Employee Assistance Programme Article

EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME

The Government of Barbados has whole-heartedly supported this initiative, recognising that public workers are firstly human beings that will at some point in their lives experience situations that may affect their performance at home as well as at work. The Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provides confidential, professional counseling services to assist employees who are experiencing difficult personal or work related problems. These problems may be stressed induced, domestic issues, alcoholism, drug dependencies, and financial or legal difficulties.

All employees in the public service are eligible for the EAP, no matter their status or job title and they can contact the EAP as soon as they feel a problem id getting too difficult handle alone and it is effecting their job performance.

Network Services Centre has been contracted to provide EAP services to public service employees. Professionals who are trained to deal with problems conduct counseling in a confidential manner to individual public workers, their families or departmental groups. OPSR and Network Services Centre believe that maintaining the confidentiality of EAP services is a fundamental right that everyone is entitled to. Therefore, all records, including medical information, referrals and evaluations are kept in strict confidence.

What are the benefits of the Employee Assistance Programme?

Although the programme primarily targets problems that effect peoples work performance, the benefits are two-fold.
The employee benefits through:

• Early identification and resolution of personal and health-related problems;
• Improvement in mental and physical health; and
• An enhanced level of confidence and self-esteem.

The employer benefits through:

• Increased productivity;
• Higher levels of morale; and
• Reduction in time lost away from work due to sickness and absenteeism.

Further Information:

EAP Employee Assistance Programme Brochure