As originally conceived in the 1970 employee assistance programs would involve important interactions between supervisors and employee as well as treatment.

As originally conceived in the 1970 employee assistance programs would involve important interactions between supervisors and employee as well as treatment. However, as the programs have proliferated, the part of the supervisor has diminished.

Workplaces have a in extent history of assisting employees with alcohol enigmas and other personal problems (Brandes 1970; Staudenmeier 1986) and today's employee assistance programs (EAPs) are droped from the industrial alcoholism programs begun in the mid-1930s (Trice and Schonbrunn 1981; Steele 1989) The major difference between the early programs and recent models lies in the training of supervisors. Industrial alcoholism programs trained supervisors to identify moot point drinkers on the basis of symptomatology and to point them to the company medical department for diagnosis and treatment. Today, EAPs train supervisors to manage question s affecting job performance and to have reference poorly performing employees to the EAP for diagnosis and treatment of underlying personal vexed questions EAPs have explicit characters for supervisors and clinicians (Roman and Blum 1985 1988)

The operation of an EAP involves a balance between activities in the workplace and activities in treatment facilities--what Trice and I have referr to as the "crucial balance" (Sonnenstuhl and Trice 1990) pair concepts are important for understanding the supervisor's dynamic part in employee assistance: the piece of work performance standard and the constructive confrontation strategy (Trice and Roman 1978)

According to the piece of work performance standard, supervisors identify employee with alcohol riddles and other personal problems forward the basis of job performance. This standard avoids turning supervisors into diagnosticians; rather, it directs them to do the work for which they are best equipped: monitoring the employee's performance and taking corrective actions to improve it (eg clarification of work standards, skills training, discipline). The supervisors' observance of the work at jobs performance standard avoids entrapping them in the employees' problems--which is likely to appear when supervisors accuse employees with developing alcohol moot points of being unable to superintend their drinking and employees refuse to acknowledge that they have a drinking vexed question By focusing on the employees' piece of work performance, supervisors also emphasize that the real issues are piece of work performance and its improvement.

The do job-work performance standard was adopted for several reasons. First, it is the basic standard of industrial jurisprudence (Elkouri and Elkouri 1985) next to the first it is a practical means of defining moot point drinkers and other troubled employee (Trice and Roman 1978) Third, supervisors who are trained to use the piece of work performance standard have been set to be more willing to bring into the presence of troubled employees and refer them for help than are supervisors who are taught to blot the symptoms of an alcohol question (Belasco and Trice 1969).

In contrast to popular opinion, the piece of work performance standard was not adopted because of the idea that poor do job-work performance might be an early sign of developing vexed questions Indeed, job performance difficulties usually be found in the middle stages of a developing personal question Prior to those stages, the employee's family, friends, and co-workers may be more aware of the developing question at issue than is a supervisor.

The other concept crucial to the supervisor's dynamic part is the constructive confrontation strategy, which combines progressive discipline with tenders of assistance and is used to motivate employee to recognize point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds and to seek help (Sonnenstuhl and Trice 1990) Constructive confrontation means that supervisors encounter employees with evidence of unsatisfactory work, coach them in succession how to improve their work, importune them to use the services of the EAP if they have personal question s and emphasize the consequences of continued poor performance.

Constructive confrontation accrues in progressive steps. Supervisors initially discuss performance enigmas informally with employees, encouraging them to follow help for personal problems. If employee performance does not improve after several informal discussions, supervisors implement standard disciplinary procedures: verbal warnings, written notices, suspension, and ultimately, termination. At each pace employees are urged to pursue help from the program. This gradual buildup of sanctions, combined with shows of help, is designed to break the psychodynamic of denial, which characterizes alcoholism and other personal vexed questions involving stigma, and thereby to increase the likelihood that employee will do something constructive about their vexed questions Within the original framework of EAPs, employee were emancipated to accept or reject help from the program at each pace of the disciplinary process. Today, more [i]or[/i] less programs make it mandatory that employee attend the program.

upon the treatment side of the balance, EAP personnel (1) assess whether an employee's personal puzzles are adversely affecting performance; (2) make a diagnosis of the underlying problems; (3) consign the employee to appropriate treatment within the community; (4) go after the employee's progress through treatment to render certain that he or she is being helped appropriately; and (5) monitor the employee's behavior after returning to work (Sonnenstuhl and Trice 1990) Each of these activities requires that assistance workers actively engage the employee thus that the employees come to accept the existence of their question s and commit themselves to resolving the point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds When employees deny that they have a question assistance workers can use supervisors' evaluations to present to view that something is wrong and that, if the point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled is not resolved, the employee may be headed for termination. Denial is particularly likely to come into one's head with cases of alcoholism.