advo recently covered an article on the lack of communication about staff benefits. The article explains that a recent survey revealed that only 57% of employers believe their workforce is aware of all their benefits and understands them. An incredible 35% of employees say their company doesn’t communicate benefits or they don’t remember if they do.

You can read this article here.

These statistics are a stark reminder of how important regular communication of employee benefits are and to use a variety of methods of communication to reach out to as many employees as possible.

One of the low cost but high impact employee benefits is the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). For those who are unsure of what this benefit is, it is a service which helps employees to deal with life issues such as finances, relationships, stress and mental health. Depending on the provider, this can include access to a 24-hour helpline answered by experienced in-house counsellors, legal and financial specialists and can provide further face-to-to-face, telephone or online counselling, finance management support, debt and legal information etc.

This benefit can have such an important positive impact on employees’ lives, especially during such times as we have experienced this year. Employee’s productivity and motivation may also increase if they can deal with the issues they are facing and can therefore concentrate on other matters.

There are clear benefits for the employee which benefit the employer. At a time where companies are reviewing their benefits and trying to cut costs, it is important to understand the financial impact a benefit such as an EAP may have.  It has been reported that the impact and financial returns in the UK (2,000 calculations made via the EAPA UK return on investment (ROI) calculator since the beginning of 2019, representing anonymised information from four million employees) is that for every £1 spent on an EAP, employers see an average return on investment of £7.27. The data from the EAPA UK shows that whatever size company, sector, geographic location or service used, an EAP is delivering significant financial returns as well as the emotional benefits such a service can bring.

If you currently have employee benefits, it is worth speaking to your provider to see if there is an EAP as part of the offering. If you are looking to review existing benefits, or do not have employee benefits or your provider does not offer an EAP and you would like to discuss this further, please get in touch and we can put you in contact with one of advo’s Employee Benefit’s Account Managers and start a conversation.