Do EAP's Help Strangers in a Strange Land?
August 21, 2008
Employee Assistance Programs are important, but sometimes lacking abroad
By Nathan Adkisson
Employee Assistance Programs have long been offered by companies, often in conjunction with health insurance programs, to be sure workers have counseling or whatever services necessary to help cope with stress and personal problems. But when employees go abroad, their stress is higher, and many EAPs are conspicuously absent. In a time when many corporations seek to expand globally by opening new departments overseas, some employees report EAP services lacking when they need them most.
A 2007 survey from ORC Worldwide found that 55 percent of international assignees are weighed down by added stress causes by longer hours, extended work days or weeks and cultural differences. Two-thirds or the respondents feel the strain of managing the demands of work and the wellbeing of family.
Karen Louise Booth, a consultant who frequently works on long-term international projects, wishes she had an EAP for support. Her travels for Prepone Consulting have taken her around the world, most recently to Sierra Leone, where she was an election observer for the newly democratic country. She found that working and living in a foreign environment presents a different set of issues than usually encountered while vacationing.
"I thought I was a well-seasoned traveler," she says. "I've been to over fifty countries, and about half of those as a tourist. But you really just touch the surface of a place when you're a visitor. You're usually staying in hotels and services are easy to obtain. Just going out to buy tomatoes can be difficult."
After-the-fact incentives and bonuses alone may not be enough to offset the difficulties of working abroad.
"For those of us who didn't renew our contracts, it was because we hit personal walls," Booth says. "Even though you get benefits and travel, it's not the same. There would be times when we would ask ourselves, 'Do I go out to the market and buy groceries, or stay in because I simply don't want to deal with it today?' "
She says having access to an EAP who was trained in expatriate services would have given her the comfort she needed to feel more satisfied with the work she was doing.
"There were nights when I would have appreciated a 1-800 number I could have called just for the relief," she says. "Wouldn't it be great to have an online therapist to video chat with, or even just email? We all have different issues. It would be nice to have someone there who has the ability to process them and just validate them and say, 'Here are some tools and techniques that would be helpful.' "
Some professional services companies are recognizing the need for EAPs dedicated to expatriates. Bensinger, DuPont & Associates offers master's-degreed clinicians who are available by phone or online before, during, and after an employee goes abroad. Gus Stieber, vice president of sales for the company, says one impetus for his client companies to provide EAPs for their executives is security for the time and money invested in that employee.
"You can pay up to a million dollars for the employee, including training and getting them there," he says. "Often it's the high-end executives who are going, so they want to protect that investment."
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