Securing the future of the EAP

Securing the future of the EAP

We are living in a time when EAPs have never been more important for the mental health, productivity and performance of employees.

EAPs needed to adapt through the challenges of the pandemic, and now, with limited NHS mental health services and increased demand due to the cost-of-living crisis and the growing complexity of needs, our sector is being asked to find yet another gear.  

At the same time, EAP providers are increasingly expected to compete on price. Customers want to see ‘value’. But what does that mean for an area like mental health? What happens to the quality of services, relationships and most importantly clinical outcomes?

In 2024, the EAP sector urgently needs to be clear on what an EAP actually is, in terms of standards and types of support we provide. The mental health of employees and the UK workforce as a whole is too important for EAPs to become diluted into a low-cost offering to suit mass markets. EAP providers need to keep their identity and reputation as a high quality and high impact service: a valued partner at the centre of organisational wellbeing.

So how do we talk about the evolution of EAPs to the market without suggesting that we’re broken? How do we demonstrate the growth of additional services, the unrealistic pricing, the challenges around counsellor resource, and importantly, how do we show the opportunities for the EAP sector?

After Easter, UK EAPA will publish a report called ‘Securing the future of the EAP’. The aim of the report is to raise awareness of where we are as a sector, how EAPs have changed, and how we can best work together to make sure EAPs evolve in the right ways for the future. Most of all, it’s a way of starting conversations within the sector and with employers around what we can do together to meet shared aims and aspirations around employee mental health.

The report asks the questions that customers, providers and users all want to ask, and provides new thinking from a number of industry experts including Dame Carol Black and Sir Cary Cooper. The interviews, carried out by our partner, the PR Practice, led to insights from contributors into a range of pressing issues for the industry, including:

• The reliance on digital offerings
• Increasing levels of service usage and referrals for counselling
• Unrealistic pricing
• New providers and competition
• A lack of counsellor resources
• Encouraging early intervention and prevention
• Being smarter on demonstrating financial returns
• Required standards for the growth of digital and AI delivery
• And the urgent need for greater collaboration.

A central question is how UK EAPA — as a guardian of standards — ensure EAPs don’t lose their way. This is particularly important at a time when increased awareness of mental health has accelerated the trend towards more people looking for support, more complex and ongoing issues, and reduced access to counselling through the NHS.

And with more and more providers adding so many different features to their offering, simply as a means of differentiating their service to ‘win’ contracts, how do we ensure the focus remains clinically led data, service validity and clinical outcomes? Interestingly, providers reported more pressure from employers to deliver services designed to support neurodiverse staff, and the children of employees.

Evidence from contributors to the report suggests that contracts are increasingly being won on price, meaning providers are being forced by competition to reduce their prices, even though their services are seeing higher levels of usage. As board member Eugene Farrell says: “In any other business, when there is high acceptance of value and demand you get price increases. Partly because of the financial environment for employers, along with new entrants and increased competition in the sector, there are now tiny margins and contracts that are loss leaders.”

This is an unsustainable trend. As a sector, we have a responsibility, on behalf of our colleagues, our clinicians and most importantly our clients to remain profitable without compromising on the safety of those we are employed to support. Our focus must be on the quality and appropriateness of our services, not that we can do it cheaper than our competitors. Not doing this simply means an accelerated race to the bottom. We all have a responsibility to educate those buying our service around the core elements and expected outcomes of an EAP provision.

In the report, Sir Cary Cooper asks the question: “Is the UK training enough counsellors? and do we have enough well trained and skilled counsellors to meet the demands, and are these demands burning out many of them?” The sector is seeing more competition for trained counsellors, and a higher turnover as counsellors look to diversify, retire or reduce their work commitments. In that way, we are no different to many sectors.

But there are opportunities for our market. EAP providers are in a key and often unique position when it comes to working with employers to shape and implement strategies for organisational wellbeing. Their data, insights and expertise help organisations to identify underlying sources of workplace stress. There is a shared view among EAP providers that there needs to be more partnership with employers, a specific focus on needs and how they change and evolve over time — a shift from offering a general menu of services to acting more like a wellbeing consultancy, setting objectives and providing expertise to target and address issues.

With growth, comes the importance of an organisation like UK EAPA in helping members ensure high standards through the changes and evolution of our sector; particularly with the rise in demand around digital and AI delivery. By the end of 2024, for example, we hope to have taken every accredited provider through the UK EAPA accreditation scheme. This is critical in distinguishing what constitutes a high quality and trustworthy EAP provider. At the same time, there needs to be ongoing development in terms of the wider appreciation and understanding of the market and employer needs: what makes a ‘good’ EAP throughout the 2020s.

Karl Bennett, Chair, UK EAPA