CONFIDENTIALITY CRISIS MAY UNDERMINE GOOD WORK OF EAPs
Dated: 22/02/2010
The media debate surrounding the disclosure of confidential details relating to callers to the National Bullying Helpline is likely to have a significant impact on employees’ willingness to seek support and information on personal and workplace issues from employee assistance programmes (EAPs).
“Over 8.2 million employees in over 5000 UK
“As employee assistance professionals it’s our moral obligation and duty to maintain and protect employees’ confidentiality when they’re using the service.
“All employee assistance programmes report on the utilisation of the helpline service. This information enables organisations to respond to trends in the workplace and general employee concerns,” says Libby Payne, executive committee member of UK EAPA.
“However, this data is always anonymous and information on individual employees or calls is never reported. Serious planning and consideration is given to the content of reports about helpline utilisation on, for example, a regional, site or departmental level. At all times samples will be of a significant size that it’s not possible to identify employees with specific issues, such as long term absence from work or maternity related concerns,” she explains.
Workplace bullying remains one of the most common motivations for an employee to contact an EAP helpline. One UK EAPA member reports that over 15% of calls to its helpline are generated as a result of line manager and colleague bullying in the workplace.
“Monitoring the level of helpline calls relating to issues enables organisations to understand the extent to which, workplace bullying, for example, is evident within their business. It’s important that employers now pay even greater attention to the type and level of calls to their EAP helplines. They need to make certain their people are aware of the wellbeing support available from their EAP and are not prevented from making the most of the service due to unnecessary concerns that their confidentiality may be breached,” adds Eugene Farrell.
Notes & Information
For more information on the UK Employee Assistance Professionals Association contact Liz Guilford (07734 543 825 / liz@melbournecommunications.com) or go to www.eapa.org.uk.
§ The UK Employee Assistance Professionals Association represents the interests of professionals concerned with employee assistance, psychological health and wellbeing in the
§ To download a copy of the UK EAPA’s Standards of Practice & Professional Guidelines for EAPs, go to http://www.eapa.org.uk/media/filesystem/EAPA%20Standards.pdf.
§ An EAP is a worksite-focused programme that assists in the identification and resolution of employee concerns, which affect, or may affect, performance. Such employee concerns typically include, but are not limited to personal matters (for example, health, relationship, family, financial, emotional, legal, anxiety, alcohol, drugs and other related issues) as well as work matters (including work demands, working relationships, harassment and bullying and work/life balance). An EAP includes a mechanism for providing counselling and other forms of assistance, advice and information to employees on a systematic and uniform basis.
