Strategies for Employee Assistance Programs: The Crucial Balance (Key Issues)

This Key Issues report addresses questions often raised by employers and union leaders setting out to develop job-based programs to help alcoholic and other troubled employees.

Following chapters on the historical development and key components of EAPs, the authors discuss the importance of balance in program strategies and in corporate and union responsibilities. The authors also present examples to show the role EAPs might play when the problems of alcoholic and other troubled employees lead to arbitration and workers' compensation cases. The focus in the concluding chapter is on the future of EAPs―the need for more research and further development of educational programs for EAP practitioners.

Harrison M. Trice is Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University.

William J. Sonnenstuhl is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Department of Extension, Cornell University, Associate Director of the Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies, and author of Working Sober.