Employee assistance programmes (EAPs) can play a powerful role in helping employees cope with stress, improving the ability to work and supporting relationships with management, according to Capita Health and Wellbeing.
Capita analysed data on more than 3,500 people who had used EAPs advice and counselling services and found employees coping poorly with the demands of their job fell from 51% before counselling to just 5% afterwards - a decrease of 90%.
Before counselling just 37% of respondents said that their relationships with colleagues was good or very good but after counselling this rose to nearly two thirds (65%). Similarly, relationships with managers improved from 38% good or very good to 55% after counselling.
Karen Woodley, sales director in Capita Health and Wellbeing's occupational health business, said: "So employee assistance programmes should be seen as much more than just as a ‘nice to have' benefit for employees.
"Workplace stress has a fundamental impact not just on work relationships but on productivity too.
"And our data suggests that improvements can be impressive; after using the employee assistance programmes numbers who had lost interest in work fell from 68% to 20%, those reporting low energy fell from 73% to 34% and those who had difficulty concentrating more than halved (75% to 33%). "
