According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 62% of employers outsource their Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Even if you use an external service for your EAP, the reality is your HR department still serves as the liaison between your employees and that provider.
A key part of that role includes interpreting the results of EAP usage reports and utilizing that data in a way that benefits your organization as a whole.
What to expect with EAP reports
Depending on your EAP provider, you may receive reports on a quarterly or monthly basis. The data on these reports will be completely anonymized and aggregated – meaning you won’t see any specific or potentially identifying details on your employees who use the EAP. This practice protects both employers and employees. You will, however, receive notification if an employee has made an explicit threat of harm to self or others.
According to the Employee Assistance Society of North America, reports you can request include:
- clinical case use rate
- people use rate
- total activity use rate
With these reports, you should be able to identify how many of your employees take advantage of the EAP, and which aspects of it are most utilized. Regular reports throughout the year can help you track trends and patterns in usage. Your EAP provider should be providing quarterly reports with a breakdown of the numbers of members served, the category of services, and the cumulative year to date service details. This valuable information can help you plan HR offerings throughout the year and impact your communication strategies as well.
Utilizing EAP reports
While the reports you receive from your EAP provider won’t include data on usage from specific employees, the information within each report is a still a powerful tool to inform future planning of companywide benefits, HR initiatives and events.
For example, if your EAP report indicates a high number of calls about financial stress, leadership might choose to offer financial wellness seminars to employees, or include tools for budgeting or debt-repayment in next year’s benefits packages. You can reasonably expect to see significant levels of engagement around those initiatives because your employees already have indicated interest in the issue.
Alternatively, if you find a year-over-year trend that EAP usage spikes toward the end of the fiscal or calendar year, spend some time with your HR department and company leaders to decipher the cause. Could your employees be experiencing stress due to winter holidays or the tax season? Are employees particularly anxious due to recurring high operational workload? Might industry rhythms be wreaking havoc on your workforce? Your leadership may not be able to change the underlying causes of yearly employee distress, but recognizing it can open doors for HR to proactively help employees cope with that stress.
Happy, healthy, productive employees
It’s good business and good people management to make smart use of the reports you may already receive. On an organizational scale, interpreting EAP reports can inform the ways HR and leadership help employees cope with challenges – so your workforce can remain engaged and productive year-round.
