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Posted By Exdeeps
Morning,
I'm after a bit of advise regarding the value of company funded stress helplines - are they of any value or is it better/quicker etc to simply see a GP? Just curious to know,
Jim
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Posted By Kate Graham
Not sure what you mean by a stress helpline? A couple of companies I have worked for have subscribed to a service which offers employees advice and counselling on a whole range of issues (legal, financial, consumer advice etc as well as counselling for stress). This helps to reduce the stigma of it being seen as being for people with emotional problems. A course of face to face counselling sessions as well as telephone counselling is available (also free). Is this what you are thinking of or something specific to stress and available by phone only?
Is it better than a GP - of course it is, if you want to give staff an opportunity to resolve their problems rather than just be signed off sick!
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Posted By Diane Thomason
Kate,
Are you able to say how to subscribe to these services? who provides them?
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Posted By J Harrison
There are quite a few providers. Try a WWW search on "employee assistance programmes". Some providers specialise in certain areas such as providing health advice (a bit like NHS direct) or are really a "whistleblowing" line. However, many are general telephone counselling services which cover stress as well as other concerns (especially money & debt)
As to getting value from them - yes, we believe we do. Many GPs don't have the time to be a "counsellor" and would advise the patient to go to a counselling service anyway. As a previous poster says, we want to get in and help solve problems before they reach that point.
Finally - they are not that expensive in our experience. We do have some "face-to-face" welfare services (which are much more expensive) but that is not practical for a lot of our workforce (spread in small groups around the UK and abroad.)
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Posted By Pete48
XD,
we use an independent counselling service for employees. Has the advantage of being a simple place to approach when you are feeling a bit "under pressure". No links to your boss, no public knowledge of the contact.
Sometimes all we need a good listener and when combined with a professional ear is a great way to help individuals to adopt better strategy for coping or to highlight the need for the to seek other help. Better than colleagues who may just empathise and not help to find a solution.
No company forms to fill out, no stigma. Only feedback is number of employees using the service, total numbers , repeat callers. This data is then used as part of the monitoring of mgmt of stress in the company.
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Posted By Richard Beevers
Further to everything so far. Does anyone have data on employee uptake of these schemes? My finance manager is wanting to close out scheme down as it's only had 13 calls in the past 6 months. Would this be (un)usual??
Al.
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Posted By Linda Westrupp
The LA I work for now uses an EAP instead of just a counselling service and it has proved very useful as it offers a wider range of help from dept counselling to telephone and face to face counselling. We asked several companies to come in and do a presentation to senior management/HR/H&S before letting the contract. Some offer 24h/7d phone help which is useful and use local counsellors for the face to face sessions.
In answer to the last post on take up, 13 self referrals could be quite good but it depends on your staffing levels. Our take up tends to be about 4% of staff which I believe is average. More than that and we would start to worry.
Hope this helps
Linda
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