Employee assistance programme
Thursday, 10 October marks World Mental Health Day 2019. One in four of us will be affected by a mental health problem at some point in our lives, something that people and the companies they work for are becoming increasingly aware of
At BP we offer support to all our employees and their immediate families through our global Employee Assistance Programme.
It’s a service that runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Employees can use the EAP to discuss anything that might be worrying them at work or at home, from a dispute with a neighbour, through wanting to quit smoking, to financial worries, and also significant life events such as bereavement or divorce.
The Employee Assistance Programme is operated by professional councillors. It is a completely free service with unlimited telephone support and of course, face to face sessions can be arranged with a highly trained professional in the appropriate field of expertise if these are called for.
One of the roadblocks that can stop a person for reaching out to an “employee” programme is the worry that it will attract some stigma from management or peers.
BP recognizes how important it is to appropriately protect confidentiality for a programme like the EAP – indeed employees do not need to give their real (or in fact any) name when using the service.* At BP, we care deeply about all our staff – protecting their safety and wellbeing is a very important part of our values and behaviours.
The company actively encourages all our employees to contact the EAP whenever they feel they need to the service is there to be used and no issue should be considered by an individual as “trivial.”
If it is affecting quality of life, it’s not trivial: it’s important. And it’s important for BP as an employer to try to help as much as we can.