In 2012, the third-most common primary presenting issue we were contacted about was marital and relationship problems. For employees calling in for legal assistance, divorce (25%) and child custody and support (15%) together made up 40% of the legal calls we received.
Aside from the pain that relationship-related matters can cause your employees, research shows that the carry-over effects that result from distracted employees in the workplace mean greater levels of absenteeism and presenteeism and, as a result, reduced productivity.
We want your employees to call us when they're struggling with relationship and marital issues—it's one of the reasons that we're here. With a divorce rate approaching 50% in the US, we know that there are many more employees who are suffering in silence who could benefit from the help and support we can provide.
This is why we've made this the theme of the June employee newsletter. To help you promote this, we've attached pdfs in English and Spanish of a poster and a flyer that we encourage you to use to make employees aware of the marital and relationship counseling benefit that is part of your EAP plan as part of the face-to-face counseling benefits, along with telephonic counseling. If you've already provided information to your account services manager on quantities and delivery locations, your printed versions of these will be on their way shortly.
For all of our members, assistance is just a phone call away. If you suspect that you have employees who would benefit from our help, please encourage them to contact us; we're available 24/7/365.