What is an employee assistance programme (EAP), what does it cover and does it work? Read about the law, confidentiality, research findings and set-up steps.
The production plan is slipping, a foreman has been taking sick leave frequently in recent weeks, and an experienced operator hands in his resignation saying, "I'm tired now." Many employers recognise this picture; but at the root of the problem, it is often not a machine or a process but burdens that people carry and cannot tell anyone about. An employee assistance programme (EAP; known in Turkish as ÇDP) is an organisational structure that lets employees receive confidential, easily accessible, professional support for psychological difficulties in their working and private lives. In this guide we look at what an EAP is, what it covers, what research says, its place in the legislation, and how it can be started in your organisation.
What Is an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)?
An EAP is a psychological support service funded by the employer and used by the employee of their own choice. The basic idea is simple: when an employee is struggling with a problem, whether work-related or outside work, they should be able to reach a mental health professional without having to explain the details to their manager or HR.
Three features set an EAP apart from an ordinary fringe benefit:
- Confidentiality: The content of the session is not shared with the employer. Only aggregated usage data that cannot identify individuals is reported to the employer.
- Accessibility: The route in is simple; employees reach an appointment easily, with no long waits or complicated approval processes.
- A short, focused structure: The programme typically focuses on clarifying the problem within a set number of sessions, strengthening coping skills and, where necessary, referring the person to an appropriate specialist.
An EAP is not a treatment institution; it is more of an early support and referral point. Where a psychiatric assessment is needed, the employee is referred to a psychiatrist.
Why Do Companies Need an Employee Assistance Programme?
Mental health is often thought of as belonging to "private life," yet it feeds directly into business results. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 12 billion working days are lost every year worldwide to depression and anxiety, at a productivity cost of about 1 trillion US dollars a year (WHO, 2026).
The picture in Turkey is striking too. According to Gallup's report based on 2025 data, 66% of employees in Turkey say they experienced stress for much of the previous day; the global average is 40%. The proportion of employees truly engaged in their work is only 8%; the world average is 20% (Gallup, 2026). Low engagement shows up on the shop floor as reluctance, errors, high staff turnover and absenteeism.
Most of the cost remains invisible. According to an analysis in the United Kingdom, poor mental health costs employers 51 billion pounds a year, and the largest item, at about 24 billion pounds, is presenteeism, that is, coming to work but being unable to work at full capacity (Deloitte, 2024). The same organisation's earlier report states that about 40% of the costs of staff leaving were attributed to mental health problems (Deloitte, 2022). These figures belong to the UK and cannot be transferred directly to Turkey; but they matter for showing the direction of the problem.
In the factory and in the field, what this means is concrete: an employee who is sleepless, anxious or dealing with a crisis at home becomes distracted; the risk of errors and accidents rises and tension within the team grows. An EAP opens a channel through which these burdens can be talked about before they become a bigger problem.
In Europe, 38% of employees say they have access to a counselling or support service at work; this figure varies from country to country between 24% and 74%, and such measures are more common in large businesses (EU-OSHA, 2022). There is no reliable data on how many companies in Turkey offer such a programme. However, it is observed that corporate programmes are concentrated largely in companies in big cities and on digital platforms, while SMEs and factories in Anatolia have more limited access to these services. This suggests that an employee assistance programme should not be seen as a practice specific to large holding companies.
What Does an Employee Assistance Programme Cover?
Programmes on the market are structured in different ways. Common components seen in service providers' publications include:
Individual psychological counselling
A set number of confidential sessions, face to face, online or by phone. Some programmes also cover the employee's family members. Work stress, anxiety, sleep problems, relationship and family problems, grief and financial stress are common reasons for seeking help. For employees having difficulty sleeping, the article on how to overcome insomnia can also be a starting point.
Manager consultation support
A manager who notices that someone in their team is struggling being able to consult a specialist about how to approach them. The manager does not make decisions on the employee's behalf here; they learn how to open the right conversation and how to direct the employee to the programme.
Crisis and critical incident support
Support for the team after a workplace accident, a sudden loss or a collective traumatic event, based on the principles of psychological first aid. The WHO recommends against "psychological debriefing" sessions in which everyone is made to recount what they went through one by one after an incident (WHO, 2013). Instead, psychological first aid based on the principles of Look, Listen, Link, followed by monitoring and, where necessary, referral to trauma-focused therapy, is preferred (WHO, 2011).
Return-to-work support after long-term leave
When an employee returns after a long absence because of a mental health problem, it is a sensitive period for both the employee and the team. The WHO conditionally recommends providing work-directed support together with clinical care in this situation (WHO, 2022). An EAP, in coordination with the workplace physician, can support this process through a phased return plan, briefing the manager and regular check-ins with the employee. Article 15 of Law No. 6331 also provides for a health examination on return to work, if the employee requests it, after repeated absences for health reasons.
Training and awareness activities
Group sessions such as stress management, sleep, communication and mental health training for managers. This component ensures that the programme is a preventive structure, not just a service that comes into play once a problem has appeared.
Does EAP Work? What Does the Research Say?
An honest answer to this question is needed: the evidence is promising, but it has limitations.
In a dataset covering 24,363 EAP counselling cases from twenty-eight countries, about three months after counselling presenteeism had fallen by 26% and absenteeism by 27% (Attridge et al., 2019). However, these data are before-and-after comparisons without a control group; they do not separate how much of the improvement came from the programme and how much came about on its own over time. The accurate statement is this: improvements in absenteeism and productivity have been observed in employees who use an EAP.
On the return-on-investment side, according to the average obtained by screening 26 sources in the United Kingdom, an average productivity return of 4.70 pounds was calculated for every 1 pound an employer spent on employee mental health. The same analysis stresses that early, organisation-wide interventions such as culture change and training yield higher returns than intensive support provided after a problem has grown (Deloitte, 2024). This is a literature average; it would not be right to expect the same result in every organisation.
Individual support should complement organisational measures; it should not replace them. This principle, emphasised by the International Labour Organization, is also the cornerstone of a good employee assistance programme (ILO, 2026).
The WHO's guidelines on mental health at work point in the same direction: the recommendation with the strongest evidence in the guidelines is mental health training for managers (strong recommendation, moderate-certainty evidence). Individual interventions, meanwhile, are recommended to be applied together with organisational and managerial approaches, as part of a comprehensive programme (WHO, 2022). In other words, an effective EAP is not just a telephone line; it should be thought of together with manager training, a review of work organisation, and measurement.
The Legal Framework: Which Obligations Is an EAP Related To?
In Turkey, legislation does not regulate the employee assistance programme by name. However, an EAP can be one of the tools that support the employer in fulfilling existing obligations:
- Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331, Article 4: The employer is obliged to ensure employees' work-related health and safety; they take every kind of measure, including preventing occupational risks and providing training and information.
- Law No. 6331, Article 5(f): The employer is expected to develop a coherent and general prevention policy covering the effects of factors related to technology, work organisation, working conditions and social relations.
- Risk Assessment Regulation, Article 8: Provides for psychosocial sources of hazard in the working environment also to be identified and recorded. For details, you can look at the article on psychosocial risk assessment in the workplace.
- Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098, Article 417: The employer is obliged to take the necessary measures to ensure employees are not subjected to psychological and sexual harassment and that those who have been are not harmed further.
Within this framework, an EAP can be recorded as one of the measures taken against psychosocial risks identified in the risk assessment. However, on matters that require legal interpretation, we recommend that you consult your organisation's legal adviser.
Confidentiality and Trust: Making Sure the Programme Is Actually Used
The existence of a programme does not mean it will be used. In a survey of more than 27,000 workers in Europe, 50% of employees believe that disclosing a mental health problem would harm their career; those who say they could talk comfortably about it with their manager are 58% (EU-OSHA, 2022). As the biggest difficulty in managing psychosocial risks in workplaces, "reluctance to openly discuss these issues" is also cited, at 59% (EU-OSHA, 2025).
For this reason, the real determinant of whether a programme is used is trust. Practices that increase trust include:
- Make confidentiality rules written and explicit. Announce clearly which information will be shared with the employer (only aggregated usage numbers) and which will never be shared.
- Keep access independent of the manager. Employees should be able to reach the specialist directly, without asking anyone's permission.
- Make senior management's ownership visible. Having the general manager or factory manager introduce the programme reinforces the message that "this is not a sign of weakness."
- Do not tie the programme only to moments of crisis. Explain that it can also be used for everyday issues such as work stress, sleep and family problems.
- State the limits. In announcements, write clearly that in an emergency, for example if there are thoughts of self-harm, 112 (emergency services) should be called.
Suppose that in a production plant a programme has been announced but there are almost no applications in the first three months. This often shows not that there is no need, but that employees do not trust the confidentiality or are unaware of the programme. Short introductions at shift meetings, on-site briefings and training for managers can change this picture.
How to Get Started in Your Organisation
Setting up a healthy employee assistance programme requires designing a structure suited to your organisation rather than buying a ready-made package. The recommended flow has three stages:
- Needs analysis: Examine together your absenteeism and staff turnover data, your records of workplace accidents and near misses, the psychosocial items in your risk assessment and an anonymous employee survey. Identify conditions specific to your organisation, such as shift work, an intense production pace, a recent accident or a change of manager.
- Programme design: Based on the analysis, the number and format of individual sessions (face to face, online), manager consultation support, the crisis protocol and the training calendar are determined. In factories in Anatolia, a model that can come to the shop floor and offers face-to-face sessions may be easier to adopt than digital apps.
- Measurement and improvement: The monitoring indicators recommended by the ILO are absenteeism, resignations, reports of violence and harassment, use of support services and employee surveys (ILO, 2026). Measuring these indicators before the programme and at regular intervals lets you see what the programme delivers in your organisation.
When talking to a service provider, these questions can be a guide: Who conducts the sessions and what professional training do they have? How is confidentiality protected and what reports are given to the employer? Is there a face-to-face option, and are times suitable for shift workers offered? What protocol operates in a crisis? How is referral handled when a psychiatric assessment is needed? Clear answers to these questions give an idea of whether the programme will actually work on the ground.
To explore options specific to your organisation, take a look at the corporate services page, and for programme structures of different scope, the corporate packages section.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is an employee assistance programme a legal requirement?
In Turkey, legislation does not make an EAP mandatory by name. However, under Law No. 6331 and the Risk Assessment Regulation, the employer is obliged to assess psychosocial hazards and take measures. An EAP can be planned as one of these measures.
Is the content of an employee's session shared with the employer?
No. In a well-designed programme, the content of sessions is confidential. Only aggregated data that cannot identify individuals, such as the total number of applications or the general distribution of topics, is reported to the employer. Exceptional situations that legally require disclosure must be stated clearly in the contract in advance.
Can a small or medium-sized business set up an EAP?
Yes. The programme can be scaled to the number of employees and the need. In a small business, a simple structure made up of a set number of individual sessions, manager consultation support and a few group training sessions a year may be enough.
What is the difference between an EAP and mental health training for managers?
An EAP offers direct individual support to the struggling employee. Manager training, on the other hand, enables managers to notice a struggling employee early, to have the right conversation and to direct them to support. Because manager training is the recommendation with the strongest evidence in the WHO guidelines, planning the two components together is recommended.
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Eda Erkan Alapala
Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.
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