The changing nature and future of EAPs: perspectives from four 'thought leaders' provide a glimpse of the changes and challenges affecting EAPs and the steps EA professionals can take to better position themselves and their programs for the future.(employee counselors speaks on employee assistance programs)(Discussion)

How have EAPs changed over the past 15-20 years? How have these changes affected the employee assistance industry and profession? What are the biggest challenges facing EAPs and EA professionals today? What steps are vital to the future success of EAPs? And what can EAPA do to best support the industry and profession?

For this article, four thought leaders within the employee assistance field were asked to share their observations about the challenges facing the industry and profession and their predictions on what needs to happen for both to thrive in the future. The four represent a variety of economic sectors--consulting, research, academia, and practice. The thought leaders are as follows:

* John Burke, president, Burke Consulting;

* Dale Masi, president/CEO, Masi Research Consulting;

* Jodi Jacobson, assistant professor and chair, EAP specialization, School of Social Work, University of Maryland; and

* Arlene Darick, director, EAP for MHN.

Q: Briefly describe one way that EAPs have fundamentally changed over the past 15-20 years.

BURKE: A fundamental change worthy of note is the maturation of employee assistance programming as a strong industry with a profit-and-loss focus. EAPs began as a public sector and internal offering within the United States. In the early days, services were provided primarily by public agencies and professionals internal to many corporations.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the evolution of external, for-profit EAPs began. By the early 1990s, the dominant service providers were stand-alone external providers or companies with EAPs integrated into a larger service offering, such as managed behavioral health or general health plans. This evolution created a highly competitive marketplace where companies were driven to create service distinction to produce growth and profitability.

As time passed, the inevitable happened: Some companies chose to create distinction by lowering price points. Competition on price points brought about the cycle of commoditization.

It was a change that also brought about opportunities for growth. Many EAP providers are now successfully reinventing their businesses to bring about new opportunities and enhance competitiveness.

MASI: The switch from the concentration on alcoholism and its effect in the workplace to managed care and mental health benefits was, in my opinion, the major change.

JACOBSON: Over the past 15-20 years, the EAP field has gone through significant transformation with regard to the types of services requested, the way services are provided, and who actually provides the services. To identify just one way in which the EAP field has fundamentally changed over the past two decades is challenging; perhaps one of the most influential changes in the field has been the tendency of EAPs to "drift away" from the actual workplace and move closer in alignment with behavioral health …