Employee Assistance Programs on Liberal Arts Campuses

Book excerpt: The purpose of this book is to build a database which would assist administrators of colleges and universities in recognizing and meeting the needs of their troubled employees. Higher education in the 1990s is in a state of retrenchment. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are rapidly becoming an integral part of the overall philosophy of the Human Resource function in higher education. EAPs are designed to provide professional assistance for employees who are experiencing problems that interfere with their work performance. Complaints that many jobs are debilitating lives and injuring the health of employees are not uncommon. The concept of assisting employees with problems is especially appropriate for institutions of higher education, since they recognize the highly labor intensive nature of their organizations. Understanding and recognizing declining performance and its impact on an organization has become an important function of management.