What is an employee assistance programme (and how to design one)?

Offering decent employee benefits in your business is extremely important for retaining your staff and boosting morale, and part of that should include health and wellbeing support.

Over time, an increasing number of companies have introduced wellbeing initiatives, with 69% of employers offering occupational health services in 2025.

A key part of this is an employee assistance programme (EAP) — an initiative that provides staff with access to professional support for personal and work-related issues. Offering an EAP can help your team feel supported and show that you genuinely care about their wellbeing. 

Below, we’ll explain what EAPs are, including why they’re important, how they work, the typical costs involved and how to implement them in your own organisation.

What is an employee assistance programme?

An EAP is a confidential support service provided by employers to help employees deal with personal or work-related problems that might affect their wellbeing or job performance.

EAPs usually offer support in areas such as:

• Counselling for mental health, stress or relationship issues
• Financial and legal advice
• Support for family or personal matters
• Resources for managing stress and work-life balance

You can set up your EAP either in-house or through an external provider.

An in-house EAP is typically run by your internal human resources (HR) team, who are responsible for managing and delivering the EAP to your staff. Meanwhile, hiring an external provider is when you have a third-party to provide support services to employees.

There are many benefits to EAPs, most notably improved employee engagement, productivity, reduced absenteeism (regularly staying away from work without a good reason) and lower staff turnover. It can also help to improve morale and give your business a competitive advantage, as a good EAP is more likely to attract and retain new talent.

Why are employee assistance programmes important?

EAPs are important for promoting workplace wellbeing and supporting employees mentally and physically, especially with stress and burnout becoming a major problem in the UK.

According to research by workplace mental health consultancy MHFA England, 79% of employees are experiencing moderate-to-high levels of stress, while 63% are showing signs of burnout, such as exhaustion and disengagement. 

Meanwhile, an average of 21.6 days were lost due to work-related stress, resulting in a £5.2bn cost to UK businesses.

Offering an EAP can help mitigate these issues by providing employees with confidential access to professional support, including counselling, mental health resources, and guidance for personal or work-related challenges.

This will help staff manage stress and prevent burnout, as well as improve productivity, engagement and overall workplace morale. Companies that invest in EAPs often see lower absenteeism, reduced staff turnover and a healthier workforce in general.

Statistics by EAP provider Wisdom Wellbeing reveal that having an EAP reduced absenteeism by 36%. Moreover, 39% of employees who utilised EAP services related to legal, financial or work/life issues were able to resolve their issue or manage it effectively enough to remain at work and avoid negative outcomes (e.g. sick leave, declining performance or resigning).

How do employee assistance programmes work?

As mentioned above, EAPs offer services in multiple areas, including mental health support, financial and legal advice, and stress management. 

The services are typically confidential, available 24/7 and can even be offered to the employee’s extended family. They can be available to employees through several avenues, including by phone, online chat, an app or face-to-face.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the services offered:

• Short-term counselling: access to a limited number of free sessions (often around three to eight) with licensed counsellors.
• Common issues support: stress management, anxiety, depression, burnout, grief and loss, relationship problems, family conflict, and addiction/substance abuse.
• Crisis intervention: immediate 24/7 support services for employees following a traumatic event (e.g. workplace accident or sudden death of a colleague).
• Specialised therapy: access to specific kinds of therapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) for trauma.
• Financial guidance: consultation with financial experts on personal budgeting, debt management, credit counselling and general financial planning.
• Legal advice: access to legal experts for information and guidance for non-work-related matters, such as family law (divorce), consumer rights, tenancy issues and wills.
• Dependent care: resources and referrals to help employees find services for childcare, eldercare or special needs care.
• Health and wellness: access to digital tools, health assessments, online workout classes, nutritional counselling, and a resource library with articles, webinars and podcasts on general wellbeing.

EAPs also offer resources that help employers maintain a positive and healthy organisational culture. These include:

• Manager consultations: confidential support lines for managers to consult on how to address a troubled employee’s performance issues, approach difficult conversations and make appropriate referrals to the EAP.
• Organisational reporting: EAP providers can share anonymous data showing how often the service is used and what types of issues employees are facing — helping companies spot common challenges and create more focused wellbeing initiatives (e.g. stress management workshops if stress levels are high).
• Workplace conflict resolution: services like mediation or coaching to help resolve interpersonal conflicts or relationship problems between colleagues, or between an employee and manager.

How to design or implement an EAP for your business

Setting up an EAP doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does require some planning so that it meets your team’s needs and delivers real value. 

Whether you’re creating one yourself or partnering with an external provider, here are a few key steps to help you implement your EAP successfully.

1. Define your goals and budget

Before deciding on how you’re going to design your EAP — or which provider you want to go for — you’ll need to determine the specific challenges in your workplace and what you want to achieve with your EAP. 

For example, some common goals include improving productivity, morale and work-life balance, or reducing stress and burnout.

2. Find the right provider

If you choose to hire an external provider, you should take the time to research available options. When considering this, you should look into factors like the scope of care the provider offers (e.g. mental, physical, and financial), availability and access (e.g. 24/7 support and multiple languages), customer feedback and confidentiality.

Cost is an important consideration as well. If you’re on a strict budget, it’s worth comparing the pricing of different providers to find one that offers the best services without unnecessary extras.

3. Communicate with staff

You should inform staff about the EAP early on, even before it’s fully launched. Make sure to notify them about your plans to implement it, including how it works, what it offers and the benefits it’ll have. You should also mention that it’s completely confidential, so that employees are fully assured.

Once you’ve fully implemented the EAP, you should promote it to your employees. This could be through internal email, intranet pages, company newsletters and your onboarding process.

4. Train your management teams

This step involves explaining to management how the EAP works, training them to recognise mental health struggles (e.g. changes in behaviour or performance), and teaching them how to have empathetic and supportive conversations with employees about their wellbeing. 

You should also provide clear guidance on how managers should encourage employees to use the EAP, when and how to make a formal referral (if needed), and to ensure that they address performance issues based on job performance, not personal factors.

5. Review your data and adjust

Once your EAP is up and running, you should establish a system that collects employee feedback on their experience with the EAP. This will help give you an idea about whether your staff are actually finding it useful or not.

You should also measure the effectiveness of your EAP by tracking the utilisation rate (the percentage of employees actually using the EAP), and reviewing metrics like absenteeism, presenteeism (someone being at work for more hours than required), productivity, return on investment, and staff retention, before and after the EAP’s implementation.

How much do employee assistance programmes cost?

The cost of an EAP ultimately depends on the number of employees you have, the specific services included, and the chosen pricing model.

EAPs offer different pricing strategies, which can influence the final cost. These include:

• Per employee per month (PEPM): a fixed monthly or annual fee that’s charged for each employee, based on how much the service is used.
• Per use: the employer only pays when employees actually use the service instead of a flat fee.
• Per call: the employer pays a set fee for each call or contact an employee makes to the EAP service, such as counselling sessions or advice line calls.
• Hybrid model: combines a fixed PEPM fee with costs based on actual service usage.
• Bundled: a flat fee that covers a set package of services, regardless of how much they are used.

For example, a small business (with 10-20 staff) may choose a per-use or per-call model to keep costs manageable, since they’ll only pay when employees use the service. 

On the other hand, a medium-sized company (with around 50-100 staff) might benefit from a hybrid model, as this gives them a balance between predictable budgeting and paying for what’s truly needed.

How to choose the right EAP provider

When deciding on the right EAP provider, you shouldn’t solely focus on price. Instead, you should also think about accessibility, usability and the quality of the services offered. Other important considerations include:

• 24/7 access: this assures employees that support is available at all times and they won’t have to worry about missing opening times to talk to someone.
• Confidentiality: reassures employees that anything they share with counsellors (unless considered a significant risk to themselves or others) will not be shared with other people — even their own line managers.
• Multi-language support: useful for employees who aren’t native English speakers and prefer to talk to someone in their native tongue.
• Quality of counsellors: counsellors that are provided should be fully qualified and accredited, ensuring employees receive safe, high-quality and professional support.
• Multiple access channels: support available via phone, video call, online chat or in-person sessions — making it easy for employees to get help that suits their preferences.
• Reporting metrics: anonymous data that helps employers spot common issues and improve wellbeing support. For example, if reports indicate that employees are seeking financial advice, the company could introduce additional financial wellbeing resources or budgeting workshops.
• Integration with HR tools: this improves employee access to the EAP services by linking with existing HR software and tools, like employee portals or intranets.

What if my business doesn’t offer an EAP?

If you don’t offer an EAP, you risk increased absenteeism, lower productivity, higher staff turnover and an unhappy workforce overall.

Not only that, but there’s also a significant risk to your reputation. The lack of a support programme will give the impression that you don’t care for employee wellbeing, which can ultimately deter new talent from joining your team, make it harder to retain existing employees, and harm your company culture and performance.

While EAPs aren’t a legal requirement, you do have a legal duty of care to employees’ health and safety, including mental health. EAPs are an effective way to meet this obligation, while also being cost-effective and showing employees that their wellbeing matters.