I had a call the other day from a woman asking about EAP programs. I told her we do these either by direct referral from the company or by contract for us to present ongoing workshops in stress management, depression, anxiety management….and just as importantly,the positive aspect of enhancement. Commonly, businesses, organizations, law and medical practices, and schools/church communities will contact us in the aftermath of an expressed negative within the personnel or operations itself. These institutions are often reacting to currently existing issues. In our conversation we talked about proactive measures these institutions can take to ease stress, depression and anxiety, and to positively work in terms of well-being and a healthy workplace. Many places of employment provide health screenings for medical issues but few think of the possibility of changing the organizational culture through education and collaboration as an innovative means of achieving positive outcomes for employees and ultimately for the consumers they serve. The end result is always impacted by the improvement of personnel performance and interprofessional relationships. Improve the status of the personnel and it will improve the outcome for the organization’s consumers.
As we talked the caller said she was sure her company would not spend the money on the services we provide. AND I asked her the basic question: “Do they care about the bottomline and customer satisfaction?” She said they did.
Then I asked her this question: “do they care about retention of effective personnel?” And she responded with the answer I expected. ” Our workplace turnover is so high we cannot meet the satisfaction outcomes with our customers!”
This is what the research shows: More than money employees respond to a positive workplace environment and support within that culture. If an organization wants to retain their employees and grow a positive culture then it has to create a positive workplace culture and well-being for their employees. The converse of this is (also in the research) organizations which do not will lose employees in the first 6-36 months at a cost of almost $100,000 for each person lost to the company for training losses. Do this ten times and an organization has lost a million dollars. I do not know any company which can afford to throw away a million dollars like this. Yet many hospitals, universities, production companies do exactly this by not developing positive prevention programs for their employees.
I asked my caller to take a copy of this blog to her upper management to share. And if this an ongoing issue at your company, please feel free to do the same.
