Alan,
I work for an American company based in Ireland with 2,500 employees. We are
introducing an EAP in July of this year. It was very much an OH/HR
initiative. We did a lot of research into EAP providers, until we finally
settled on a provider called PPC UK (Personal Performance Consultants). They
are based in Oxford. They are very enthusiastic about their service centre
which recieves all the initial telephone calls and are happy to give you a
detailed tour of the centre and a 'mock' demo of how telephone calls are
handled. While as much is done as possible over the phone, they can still
refer on for face-to face counselling.

PPC are very impressive and very professional. They have a very thorough,
quality system in place. They will provide you with as much info via
statistical info, anecdotal evidence, etc. as you require. Their telephone
line is open 24 hours/7 days. The average speed of answering a call into
them is about 10 seconds. If you need a contact at PPC to start a query,
the name is David Smith (Sales Manager) - 01865 397000.

To answer some of your questions - from my own personal experience,
continuous promotion of the EAP service throughout the year is the only way
to ensure that it does not lapse and will remind employees about it. They
will use it if it is well promoted and well explained at the outset. On
average you can expect about 12-14% of the workforce to make a call to the
EAP of which 6% will then require face to face counselling. EAP's are
helpful. I have not come across any pitfalls -yet!
Hope all this helps - good luck!

Jackie Becker
OH Advisor
Boston Scientific Europe
> ----------
> From: Swann, A[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To: Swann, A
> Sent: 21 March 2001 08:24
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Telephone-based EAPs
>
> Dear Colleagues,
> We're considering buying into a telephone EAP. Has anyone got experience
> on
> how well they work?
>
> --Do employees make use of them?
> --How helpful are they?
> --Are they there when needed, or are callers forever held in one of those
> irritating 'your-call-is-important-to-us'queues
> --How do you promote effective use?
> --What are the pitfalls, if any?
>
> I'm especially interested hearing about experiences with Burke-Ford/ ICAS
> They claim to be 'one of the leading EAP providers for the higher
> education
> sector looking after 27 Institutes & Universities'. Good to hear about
> other
> providers too.
>
> --Are you one of the 27?
> --Do they give good service?
> --Do clients like the service?
>
> --Are there other providers that anyone would recommend?
>
> I'll be pleased to receive replies to the list(s) or directly if you need
> to
> respond confidentialy.
> Apologis to those receiving two copies of this through cross-posting
>
> Regards
>
> Alan Swann
> Director of Occupatonal Health
> Imperial College
> London
>