Employee benefits cover the indirect pay of your workforce. Such benefits can include health insurance, stock options, and a myriad of other things given to employees.
Providing fair, performance-based compensation is a crucial part of the human resource best practice. Compensation goes together with benefits.
Note that while two jobs may provide the same salary, they can differ in terms of benefits. Thus making one offer a better financial proposition. This shows the importance of employee benefits in a job offer.
There are employee benefits that are country specific. In the United States, for instance, health insurance is an important component of employee benefits packages.
Importance of An Employee Benefits Plan That Addresses Substance Abuse
Benefits that support an employee’s personal and financial health are the most important. The more comprehensive an employee’s benefits package is, the more likely they are to stay in the workforce.
Here are some of the benefits that come with an employee benefits plan.
- Encouraging Leaders to Lead the Charge
To address the stigma around mental health benefits and substance abuse counseling, the leadership of an organization must promote the available benefits.
It’s ideal if organization role models and the management disclose their personal use of counseling and other benefits. That’s due to the fact that people are likely to follow the endorsement of their leaders.
Well-known personalities like Oprah Winfrey have been open about drug abuse. This openness is crucial as it has marked a positive influence on others. The more respectable individuals come out to say, “I struggled through this but I’m recovering”, the more willing other people will be at coming out and seeking help.
- Providing Easy Access to Mental Health Professionals
For employees who provide access to telemedicine services, ensure that the services offer easy access to mental health professionals. In other cases, it could make sense to provide access to a separate, dedicated behavioral health virtual service. One that allows employees to connect to a wider array of professionals, including the quick set up of appointments.
You must ensure that you stay up-to-date on what’s available in EAP’s, telehealth, and behavioral health services. Telehealth options can be a wonderful way of overcoming the barriers of stigma.
It’s also a good option of overcoming the shame that a lot of people with substance-misuse problems experience. Moreover, an employee doesn’t have to leave work when in telehealth treatment.
The Heights Treatment program blends evidence-based practices and integrative therapies. This enables clients to experience cutting-edge therapeutic interventions with a focus on trauma. The treatment program is aimed at providing support, guidance, and a community for people to realize their full potential.
- Offering a Helping Hand
In order to be engaged and productive, employers need their employees. That’s because they can’t afford to lose their top-performing employees to substance abuse. This is the case whether the affected party is the employee or their family member experiencing addiction.
Recruiting and training new employees is quite expensive. If an organization doesn’t give benefits for abuse, it will likely lose that employee investment. That’s because employees eventually become unable to meet their responsibilities.
When it’s a family member struggling with substance abuse, the employee will struggle through a fog of presentism. That’s because they’d be preoccupied with a loved one who can’t find treatment for behavioral health needs.
- Protection of Privacy and Confidentiality
It’s important to ensure that employees understand that their use of benefits is confidential. Privacy, quality of treatment, and levels of care are the most important factors for victims of drug abuse. So employees must consider these factors when choosing substance misuse benefits options.
Employers must be able to ask, are we paying a per-member, per-month price for an app? Or is there a 24/7 crisis response and licensed counseling and psychiatry support?
The other factors that must be looked into are referrals to alcoholics anonymous and other peer support. There’s also detoxification care, which is at different ends of the care spectrum.
- Safe Workplace
It becomes a win-win situation for employees and the employer when the issues of workplace substance abuse get addressed.
These issues can be addressed by establishing comprehensive programs. Both small and large organizations can adopt a workplace substance abuse policy. One that will reduce the loss of productivity and promote a safe working environment.
- Improving the Awareness of Substance Abuse
Employees who abuse substances can perform unsatisfactorily and become disruptive. But you can’t fire them unless, of course, they use drugs at their workplaces. It could also be that these employees can’t perform and be productive.
Note that employees can minimize their usage of substances. Also, keep in mind that it’s cheaper to rehabilitate employees than to replace them. That’s especially true if they value their job. That’s when substance abuse benefits come in handy.
Some substance abuse plans can discourage people from attending treatment sessions. That’s because they force workers to seek outpatient services before authorizing an inpatient solution. This can lead to an increase in opioid prescriptions.
Organizations need to follow the lead of insurance companies that eliminate the lead for authorization. This helps to minimize the number of opioid prescriptions and remove the barriers on seeking substance abuse treatment.
You can also choose a substance abuse benefits plan with a lot of network options. It helps to eradicate the cost for employees paying for services “out of network.” This can discourage treatment.
- Work-life Balance
Work-life balance has become increasingly important to employees. Benefits that help to improve work-life balance include vacation time, flexible working hours, and the ability to work from home.
These kinds of benefits can bring down the level of stress and fatigue in an employee, thus preventing burnout. Remember that employees are likely to be more productive at work and even at home.
Benefits like flexible working hours and time for vacations enable employees to spend more time with their families and friends. This way, they’ll have more fulfilling personal lives. They are even more important for parents who must balance their careers with family commitments.
- Job Satisfaction
A good benefits package is proof that the organization cares about its employees. Benefits like paid time off, workplace perks, wellness programs, and intuition reimbursement causes employees to feel valued. This leads to employees who are happy with their jobs. They also become loyal to your organization and stay motivated to do a good job.
Employee benefits help to boost workplace morale. It’s also important for parents who’d like to balance careers with childcare.
- Saving for Retirement
Some organizations provide retirement benefits in the form of pension plans. This allows your staff to put a pre-tax percentage of their salaries towards their retirement savings. An employee can contribute to match a certain amount of those funds. Other forms of retirement plans include:
- Profit sharing
- Stock bonuses
- Cash balance plans
- Employee stock ownership
Retirement benefits give employees a well-organized and reliable way of saving money. When employees retire, they’ll have a predetermined budget to live on depending on how much can be saved through the retirement option.
- Options for Treatment
The employer-sponsored major-medical group health plan includes a disease-management program. In this program, the third-party administrator works with the participant suffering from a substance abuse disorder.
An employee assistance program is a non-major medical plan. It helps to provide a variety of services, including assistance with alcohol and substance abuse.
Disease management programs and EAP’s must get structured. This is aimed at complying with the complex federal employee benefits law. That includes the Mental Health Parity and the Addiction Equity Act. There’s also the Health Insurance Portability, the Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and the Affordable Care Act.
Important to note is that the medical information obtained and used by these programs is referred to as protected health information. The PHI under the HIPAA can’t be shared with the participant’s employer for employment-related purposes.
Failure to have such a restriction can deter most if not all employees from taking part in the programs.
- Improved Productivity
Employee health benefits help to improve focus and productivity. A good benefits package will provide perks like paid time off, disability insurance, and health insurance. These perks can prevent employees from worrying about things like child care, medical expenses, and finances.
If employees gain confidence in personal matters before, during, and after their work, they become more focused on their tasks and career advancement.
- Health Coverage
Employee benefits must include some kind of health coverage. This is important as it helps to keep employees and their families healthy. It also helps to ensure that their health expenses are paid for. The Affordable Care Act expects organizations with more than 50 members of staff to offer health insurance to 95 percent of full-time employees
Health benefits enable employees and their families to afford regular preventive care, wellness exams, prescription medications, and medical treatments. If an employee needs regular healthcare, they’ll prioritize jobs that come with comprehensive health insurance plans.
Moreover, if an employee is encouraged to stay healthy and provided with the tools to do that, they’re likely to feel more energetic. They’ll also have fewer sick days and become more productive at work.
Take Away
If used wisely, an employee health benefits plan can help to address substance abuse issues. This enables employers to consult an employee and develop a tailor-made solution to their specific substance abuse treatment needs.
Some of the treatment requires you to provide access to counseling. It requires extensive network options and alternative therapy.