Chapter 15: An Integrated EAP—Defining One's Place in the Organization

Abstract

With the continuing evolution of employee assistance services over the past few decades, terminology in the field has become increasingly confusing, resulting in a number of misconceptions about the employee assistance service and its “integration” into the company, labor union or organization. In this article, the author argues for a more traditional concept of “organizational integration”-focusing on the actual process of an employee assistance service becoming part of the fabric of its host or sponsoring organization with a corresponding ability to recognize, understand and even change the very organizational culture of which it has become a part. In today' s conceptual framework, the critical challenges and opportunities presented to an employee assistance service during this critical integration process are often overlooked and even lost with a premature rush to integrate other service components that can cloud the true value of the core employee assistance functions and services to the organization as a whole. Thus, the critical question becomes whether “integration” reflects the merging of EA with other behavioral and work/life services or, as the author argues, the merging of the EA with other organizational operations and systems and its ultimate desegregation in terms of how it is viewed by other strategic and operational elements of the organization. The author's experience in initiating, implementing and integrating internal EAPs in two very distinct organizations over the past twenty-four years provides evidence that many of the service enhancements sought in today's employee assistance service “integration” marketplace are only viable and certainly enhanced if the EAP has achieved true organizational “integration” at the front end.