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Employer Services

Assist U is an employee assistance program focused on helping employers provide a healthy, productive workplace for employees.

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Services
As a Supervisor
Benefits of Choosing a Mixed Model EAP
Program Guidelines
Signs of Personal Problems
Some Questions To Ask Yourself About The Employee When Performance Problems Arise
Helpful Suggestions
Successful Strategies for Dealing with Troubled Employees
Live Well for Life – Your Worksite Wellness Solution

Services

Employer services include:

Informational materials
Employee & management trainings
Unlimited manager & employee orientations
Critical incident stress management & debriefing
Executive, management & supervisory consultations: A resource to management in identifying troubled employees and guiding them to seek assistance
Quarterly utilization reports: Covering areas such as program participation, problem summary, number of management consultations, and workplace crisis support.

As a Supervisor

You know that a wide range of problems, not directly associated with an employee's job function can have an effect on job performance. Marital or family problems, parenting concerns, traumatic events either personal or work related, alcoholism and drug use can often cause a decrease in employee productivity while increasing absenteeism and on-the-job accidents.

Assist U Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offers your employees prepaid and confidential short-term, professional consultation for personal problems and concerns. Employees may seek assistance on their own, at a site located away from the workplace. In addition, Assist U serves as a resource to supervisors in identifying troubled employees and guiding them to seek assistance.

The following material will help you in recognizing the warning signs of a troubled employee's behavior and offers suggestions for supervision techniques. If you have questions about the program, or the referral process, please contact Assist U.

Benefits of Choosing a Mixed Model EAP

Assist U EAP combines the expertise of our core staff with a wide network of affiliated professionals to ensure superior service to our customers. When you contract with Assist U, a professional EAP is assigned to your organization with experience in assessing manager, work unit and employee level workplace issues as well as employee personal problems. This professional will learn your organization's culture and become familiar with your managers and work units, adding a critical depth of knowledge to the services we provide.

In addition, we can call upon a network of affiliated professionals, Marriage and Family Therapists and Licensed Clinical Social Workers to augment th services provided by our core staff. We thoroughly review the qualifications of each practitioner before they are accepted as a member of our panel.

By augmenting our core staff with a wide network of seasoned providers, we can ensure our customers that they will receive personalized and timely service for any issue that affects their work force.
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Program Guidelines

Self-referrals to Assist U are encouraged.
Employees with psychological and social concerns should be provided the opportunity to obtain counseling.
Strict confidentiality is maintained by Assist U.
Workplace wellness is our primary focus.

Signs of Personal Problems

When people are troubled, their behavior usually changes. Commonly, work patterns change and/or job performance declines. Occasional incidents of poor job performance, however, do not necessarily suggest the existence of serious personal problems. The following are examples of warning signs that you may observe. Anyone may have one or more of the following happen occasionally. What you should look for is a pattern of warning signs, some of which are listed below.

Absenteeism
Multiple requests for personal time-off.
Excessive sick leave.
Frequent Monday and/or Friday absences.
Repeated tardiness.
Leaving work early.
A higher rate of absenteeism than other employees.
Improbable excuses.
Unauthorized leave.

Interpersonal Relationships
Excessive irritability with co-workers.
Unusual complaints about co-workers.
Complaints from co-workers.
Customer complaints.
Increasingly withdrawn behavior.
Unusual number of personal telephone calls
Visits from non-work related people during working hours.
Unwarranted feelings of being "picked-on."

Work Performance
Decline in quality and quantity of work.
Tired and lethargic.
Erratic productivity.
Work produced of progressively poor quality.
Mood swings - these may be obvious or subtle.

Personal Appearance
Unkempt, or inappropriate clothing.
Poor grooming, or personal hygiene.
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Some Questions To Ask Yourself About The Employee When Performance Problems Arise

Have I spoken with the employee about this performance problem before?
Have work performance and attendance expectations been made clear to the employee?
Are my expectations reasonable?
Are they consistent with the expectations of other employees?
Have I documented the problem? Have I documented past attempts to deal with the problem?
Am I attempting to diagnose, or treat an illness or emotional problem, rather than referring the employee to the appropriate resources?
Have I honestly examined my feelings towards the employee?
Have I allowed my interactions with the employee to interfere with my objectivity? Am I feeling angry, or sorry for the employee? Avoiding the employee?
Am I reluctant to deal with the employee's problems, because I have comparable ones myself?
Have I discussed the situation with the Employee Relations Department, or an EAP counselor?

Helpful Suggestions

Establish levels of performance of all employees reporting to you. What is acceptable? What is unacceptable? Communicate these established expectations, or standards to all employees.

Be consistent. Do not tolerate more from one employee than you would from another. Be honest and speak with authority. You will be respected for it.

Be alert to changes in performance such as: tardiness, increased absences, or moodiness. When patterns develop, the employee should be counseled and the discussion noted.

Gather all the facts surrounding the problem before discussing them with employee. Be sure to establish specific guidelines for improved performance.

Do not permit your own biases to sway an honest evaluation.

Do not moralize or lecture. Keep the focus of the meeting on job performance.

Do not attempt to diagnose an employee's problem.

Know the company's policies concerning alcohol and other drugs and commit to enforcing those policies.

Upgrade your knowledge and skills in areas where you feel that you have had trouble supervising in the past.

Establish a timeline for performance improvement
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Successful Strategies for Dealing with Troubled Employees

Hold the meeting in a confidential setting at a time that is convenient to the employee.
Inform the employee of the purpose of the meeting.
Limit the meeting to a productive time period (approximately thirty minutes).
Listen to the employee's plan to improve their job performance.
Schedule a follow-up meeting within two weeks of the write-up.
Continue documenting poor performance that occurs after the first meeting is held.

Live Well for Life – Your Worksite Wellness Solution

Live Well for Life offers a variety of wellness services that identify worksite health risks in order to improve your employees’ health and enhance their productivity. Now more than ever, it is important to use existing resources most efficiently and protect your bottom line. Live Well for Life’s three tiers of wellness products provide you with the basic tools to help you build a customized solution for your workforce. Also available are optional programs and services that you may purchase to enhance your wellness program.

For more information, visit www.sutterhealthpartners.org.
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