Human resource maintenance? – Organisational rationales for the introduction of employee assistance programmes

This article addresses the rationales employed for the introduction of employee assistance or advisory programmes (EAPs) in UK organisations. It examines typological conceptions of rationales for the introduction of EAPs which are appraised in relation to a study of the introduction of UK based EAP programmes and the literature on organisational interventions. The article concludes that more support is offered for organisational change as a rationale for EAP introduction than for more humanistic considerations, which appear to be better related to managers’ work roles. An extended discussion examines the residual role that welfare seems to play in modern HRM strategies and how current explanations of EAP programmes based on counselling models would benefit from input from models of consultancy processes.