Embrace the wellbeing and productivity consultancy role, says EAPA’s first international President-elect

Embrace the wellbeing and productivity consultancy role, says EAPA’s first international President-elect

“Employee Assistance (EA) professionals are traditionally more concerned with ‘rolling up their sleeves and doing the work’ of helping people, than conceptualising and promoting concepts or ideas about what EA can and should be,” says Daryl Joseph of Josal Consulting, newly-announced as the President-elect of EAPA internationally.

“Over time, we have found ourselves in a position where we often overlook our consultative role in the workplace in favour of seeing our primary role as providing short term clinical care to employees.

“EA is the only professional discipline that embodies the skill, experience, training, and resources needed to adequately address the multifaceted challenges of maintaining high productivity among the workforce. In today’s post-covid 19 reality, organisations need the intervention and assistance of EAPs to ensure that their people can work, and work well, more than ever before in modern history. EAPs are quite simply essential in today’s workplaces and societies.”

Changing the workplace for good

Joseph is Managing Director of Josal Consulting [www.josalconsulting.com], a provider that has built up a large client base of employers across the Caribbean over the past 11 years. He formally takes on the global role in 2024 for a two-year period.

The most important job for EAPs now, Joseph argues, is convincing the world of work “just how much EA can actually accomplish if there is cooperation and collaboration enabling us to act fully in the workplace.” EAPs also need to moving forward on integrating technology into EA, he says, particularly when it comes to data science: using data for analysis and decision making.

The other new global board members are Lee Ann Aden (Treasurer), and Bryan McNutt and the UK’s Eugene Farrell as ‘At-Large’ Directors. The main purpose of the international board, as EAPA’s governance body, is to set policy and help shape the direction and development of the EA profession.

Driving forward

An EAPA international member since 2001, Eugene Farrell [https://www.eapa.org.uk/] is now serving his second term as President of the UK Branch.“It’s brilliant to see the EAPA global board expanding and bringing in new expertise and sources of insight — especially now, in what feels like the beginning of a new era for EAPs and their potential in terms of working in partnership with HR to improve productivity.

“With his energy, passion and clear thinking, Daryl will be a great addition to the team as President and in helping to drive future development of our industry.”