce that recognizes that you know that there’s life outside of work.

    Work From Home

    Similar to flex time, the ability to work from home gives employees a chance to be home when they need to for their families. In fact, that same HBR survey found that 80 percent of people would consider taking less money in exchange for work-from-home options.

    This interest in telecommuting is embraced by more than just employees. The number of people who telecommute has more than doubled over the past decade, with millions of people spending at least half their schedule working outside the office. Over time, business owners have recognized the value of allowing employees to work off site if possible. 

    Not only does telecommuting help out any employees who need to stay home with young or sick kids, it can even boost productivity. According to Global Workplace Analytics, two-thirds of businesses reported increased productivity among telecommuting employees. Whether it’s because those workers had more control over their personal and professional lives or some other reason, allowing employees to work from home can make your business a more family-friendly place for people who need to be home during business hours.

    Daycare Assistance

    Childcare is a major commitment, both in terms of time and money. Whether you opt to provide work flexibility or not, daycare assistance is another way to develop a family-friendly workplace.

    Between the daycare costs and conflicting schedules, childcare issues can have a direct impact on whether an employee decides to join or leave your company. According to Care.com’s Cost of Care report, 69 percent of parents have said that childcare has influenced their career decisions. That’s a lot of talent hanging in the balance depending on your benefits plan. To help out these employees, consider offering one or a combination of the following perks:

    • On-site daycare services
    • Child care subsidies
    • Flexible spending accounts for dependent care

    Parental Leave

    Welcoming a new child into the family is an exciting time for any parent, but it can also be incredibly stressful. A parental leave policy can help you take some of the stress out of the situation. As an employer, you have a few options if you decide to offer parental leave:

    • Unpaid parental leave
    • Paid parental leave
    • A combination of paid and unpaid parental leave

    As expected, paid leave is the most attractive option for employees, but it means you’re still on the hook for paying the new parent while he or she is out. On the flip side, not having a parental leave plan – or one that doesn’t offer any form of paid leave – makes it much more likely that prospective parents will look for better benefits elsewhere. Regardless of which route you chose, adding a parental leave policy to your company’s benefits plan will help show your workers that you care about them and their families outside of work, which can go a long way toward creating a family-friendly culture.

    Make Your Company a Destination for Good Employees

    The average employee spends more time at work than home, but that doesn’t mean your company can’t make it a bit easier to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Establishing family-friendly workplace policies can help you attract and retain top talent so that you have the right people in place at your business.

    Of course, your employees aren’t the only people who deserve a little help maintaining a good work-life balance. In addition to employee benefits administration, there are several key business functions that can eat up your schedule. Fortunately, a PEO can provide the comprehensive HR administrative service you need to manage your business’ HR needs so that you can focus on your business – and the occasional day off – instead of handling payroll or some other time-consuming task.

    Ready to focus on growing your work family? Contact us today to talk to one of our experts about how we can take on the burden of HR administration for you.