If you work in the world of EAPs, or workplace wellbeing generally, you’re bound to have seen the negative headlines in the press recently about Health Assured. The BBC, for example, ran with the headlines ‘Confidential counselling calls were eavesdropped on by strangers’ and then ”Eavesdropping’ helpline provider has accreditation suspended’.
The function of news stories is to grab the attention of the reader, which is why sensationalist headlines are effective. However, often the story behind the headlines is more complex and nuanced than they suggest. As an expert media company specialising in workplace health and wellbeing, we wanted to get behind these headlines and find out what is really going on at a deeper, more complex level.
It’s tempting, and the easier option, when faced with negative press like this to – like in the movies – just say a blanket “no comment”. But then, in that situation, we learn nothing about the nuance, and no constructive learnings to progress forward.
So, hats off to Health Assured’s CEO Bertrand Stern-Gillet who willingly spoke to us honestly and openly and in depth about this subject, leading to some insightful learnings about the EAP market and how it needs to evolve in future; these learnings are not just for Health Assured, they are for the entire market, employers and providers.
Here’s what he said.
Let’s get straight to addressing the recent new stories, the latest announcing that Health Assured has had its BACP counselling service accreditation suspended following a BBC investigation. We want to hear your side of this story. Can you tell me your perspective of what is going on behind these headlines?
Yes, of course. What has been missed out here in all the coverage is that the EAP industry is under pressure like never before.
All EAPs – not just Health Assured – are getting calls, at times, from people who are in crisis, which is not what they were set up to do. And by this I mean calls from people contemplating taking their own life.
The challenge with these types of calls is that they have to be high priority and can take up a lot of our counsellors’ time. While we probably only receive a few of these high-risk calls a week, they are not the kind of calls that can be taken lightly or quickly. And, oftentimes, the caller might fall outside of the parameters of the service i.e. not be from active clients, which can be hard to determine given the caller’s immediate distress.
This leaves our counsellors in a very difficult situation. In my experience, they always consider the bigger picture of doing the right thing for that person in that moment, supporting the caller and leaving us to worry about the details later.
The alternative would be ending the call, potentially leaving a high-risk caller in a vulnerable, distressed state, which is completely against our values at Health Assured, or in line with the EAP sector in general.
Another challenge is that these callers will often say that their GP recommended they get in touch because they are likely to get support more quickly via an EAP than the NHS.
To add further context, in 2019 Health Assured received just under 277,000 contacts. In 2023, this had risen to over 475,000 contacts, taken 24 hours a day. There are huge variations in how long each call lasts, from ten minutes to two hours.
We take our responsibilities very seriously and are committed to providing the very best service to every single person who uses us.
Since before the first BBC article published, we have engaged proactively with the BACP to advise them of the pending coverage and the subsequent impact on our counsellors and clients. We have made it clear to them that we are always open to and welcome them visiting us at any time, with or without notice, to review our policies, procedures, ways of working and generally excellent quality of service.
So, can you explain what the BBC news coverage was talking about?
Given the volume of calls we receive and, with it being so important that we answer all calls, we have a resource planning team who need to work out what the average call lengths are and allocate staffing
accordingly.
They look at the times different contacts come in, calculating the average length of calls over years considering the fact that some calls are transferred within a few minutes, for example, to a legal specialist, whereas others may last significantly longer, 40, 50, 60+ minutes, and everything in between.
The length of a call fluctuates wildly, from call to call and day to day, but this function tries to work out the average over time to ensure we are properly staffed at all times, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The BBC has mixed up this function with an idea that we have people peering over our counsellors’ shoulders when they have been on the phone for more than 20 minutes, or telling them that they are not allowed to put callers through to set up counselling because a limit has been reached, which is completely untrue.
That’s just not the kind of organisation that we are, or the service that we provide.
How do we solve this problem of EAPs handling inappropriate, high risk calls when this is not what they were set up to do?
It sounds counterintuitive, but one thing we’d like to see is more people contacting us at an earlier stage. This way EAPs are used more preventatively and proactively, rather than at crisis point, which is what they were set up for.
Giving employees different ways to access the service would also help. It can be hard to pick up the phone and speak to someone when you’re in a vulnerable place, but a less personal communication channel might be, for example, a live chat online.
I think the EAP sector is pretty aligned on the fact that we see one individual communicating with another individual as really important, it’s just about providing lots of ways to do that, other than just a phone call. A phone call is quite a highnbarrier for some people to get over, after all.
Employers tell us often they want to move to a more preventative approach. Are you seeing that?
It varies across the board. But I’ve seen a general shift over the last few years towards preventative.
What more could employers do to speed up this shift to preventative rather than reactive?
They could be much more open and transparent about the service so that more employees use it, more of the time, and at an earlier stage.
I would also say it isn’t simply a case of finding an EAP provider and signing a contract with them. It’s about putting a huge amount of effort into onboarding that service within your organisation, engaging your people with the service and continuing conversations about it, rather than just doing this in the first month.
I’m a line manager myself, and I will remind colleagues of the EAP that we get for our people several times a week, reminding them of all different kinds of situations they could contact them for. I’d encourage employers to have those conversations more.
In the long run this will do wonders because people will be accessing support earlier, and fewer people will reach crisis point, which becomes more challenging for an EAP to support, and more challenging for the NHS too.
What about investing in specialist services to deal with these more high risk calls? Do you think that is a good way forward?
We do already partner with some more specialised, bespoke services but that can be a challenge because it depends on what funding organisations have available for support. Generally these services, by their specialist nature, are more expensive.
The problem with this is that there are some organisations that are struggling even to pay for a standard EAP.
Another challenge is that some organisations are now comparing EAPs with digital service providers with things like AI coaching tools. Some of these services can be great but they do not provide interaction with a real human, and so don’t deliver the level of personalisation that an EAP does – yet some employers are using these services to put pressure on EAPs to reduce their prices saying ‘but I can get mental health and wellbeing services from these apps and it will only cost me X amount’.
It can be difficult sometimes to explain to employers that it’s not the same kind of service and, while these digital offerings can be good in some ways, there will be other outcomes that simply won’t be possible with them.
So the pressure on EAP costs has intensified recently?
Yes. EAPs deliver a very high level of support for generally very low prices.
I always remember a colleague, who’s been in the industry for about 25 years, saying to me that we provide more of a service now for a fifth of the price that we charged years ago.
The mental health conversation has opened up massively in recent years and, let’s be super clear, that this new openness is a fantastic development. But we’ve also got to be realistic that with this more open approach comes much more increased demands. At the same time, the increased demand on the NHS has been well publicised.
And this means there’s an opportunity for companies to step in, then?
Yes… opportunity is one word, but I think responsibility is another important word.
The openness has also led to the situation we’ve been talking about, where there is an increasing volume of more high risk calls to EAPs over the past few years. And there’s a real responsibility that comes with these kind of calls.
Basically to deliver a good, sustainable, appropriate service employers have got to pay more?
I think there’s got to be a degree of realism about what can be achieved with a small budget. And a recognition that if employees are really struggling and need to access more specialist services, this is going to cost more.
We have, fortunately, seen a real shift over the last couple of years where clients, which can afford it, are paying for longer session models, if a caller needs more specialist support. For instance, having 10 or 12 counselling sessions rather than the standard six, which is not enough for some and, as well as being poor practice, could be potentially dangerous if it leaves someone with unresolved issues.
Do you think, then, that employers are starting to recognise the complexity of mental health and its handling, and the need for more support sometimes?
I think so…I think there’s a growing expectation that it’s more complex than perhaps originally thought and requires higher degrees of intervention.
How would you like to see the EAP sector evolve?
Many organisations have budgetary constraints. I would like to see government support workplace wellbeing programmes of different kinds for all organisations and consider some sort of funding contribution for SMEs and micro-SMEs, and those organisations that really struggle to find the budget for these kinds of essential services.
Are you feeling optimistic about the new government?
It’s early days, so it’s really difficult to say but some of the early signs are positive in terms of investment in mental health services, but we’ve not seen anything really concrete yet.
What’s the biggest message you want to get out to our readership about EAPs?
It’s something we’ve already touched on: please use the EAP Services as much as possible and publicise them to your people to the point at which you’re bored of your own voice!
And make sure there are lots of different ways which your people can access your service because not everyone will want to make a phone call or use an online tool, or do a guided meditation.
It’s the duty of the EAP provider to ensure there’s wide opportunities for your people, and it’s the duty of the employer to publicise these opportunities repeatedly so they are used.
The Leaders’ Summit at MAD World will include sessions that focus on personalisation and the evolving EAP which will provide you with the ideal opportunity to get up to speed with this hot topic.
The Summit on 17th October 2024, will bring together speakers and attendees from across sectors and with a range of job titles for two tracks of leading-edge content that showcase best practice and provide insights and inspiration for all those looking to achieve maximum engagement with initiatives, optimise investment, stay one step ahead and really make a difference.
The stellar lineup of speakers includes: Professor Dame Carol Black GBE FRCP FMed Sci; Peter Cheese, CEO, CIPD, Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher, Chief Executive, The Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (IOSH), Dhavani Bishop, Head of Group Colleague Health & Wellbeing, Tesco, Kirstin Furber, People Director, Channel 4, Dr Clare Fernandes, Chief Medical Officer, BBC, Christian van Stolk, Executive Vice President, RAND Europe, Andrew Gibbons, Group Head of Wellbeing, Recognition and Hybrid Working, HSBC, Karen Brookes, Chief People Officer, Sir Robert McAlpine, Jaimy Fairclough, Wellbeing Specialist – People Division, Sainsbury’s, Dr Femi Oduneye, Vice President Health, Shell International B.V. and many more. You can find out more and register to attend here.
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