At a time when we’re seeing a resurgence in Covid cases and the increased likelihood of the reintroduction of tighter personal restrictions, employers have been reacting to try and help their people navigate through these unprecedented times.
According to global HR firm Littler, 90% of firms across Europe have taken steps to support the health and wellbeing of their employees during the pandemic.
Of the 750 employers surveyed in September 2020, 57% we’re offering flexible working to enable employees to manage childcare issues or look after sick family members.
In addition, just over 50% of employers admitted to stepping up employee communications to keep employees informed on how their firm was dealing with the pandemic.
Around 31% had put in place mental health support services and an employee assistance programme (EAP) to help employees experiencing isolation, anxiety, depression and other issues.
Looking at the UK, according to Employee Benefits Healthcare Research 2020 out of the 200 HR decision-makers surveyed, 89% indicated that their firm had an EAP in place. The use of an EAP is therefore commonplace as an established tool enabling employers to provide additional support for their employees. Given the increased isolation precipitated by the trend towards long term homeworking, it will be interesting to see to what extent EAP’s are utilised going forward.
When selecting an EAP provider it makes sense to select one where the support is in the same geography as the employees being covered; this ensures that where problems arise these can be quickly dealt with without negatively impacting the end-users.
For your UK employees, we only recommend providers based in the UK which employ exclusively UK call centres.
To find out more about how an EAP can support your business during these unprecedented times, Contact us or Book in for a chat.