1. FAA Academy ATC, AF, and New Student
Federal Aviation
Administration
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) Briefing
Introduce yourself, explain who you are and what services you provide.
Query the participants to find out if there are any questions/issues they want to ensure are addressed during the training. Establish a “parking lot” for the questions/issues (annotate on butcher paper).
Fact: cents of every dollar of personnel costs related to employee absence stems from lost productivity, rather than hard costs – lost productivity leads to overtime, temporary staffs, etc.
FY05 House Appropriations Committee Report commented that FAA’s consumption of sick leave rose in leave year 2002 and The FAA-avg (11.2 days) is 20% higher than govt-wide avg (9.6 days). Recommended with current budget constraints that FAA focus on ways to reduce sick leave, to improve productivity and lessen the need for additional staffing resources in the future.
Administer Quiz.

2. What is EAP?
The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a confidential program designed to help resolve personal problems.
Licensed professional counselors provided by Magellan Behavioral Health, under contract with the agency, offer information, consultation and brief, solution-oriented counseling services.

3. EAP Services Short-term counseling Assessment and referrals
Consultations
Crisis intervention
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Program
Legal Consultation Services
Financial Services
Geriatric Care Management Services
Human Resources Concierge Services
24/7 Toll Free EAP (1237)

4. What Does EAP Counselor Do?
Clarify the problem
Identify options
Develop plan of action

5. Why do we have an Employee Assistance Program?
20% of employees in the United States have personal problems that impact their job.
Workers with depression cost $30.9 billion dollars a year more in lost productivity when compared to workers with no depression.
Stress costs American businesses more than $300 billion annually (or $7,500 per worker per year) in terms of reduced productivity, absenteeism, turnover and worker’s compensation benefits.

6. Why do we have an Employee Assistance Program?
Alcohol Abuse cost the United States an estimated $119 billion in lost productivity in 1995.
Unscheduled absences due to time spent dealing with family issues accounted for 26% of absenteeism in 1998
Depressed employees have three times as many sick days as non-depressed employees.

7. Return on Investment (ROI)
The U. S. Department of Labor estimates that every $1 spent on an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), an employer saves $5 to $16.
The EAP can reduce:
* Grievances by 50%
* Sick Leave usage by 33%
* Work related accidents by 65%
* Worker’s compensation claims by 30%
* Time Spent on supervisor reprimands by 74%

8. How The EAP Works Up to eight prepaid visits
Short-term offsite counseling
All current FAA employees, their family/household members and retirees or past employees separated within the last 6 months
Confidential and voluntary
Professional network of licensed counselors
Available 24/7 at EAP (1327)

9. Voluntary Employee cannot be forced to go to EAP
A Manager, or Supervisor will not know if an employee went to EAP, unless the employee is granted duty-time or the employee gave the counselor permission to verify that he or she kept appointment
No other information is disclosed unless the employee has signed a Release of Information Form

10. Confidentiality is the Cornerstone of the EAP
EXCEPTIONS:
Statement of Understanding specifies exceptions for IMMINENT threat of harm to self or others (suicide, homicide, child abuse, and in some states elder abuse)
Form 8500 – TDP employees are required to report injuries or changes in their physical or mental health to the agency
We will not be covering provisions of union agreements during our training. You need to review union contracts, MOUs and MOAs to ensure there are no conflicting provisions.
*Regions/centers may want to supplement with specific conflicting provisions.

11. Form 8500 Question #19
“…consultations with EAP excluded unless for your substance abuse or resulted in referral for psychiatric evaluation or treatment.”

12. Release of Information
Whenever a safety/sensitive employee comes to the EAP seeking help for an alcohol or drug abuse/misuse problem, the EAP must ask the safety/sensitive employee to sign a release.
If the safety/ sensitive employee comes to the EAP for a non-alcohol/non-drug abuse problem and the EAP counselor suspects that the safety/sensitive employee may have an alcohol or drug abuse/misuse problem, the EAP must ask the safety/sensitive employee to sign a release.

13. TDPs (or EAP) Identified
Signed Consent Form and
Notify EAP Mgr & Flight Surgeon
Unsigned Consent Form, EAP ended
and no information disclosed
The next 2 slides cover the objectives we seek to accomplish during this session.
There are various types of leave within the Federal Service. Granting, determining what kinds of leave are appropriate in given circumstances, and monitoring of leave and absence is one of your responsibilities as a manager. You must exercise care in granting leave of any kind so as to minimize the effects on your organization’s mission. We hope this session will allow you to gain more in depth knowledge regarding leave including things that you must do regarding leave and things that you have discretion on.
We will familiarize you with the leave policies and procedures that govern the program here at FAA. It is key that you are familiar with these policies and procedures as well as the leave provisions in the collective bargaining agreements for those of you who have bargaining unit employees.

14. RESPONSIVE EAP available 24/7 1-800-234-1EAP (1327) = live human being
Off-site Counselor

15. Questions?
We have minutes for questions. Who has the first question?
Who has the next question?
We only have time for one more question…who has the FINAL question?
No questions – “A question past audiences have had is…” OR “One of the most frequently asked questions is…”
-If I charge someone AWOL, do I have to take disciplinary action?
Can someone work through their lunch and leave 30 minutes early?
Thanks so much for taking a part of your busy day to spend with us and thank you for your participation.