Chestnut's Workplace Outcome Suite Shows Effectiveness of Employee Assistance and Health Coaching Provided at Chinese Companies
Bloomington, IL (PRWEB) October 21, 2014 -- Chestnut Global Partners (CGP), a provider of culturally-aware employee assistance and wellness programs to companies worldwide, today announced that its Workplace Outcome Suite (WOS) showed improvements in presenteeism, life satisfaction and workplace distress among full-time employees from 26 local and multinational companies located in different regions in China who received employee assistance (EAP) counseling and health coaching.
The Workplace Outcome Suite (WOS) is a short, psychometrically tested and validated instrument specifically designed for quick and reliable assessment of EAP effectiveness. The WOS contains five-item measures of five constructs that lie at the heart of understanding the effects of EAP and Health/Wellness Coaching in the workplace: absenteeism, presenteeism, work engagement, life satisfaction, workplace distress. CGP's WOS study examined if and to what degree an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) intervention improves Chinese employees' workplace functioning. Using the same external EAP vendor (CGP's China practice), the WOS indicated a post-test 39% improvement in presenteeism, 25% improvement in life satisfaction and an 18.2% decrease in workplace distress.
"The need for accurate, targeted and timely assessment of EAP effectiveness is particularly strong in emerging markets such as China, where the concepts and practices of EAP are beginning to be accepted by employers and employees but have not taken root as in North America, the United Kingdom, and even Europe," said Matt Mollenhauer, VP of Operations for CGP and CGP's lead for its China practice. "A benefits purchaser must ask one fundamental question: how can I know that these programs improve the health and productivity of my workforce? Validating their programs using the WOS improves their degree of accountability and maximizes their value to HR, benefits providers, and/or medical purchasers."
"Because employee assistance programs are relatively novel across China, it's particularly important that management sees concrete gains from their implementation and utilization," said Dr. Li Peizhong, Scientist with CGP's China office. "The WOS demonstrated the clear benefits of CGP's program, validating both its culturally-aware approach in breaking down barriers and promoting acceptance, and the utility of WOS as an emerging standard for benchmarking the efficacy of employee assistance and health coaching services."
Used by over 400 EAP and wellness organizations, the WOS stands apart from other outcome measures as it is psychometrically tested, validated, workplace-focused, easy to administer, and free. The WOS brings EAP in line with the data-driven approaches that are changing the way organizations conduct all phases of their business—from product design to customer service, to marketing and talent acquisition. This approach delivers quantifiable results, presenting the business case for if or when investing in EAP and Health/Wellness Coaching makes sense.
For a summary of the study and our findings, visit
http://chestnutglobalpartners.org/Portals/cgp/Publications/EAP-Effectiveness-in-China-Precis-Abstract-10152014.pdf. Copies of the free WOS are available at http://www.eapresearch.com.
Charles Epstein, BackBone, http://www.backboneinc.com, (561) 470-0965, [email protected]
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