Our EAP: Tunai Musa, HR Manager at Passmores Co-operative Learning Community (PCLC)
Our EAP: Tunai Musa, HR Manager at Passmores Co-operative Learning Community (PCLC)
We’re a multi-academy trust managing six schools in the Harlow area of Essex, including around 600 staff to support and look after.
As with most employers, wellbeing has become more and more of a priority — and we were aware of more cases of staff struggling with both physical and mental health conditions. No matter what kind of role you’re working in, education is a fast-paced and stressful environment, it can be relentless for people.
Our EAP, which was introduced five years’ ago, has been an important way for us to differentiate ourselves as an education employer in the region. We can say “come to work with us and we’ll care, we’ll support you”. And you can see how it works, when employees join they’re impressed by the range of offerings the EAP includes, and it helps them feel like they’re part of a community.
Mostly our employees want to use the physio and counselling offerings. In these cases the real value comes from how promptly sessions can be arranged: you can get something booked within 48 hours and know you’ll be having a face-to-face appointment for physio or counselling for the following week. And that makes a real difference for people — they can avoid the long waiting times involved with the NHS or the costs of having to arrange their own provider, meaning less worry, issues are dealt with far more quickly, and there’s less potential for needing more or longer periods of absence.
We also try to be flexible around how the EAP is used. So if a member of staff has used up all of the three sessions usually available to them, they can get in touch and we can look to arrange further sessions. People can even make those appointments for during work hours if they need to, and we’ll support them to do that. We’ll often get emails and feedback saying it’s been very beneficial for their mental health, telling us how it’s helped them along with their journey back into work. From an organisational perspective, the EAP is a very practical and important platform for reducing staff absence and avoiding long-term absence situations which are no good for them or us.
Awareness is always the challenge. There’s so much to take on-board, when people join and then becoming absorbed into their day-to-day roles, so the EAP can get forgotten. We’ll always flag about the EAP when we have catch-ups and one-to-ones, but in the end it’s always down to the individuals to remember the offer and be willing to share an issue.