Paul Flanagan has over 30 years’ experience as a clinical and organisational psychologist. As founder of Davidson Trahaire Corpsych (DTC), Paul developed its programs and reputation, nationally and internationally, up until the late 2000s. This experience with hundreds of organisations led Paul to re-evaluate the effectiveness of the current EAP model, and lead to the start of Life Street.

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Do you think Employee Assistance Programs still have an important role to play in organisations?

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Yes, they do, but they need to move beyond the existing approach developed in the 1980s and 90s which has become unengaging, too reactive and crisis focused. Unfortunately, EAPs have become reactive counselling services. There have been significant advances in mental health and wellbeing research and practice, in positive psychology and new technologies, but for some reason traditional EAPs have not evolved. Some programs use modern terminology and branding but are, fundamentally, a traditional reactive, counselling service.

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What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of traditional EAPs?

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The strength is that they are well understood in the workplace and provide qualified professionals to confidentially assist individuals in times of need. But on the other hand, they could be so much more. They tend to deal with psychological distress after the fact, rather than looking at the life and work issues that contribute to psychological wellbeing issues in the first place. We also now know that the traditional model doesn’t reach all the people in need, and for those that it does, it’s not early enough to prevent personal distress escalating into a psychological disorder. Having a model that focuses on “people with problems” results in low take up rates of just 4-6 per cent and has a relatively low impact across the employee population and on the overall levels of wellbeing in the organisation.

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You’ve been working with organisations on a different approach. How did that come about?

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I felt that the traditional approach to EAP had not evolved to address employees’ psychological and wellbeing needs in today’s world, and I think that some organisations also felt the same way. Organisations began adding events in attempts to address employee needs. Some ran resilience training or mental health awareness events and seminars. Others provided websites or treatment apps for their employees, but they found that these initiatives had varying impacts results wise or were generally “one-off” activities. So, I began working with my team to look at how we could help organisations better manage and support employee psychological wellbeing in a sustainable and measurable way. We basically threw the old EAP rule book out and started over. We looked at what we had learnt over 30 years, reviewed global best practice and found some progressive organisations to work with who wanted a different approach that included the essential functions of an EAP but is more engaging, preventative and has greater impact. What are the main differences between the new approach and traditional EAPs? The key features of the Life Street EAP model are that it provides targeted help and resources for the different wellbeing needs across organisations, from those with psychological “disorders”, to those that are distressed and grappling with life issues, through to those that want to feel better and flourish.

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We take a positive approach to engage employees on issues that really matter to them and support them with customised self-help tools, resources and professional help.  We give the right type of help to the right people earlier. There is also a strong focus on self-help and self-responsibility in the Life Street model. Professional help is available, but it is more accessible than in traditional EAPs and is integrated into a positive, preventive program. One of the biggest strengths of the Life Street Model from an HR perspective is being able to reliably analyse employee wellbeing needs across the organisation. The reach is further, and the potential to be proactive and manage risk is a significant advance for HR.

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Paul Flanagan has over 30 years’ experience in clinical and organisational psychology specialising in workplace mental health, risk management and EAPs. Paul has led the development of programs supporting hundreds of organisations in Australia and globally. He has been appointed multiple times to the position of President of EAPAA and to the Board of the Australian Psychological Society (APS), the peak body for psychology in Australia.