The Safe Library - Service, Safety, & Security with Dr. Steve Albrecht

Helping Library Employees Get More Comfortable With EAP Services
Employee Assistance Programs can have a stigma surrounding them.
By Dr. Steve Albrecht

More than a bit of my library-related Human Resources (HR) coaching and consulting work has involved employees who have personal and professional stressors, caused by both home and workplace issues. As such, I have made many referrals to the library’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider. In nearly every instance, I have found them to be an empathic, professional, and a valuable, confidential liaison/resource to the employee.

If you already have an EAP provider on retainer, either as part of your employee benefits plan or in connection with being part of a city or county library system, you probably know the services they provide and the subjects they can address to help an employee who is struggling, hurting, anxious, sad, depressed, angry, or feeling helpless and hopeless:

• Financial problems.
• Marital or relationship problems.
• PTSD help for past traumas.
• Grief counseling from a death or loss.
• Blended families, step-parenting and/or step-children.
• Serious medical issues.
• Parents or grandparents facing end-of-life changes.
• Depression or mental health concerns.
• Addiction problems, using help from EAP providers known Substance Abuse Professionals (SAPs).
• Anger management.
• Suicidal thoughts.
• Pet loss.
• Personal stressors.
• Work stressors.

This is a short list, and most EAP providers have access to other clinical resources not listed here, if the scope of the employee’s issues are beyond their specific expertise.

I often get this question from library directors, managers, and supervisors (not so much from HR professionals, who know the answer): “Can you make an employee go to EAP? After all, it’s for their own good. Why can’t we mandate that they go?”

This question confuses the differences between a Fitness for Duty (FFD) evaluation and an EAP referral. We can order an employee to cooperate with a FFD, since it often has to do with our concerns about his or her mental state (danger to self or others, erratic self-harm behaviors, delusional beliefs).

A Fitness for Duty evaluation is often a complex intervention, involving a series of interviews with the employee, cognitive or personality testing, and a final report that advises the organization if the employee can and/or should return to work, and what, if any job-related accommodations need to be made to help the employee work effectively going forward. A FFD is most often conducted by a psychiatrist, who is a medical doctor, as opposed to a psychologist or a licensed clinical therapist, who is better suited for cognitive behavioral therapy, trauma work, or similar counseling support.

Some employees may be troubled, that is, something is bothering them, which effects their work. Some employees may be troubling, that is, they are bothering people, which makes other employees concerned for them in the best cases, or afraid of them, in the worst cases. If the employe is both troubling and troubling, the FFD is the best tool.

In contrast, an EAP referral is often simply a gentle, supportive reminder by the library employee’s director, manager, supervisor, or from HR, that we have an EAP provider, that it is confidential, no report is created, and they don’t need to tell us, or get our permission to use the services.

Speaking of reports, what type of documentation does HR need to do to demonstrate due diligence when out comes to making an EAP referral on behalf of an employee? I think the answer is a notation, saying that you discussed the presence of your EAP provider with the employee. Since we won’t know (and aren’t supposed to ever know) if the employee decided to book an appointment with EAP, the best we can do is to notate that we at least gave the employee the information so that he or she can decide to go. (Many EAPs offer in-person sessions, Zoom-based sessions, or even referrals to specific support groups.)

Helping all library employees thrive at work means we must continue to publicize both the existence of EAP services and the confidential nature of its use. It’s not unusual for some employees to have no knowledge that EAP even exists, even if they have worked at the library for many years.

More likely, they don’t think the program is free (it is, usually for three to five sessions); available to all employees at every level (and to their spouses, partners, or children); and confidential (no specific notice of its use by an employee or any report about that employee is ever generated back to HR).

Every library district or system needs to make the existence of its EAP services something every employee can see, using email or staff meeting reminders; Intranet postings; break room posters; and during coaching meetings with employees who are letting their work affect their home lives and their home lives affect their work.

Once we open the facility doors each morning and invite them inside, we have a duty of care for our patrons in our library. We have the same duty of care for the well-being of our employees, which is why EAP services exist. If you have ever went to an EAP therapist or counselor, and it was useful, have the courage to confide in a struggling co-worker about its value for you, to encourage them to seek it out as well.