Employee Assistance Program

Historical Development of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPS)

Current models of EAPs emerged from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when concern arose about consumption of alcohol in the workplace. At that time, it was commonplace for employees to drink on the job, and employers viewed this behavior as normative and thus acceptable. The foundation of today's EAPs can be traced back to several historical motivations, which raised public concern about alcoholism and alcohol use on the job. The Washingtonians, forerunners of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), played a vital role in the movement through their attempts to persuade the public about the negative effects of Workplace drinking on employee safety and health. During this time, the movement gained strength, with support from both the medical community and published studies documenting the effects of alcohol on Workplace efficiency. The emergence of Taylorism (named for Frederick Taylor), a philosophy that emphasized implementation of the most efficient production systems, as well as workers' compensation laws focused on worker safety, further ignited concern and sparked initiatives to eradicate alcohol from the workplace.

Another catalyst for the emergence of EAPs was the mass production requirements incumbent on workers during World War II. Not only were workers who were under the influence of alcohol less efficient on the job, but they were also less dependable, resulting in higher absenteeism and reduced efficiency for the organization. Therefore, the earliest EAPs, also known as occupational alcoholism programs (OAPs), emerged in the mid-1940s with the primary goal of eliminating alcohol from the workplace by assisting and treating employees with alcohol problems. The ideal resolve was to return these workers to the workplace, alcohol free, and operating as productive members of the organization.

Early forms of EAPs remained secretive about their intentions and actions, but in the 1950s, formal and [Page 189]written policies became standard. Still, programs rarely dealt with employee issues outside of alcoholism. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, EAPs expanded to include employee assistance for issues including drug abuse, family problems, emotional or behavioral problems, legal problems, and financial problems. Beginning in the 1980s, EAPs further expanded to include more preventative, rather than reactive, assistance, including stress management and holistic health practices, such as assistance with smoking and overeating. This latter model has been referred to as an employee enhancement program (EEP) because of its focus on prevention. Other contemporary issues addressed by EAPs may include counseling or services for critical/acute stress incidents, such as the tragedies that occurred on September 11, 2001; workforce diversity and awareness, training that may also fall under employee development initiatives; and current main-stream information that may be beneficial for employees both on and off the job, such as how to prevent personal identity theft.

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