Workplace counselling - what the stats tell us

When clients are looking at whether or not to introduce a referral service for workplace counselling, being able to predict costs is important. Similarly, for those who’ve already made that decision, being able to gauge its use and effectiveness is vital. The statistics are helpful for both purposes.

In terms of referral rates (the number of staff that actually use the workplace counselling service), the average referral rate has been constant at around 3% for many years now. This means an organisation with 300 employees could expect to see 9 of them referred to counselling each year. The data from the last twelve months reinforces this yet again.

While the overall average is extremely consistent, there is some variation from workplace to workplace. This ranged from one organisation with the highest use where16% of staff used the service (that would mean 48 people out of a staff of 300), to a couple of organisations who had zero staff referred to the service.

Referral rates – what they tell us

It means we know that in any given workplace, 3% of the employees will use the counselling service on average.

This average is a function of two things. Firstly (and fortunately), it represents how infrequently most of us experience issues that require intervention; it’s common, but not everyday.

Secondly, New Zealanders still seem to experience a degree of stigma associated with admitting we need help; that we can’t cope on our own. Our strong sense of pride and independence, coupled with the ‘she’ll be right’ attitude, can lead to an unwillingness to ask for help when we need it.

These trends also offer some guidance to managers. Significantly high referral numbers are an obvious indicator of specific stress points at play in a workplace environment.

Whereas, a workplace that’s consistently below 3% in its referral rates typically isn’t a good thing. It’s often a good bet there are people in need of assistance that aren’t using the service. It might be time to examine the culture – does a ‘grin and bear it’ attitude hold sway? Is it seen as a weakness to ask for help?

We’re often asked to help diagnose cultural issues such as these in a workplace, and then work together with the organisation to develop a number of constructive approaches. A culture that discourages asking for help can mask significant health and safety risks.

For over 80% of people three sessions are enough

Another interesting finding concerns the number of people who find they need more than the initial allotment of counselling sessions (in most workplaces, staff are entitled to three sessions with each referral).

For most people (83%), three sessions prove to be sufficient for them to manage their circumstances constructively again. However, we found that 17% of people who are referred to the counselling service need more than the original three sessions.

This means that approximately 1 in 6 people seek extensions to their initial sessions.

While most people find they need some degree of support and assistance at key times in their lives, a smaller number of people are managing personal and work-related issues that require support for a longer period.

So, in any given workplace, 3% of the employees will typically use the counselling service – and of that 3%, one in six will need additional sessions.

Comparisons across different industry sectors

Government agencies were the sector with the highest referral rates (a little over 5% of their staff using the services). This is not surprising given recent restructuring and redundancies in this area. Also, many government agencies have had EAP programmes in place for many years now, becoming familiar and comfortable with them.

The majority of other sectors such as finance, health, manufacturing, education, and transport were all healthily clustered around or slightly above the average of 3%.

The three sectors that were represented below the standard average level of referrals were the retail sector (where employee assistance programmes are not yet common), not for profit organisations and local government agencies.

Rather than indicating lower levels of workplace stress (which certainly would not be the case within local government or many not-for-profits, as any who have worked there will testify), the indication is that these employee assistance programmes are still much less established within these sectors in particular.

This may change as the long-term benefits on productivity become more widely known and understood in these sectors. For the moment though, central government agencies continue to lead by example in terms of healthy self-care.

Finally, what are the issues that matter to employees?

Overwhelmingly, the one key theme that prevents people from performing productively in their workplaces are relationships issues – both personal and work related.

This has been constant for as long as we’ve been measuring it – at least 20% of our time is spent helping people deal with relational challenges.

People bring their personal relationship issues with them to work and the emotions they create distract them from focusing on work. The greater, more severe the emotional responses, the greater the disruption to their productivity.

And when it isn’t personal, it’s work-related relationship issues. Issues with colleagues, issues with bosses, issues with staff – working with people can be stressful and sometimes we need an outside channel to clear the emotional distractions.

Following that, workplace stress (14%), restructuring related concerns (12%), personal stress and anxiety (7%), specific employee-manager issues (6%) and grief (5%) are the top themes.

Registering lower down the scale are issues relating to physical health and sickness, addictions, workplace bullying, violence and harassment, legal concerns, financial concerns, and general emotional health,

These findings remind us again that humans are complex emotional, physical and spiritual beings. We bring a lot with us to the workplace and we create a lot more while we are there. Some elements of this exchange are wonderful but other aspects can become harmful if they are left unattended.

In these instances, given the complexity of factors, working together with an EAP provider such as Seed can take enormous pressure of managers and become the decisive difference between seeing staff become productive and fulfilled again.

In summary, here’s what a year’s worth of data tells us:

In any given workplace, 3% of the employees will use the counselling service on average

For 83% of people, three sessions will be enough

Central government organisations seem to be most familiar and comfortable with employee assistance programmes and use services such as counselling more often

Retail and local government have the lowest rates of referral

Relational concerns are always the key theme troubling employees who use counselling services

For the last 12 months, this has been followed by concerns relating to work-related stress and workplace restructures.

So keep looking after your team and if we can help, let us know.

Seed - August 2009

NB: The figures cited here are drawn from twelve months’ data between June 2008 and June 2009, from several thousand individual referrals. The exact sample size is competitive information.