Total Quality Management in Contracted EAPs

Total Quality Management (TQM) is being implemented in many work organizations throughout the United States in an attempt to compete in a world market. Very few corporations possess the capacity in terms of resources, facilities and expertise to develop, and manufacture a product from inception to market without the use of outside resources. In many instances it is not economically desirable. As a result companies come to rely on a vast array of suppliers with the specific technology needed. Corporations committed to total quality management want suppliers who share the commitment. Employee assistance program vendors are one of these suppliers and as such have to meet the demands of client companies in the TQM arena. This article addresses one EAP vending firm's efforts towards implementing a TQM initiative within its own organization as a strategy to maintain a competitve market position as a supplier of EAP and behavioral health care services. Externally, the result has been to create a product differentiation when competing against other vendors. Internally it has resulted in the enhancement of a more cohesive and productive organization.     

Selling EAPs Using Total Quality Management Initiatives

Qualify Management is striving to perform to standard work processes that will achieve the results customers are seeking. EAPs do just that by focusing their performance early in the healthcare delivery process to help insure a healthy and productive workforce. Selling Quality is educating employers, who are wrestling to maintain employee benefits at reasonable costs, to the fact that Quality Management of behavioral healthcare works. Promoting health and wellness at the workplace, intervening early and professionally, and managing care to healthy outcomes is what EAPs and managed care programs are doing today, and convincing employers through their performance that Quality Management works.     

Military EAPs:

A review of recent developments and future trends in military family services is of interest since the military is the largest single employer in the United States, providing health, mental health, recreational and social services to an estimated 13.2 million persons or over 5% of the national population. Rapid program development is taking place in the military, focused on services to the total family for the purpose of supporting the well-being of active duty personnel. This paper examines several issues related to the growing opportunities for social workers in military family services, including potential values conflicts, needs assessments, relations between military and civilian service providers, and avoiding culture shock.     

EAPs in Transition:

This paper is a survey report of EAP purpose and practices. One hundred and eighty-two (n = 182) randomly selected EAP practitioners responded to a questionnaire designed to measure purposes, services, staff specialties and characteristics, service users, and related background information. The findings provide an empirical evaluation of the "state of the art" of the growth, development and trends in the employee assistance field. Also, while the findings indicate that EAPs are in transition several basic functions common to all are identified.     

Social Work Values and EAPs:

No abstract available for this article.     

Negotiating Quality: Total Quality Management and the Complexities of Transforming Professional Organizations

During the past two decades organizations in many industries have introduced management-style changes, such as employee involvement (EI) and total quality management (TQM). In the health care sector, one change has been the inclusion of TQM into the accreditation process. Using ethnographic and interview data, this case study examines the process of introducing TQM into a professional organization—a hospital—and shows how successful implementation of such new management styles in professional organizations requires complex negotiations of existing formal and informal power relationships. Some employees and middle managers embraced the TQM philosophy and techniques and successfully influenced the implementation and project-team design. In this case, administrators used TQM as rhetoric and justification for increased bureaucratic control, goals that are distinctly at odds with the ideological objectives of TQM.     

Total Quality Management of EAP Vendors

Employers are increasingly turning to benefits consulting firms to help them plan the management of employee mental health care costs. With evolving employee assistance and managed care programs, employers need to be "informed consumers." Direct marketing by EAP vendors is no longer the most effective business strategy. Most employers want to get an impartial third party opinion on what their needs are, the type of program(s) best suited to their organization and which vendor can best meet those needs. Quality and cost are of primary concern. This article addresses the specific elements that are examined by a benefits consultant in review and selection of EAP vendors with a particular emphasis on total quality management.     

Principles of Total Quality Management and Their Application to Employee Assistance Programs:

Total quality management (TQM) has been thrust into the psyche of corporate America. TQM is not a new phenomena. Introduced in the early fifties to Japanese managers by an American management expert, it served to make Japan an international economic leader. U.S. companies have generally had little international competition. They now recognize he formidable challenge that quality based companies represent and are striving to replicate these successes. To do so will be to remain competitive. To discount the impact of TQM initiatives could spell economic disaster. Employee assistance program (EAP) management is modeled after American management principles. EAPs are also now having to compete for market share in ways for which they were never prepared. The TQM initiatives currently being implemented in many companies may be applied equally well to EAPs. This article presents an overview of the TQM principles formulated by W. Edwards Derning. The article also attempts to critically analyze some of the areas that have been problematic in EAP management. Further, it examines how TQM initiatives could serve to ameliorate some of these problems and lend additional impetus to the competitiveness of employee assistance programs with other behavioral health care service delivery and cost management programs.     

Contrast Effects in Estimating Policies of the Federal Government

This article reports analyses of the relation between respondents'attitudes and what they estimated to be the policies of thefederal government on three scales using the 1980 NORC GeneralSocial Survey. Although previous articles have reported theassimilation tendency as stronger than contrast, the resultin the present case was a pervasive contrast effect. The moreconservative the respondents' attitudes, the more liberal thepolicies attributed to the federal government. The effect occurredamong people selected with regard to confidence in the government,party affiliation and prior voting behavior, and various statusand demographic characteristics.     

Employee Assistance Program Evaluation in a Federal Government Agency

Demonstrating the efficacy of an Employee Assistance Program is an equally important endeavor in public and private sector work organizations. This paper discusses the cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness evaluation that was conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Employee Counseling Services program. Further, it details the components of the 30 month project relative to evaluation design, data collection processes, and strategies used to maintain employee privacy while analyzing personnel data. Results of the evaluation are also presented.     

Chapter 19: Work-Life and EAPs in the United Kingdom and Europe

Abstract

This article describes the development and current degree of integration of the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and Work-life (WL) professions in the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe. It is based on a qualitative survey of leading providers and industry consultants conducted by the authors specifically for this publication. The study results suggest that the process of integrating the two industries in the UK and Europe has not been the issue it has in North America to date. While they can be distinct services to employers, in the UK and Europe WL and EAP have grown together and there has been little competition between the two professions. Instead, they are generally seen as synergistic and are usually offered to employers as a combined product, with a seamless delivery to employees. Despite this already high level of integration, there are significant future challenges for both professions.     

Chapter 21: A Commentary on the Integration of EAPs

Abstract

This article addresses the notion of integration-past and present. The author discusses his earlier experiences and research in the field when the dominant model of service delivery was occupational alcoholism programs and counselors of the day sought to integrate these programs into the personnel management function as a means of more effectively serving the employee and the employer. This article also reviews the evolution of this earlier model into employee assistance programs and points out the success and continued growth of these programs was the direct result of empirical research that demonstrated the cost-effectiveness of EAPs. The author reminds the reader to be mindful of the need to maintain the core technology ascribed to EAPs as the range of workplace human service programs continues to expand. Lastly, the author reiterates the necessity of empirical research to demonstrate the value of adding of work-life and wellness services to the broadening scope of programs aimed at maximizing human capital.     

浅论燃气供销差的全面质量管理

分析燃气供销差的成因,探讨降低燃气供销差的相关对策,引入全面质量管理(TQM)概念,提出在影响供销差的4个环节(生产端、输配系统、用户端、统计制度)对燃气供销差实行全过程、全员、全企业的全面质量管理。