Taegan Devar, industrial psychologist and managing director of PeopleSmart, argues that while employee assistance programmes (EAPs) offer support, they’re just one piece of the puzzle.
In response to the growing wellness and mental health crisis facing individuals and organisations across the country, EAPs and 24-hour hotlines have become increasingly popular. Wellness days, awareness sessions and the all-too-common refrain of “Don’t worry, we have an EAP in place – we’re covered” are now standard.
Yet despite these interventions, we continue to witness the consequences of poor mental health and wellness: burnout, depression, anxiety, addiction, disengagement, strained relationships, safety incidents, and declining performance.
According to the South African Depression and Anxiety Group’s (SADAG, 2024) Working Life survey, which surveyed 963 employees across industries, a massive 52 percent were diagnosed with a mental health condition. The top five diagnosed conditions included depression (32 percent), stress (25 percent), general anxiety disorders (18 percent), burnout (13 percent) and trauma (10 percent).
These statistics are devastating and mirror what is happening at a national level. Given the strain on public health services and the significant amount of time people spend at work, employers have a critical role to play. This goes beyond performance metrics and speaks to a deeper social responsibility: creating safe and healthy environments that enable people to thrive in all areas of life.
What to consider when implementing a wellness intervention
The default solution for many HR departments is often the EAP; a 24-hour hotline – connecting employees to a healthcare professional, along with optional services like annual medicals, wellness days, and awareness training. EAPs offer a cost-effective, broad approach to employee support, but they are often underutilised and poorly managed.
Many organisations fail to track usage patterns or respond to the types of issues employees are facing. Though an important service, EAPs should form one part of a broad, multi-pronged strategy for wellness in organisations, that is led by senior leadership.
It is simply not enough to outsource the service and believe that the work is done. In our work in wellness, we encounter countless organisations whose employees share that they are hesitant to pick up the phone and speak to a stranger about very personal mental health and wellness issues, highlighting the stigma that still exists in seeking help.
In addition, when individuals do use the service, they are often already in crisis, highlighting that much prevention work needs to be done to mitigate the risk of employees reaching a crisis point before seeking support.
Creating health promotive workplaces and communities
It’s tempting to address mental health at the individual level, via counselling or one-on-one support. However, individual interventions alone are insufficient, as such interventions are most effective when paired with organisational efforts to address structural and cultural issues.
Cultivating a mentally healthy workplace requires a holistic needs analysis, evidence-based interventions and a comprehensive, multi-level framework for mental health and wellness.
Organisations can and should play a proactive role in fostering health-promoting environments. This involves equipping employees with credible health information, putting governance and monitoring structures in place, destigmatising help-seeking through storytelling, and creating inclusive, psychologically safe spaces.
A highly effective strategy is to train wellness champions across departments. These peer supporters can offer frontline assistance, provide information, and refer colleagues to EAP services. Employees may be hesitant to call a hotline, but they are more likely to approach a trusted peer for help.
We’ve seen that organisations with active wellness champions experience increased EAP usage, greater employee trust, and even a ripple effect where wellness knowledge extends into families, places of worship, and broader communities, thereby contributing to building health promotive societies.
EAPs are a valuable resource in the South African workplace, but they are not enough on their own. South African employees need and deserve more. When people feel safe and well, organisations benefit far beyond the bottom line. They see increased trust, engagement, innovation, and contribution. People don’t just survive – they thrive. These are the workplaces we must strive to build.
