Why is the workplace appropriate for intervention?
Professor Harrison Trice speaking on why the workplace is an appropriate place for intervention
Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)
Employee Assistance Programs are job-based strategies for the identification, motivation, and treatment of alcoholic and other troubled employees. EAP's rely on using the double-strategy of constructive confrontation and the use of counseling services. The synergistic effect of this dual strategy has been proven to be very effective in improving the performance of alcoholic and other troubled employees.
EAP's use the Job Performance Standard to identify which employees with alcohol and other personal problems. This standard is derived from the basic principles of industrial jurisprudence, which maintain that employers have a legitimate right to intervene in an employees personal life only when job performance is adversely affected.
Within this context, job performance is not the earliest sign of a personal problem but it is an early sign to supervisors that something is amiss and that they should take some corrective action to help the employee improve his/her job performance.
Member Assistance Program (MAP)
A Member Assistance Program (MAP) is a peer facilitated, union based assistance program. The philosophy is that if a union member is having problems, than the people who are in the best position to offer help are there union brothers and sisters – people who know the job, the work environments, and also know the recovery process.
- Co-workers mutually aid other troubled workers, simultaneously renewing the union.
- They are also rooted in the core technology of EAPs, but are more flexible because they are peer based.
Emergence of MAPs
The original EAP model has changed because of:
- Early labor-management conflict over job performance and constructive confrontation
- Emergence of out-of-house EAP providers and self-referral
- Punitive nature of drug testing
- The War on Drugs and drug testing
- Denial of services by managed care
- Some unions have always provided peer-based referral and counseling services to members, like the AFL-CIO Community Services.
Fundamental components of MAPs
- Peers use job performance as well as other mechanisms to identify troubled employees
- Use constructive confrontation but intervene as allies rather than adversary
- Advise peers on helping process
- Link co-workers to community agencies
- Link union to its environment
- Focus on alcohol and drugs
Constructive Confrontation
Constructive confrontation is an approach for supervisors to deal with employees who are troubled by alcohol use or abuse. The key is hold a few informal discussions with the troubled employee that highlight unsatisfactory job performance--and to coach employees with strategies to improve job performance--and to let the employee know that there are consequences for continued poor job performance. If job performance continues to suffer, the next step would be for the supervisor to implement formal discipline, starting with an oral warning and escalating to written warnings, suspension, and possibly discharge. At each step, the supervisor will recommend that the troubled employee seek help to resolve problems that may affect job performance through the firm's employee assistance program.