Organizational stress and Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)

Organizational stress can have negative effects on an employee's well being and affect his or her ability to perform their job. These effects can be physiological such as heart disease and cancer or psychological in terms of burnout and depression. An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a source of intervention for organizational stress. The EAP can be a very beneficial resource in organizations because it assists troubled employees with facing their issues and adapting in a manner to overcome the stress they feel. To determine the relationship between organizational stress and EAPs a quantitative study employing a correlational design was conducted among the staff at a Midwestern University. The study had 105 participants with data being collected via a structured questionnaire. The results showed that with the sampled population only one person used the EAP as their primary source of relief and overall only five persons had ever used the organization's EAP. Social support, which is talking to family, friends and co-workers, was shown to be overwhelmingly the most popular method of stress relief among participants. However, an employee's gender, marital status, age and organizational tenure were unrelated to the manner in which they dealt with stress to achieve relief. It is important for an organization to advertise its EAP so that employees can know of its existence and fully utilize its services.