Generations Program Helps Busy Professionals

    To meet their needs, the firm developed a Generations Program. It is a hotline referral service through Family Care and Workforce Diversity Consultants that helps employees find care, schools, community centers, housing, and scholarship programs for members of their families. The companys diversity reps help employees research cultural or work/life questions that come up, such as finding a school or community center with a diverse ethnic makeup.

    Many employees use the program to find concierge services and to handle travel and cultural questions related to business, such as how to address colleagues from another culture, or where to get basic foreign-language training. The reps also help employees find financial services and resources for financial planning.

    Halloran & Sage launched the program three years ago as a stand-alone EAP service to meet the needs of the growing number of women in the workplace. Women feel more anxiety about their personal lives when they are away at work, says Juliana McMeans, HR manager. The service was originally developed to help women deal with those pressures so that they spend fewer hours on personal business while they are at work. However, the program quickly became popular among all employees as a tool for managing work/life issues.

    "Because our people are so busy, they have little time off to handle their personal issues. They dont know where to go to find the resources to handle their family responsibilities," she says. From the beginning, the program has been widely used.

    After two years, the utilization rate is a respectable 13 to 14 percent, which means that is the percentage of employees who have used the service at least once. Best-practice rates for the program are 7 percent or higher, according to benchmark studies conducted by Family Care and Workforce Diversity Consultants.

    Its not just a feel-good service, McMeans says. The program was implemented because it saves the company money. "We are always looking for cost-effective benefits, and this is one of them."

    Halloran & Sage pays $9.50 per person per year for the program, or a total of about $2,000 annually. In exchange, the company saves hours of time. "We are always finding new ways to use it," McMeans says. One such example is a homework program for employees children, who can call the service directly.

    The program also saves McMeans and her staff time because they no longer have to field calls and conduct this kind of research. When employees come to her with personal and family problems, she now directs them to the Generations Program.

Workforce, February 2002, pp. 67-68 -- Subscribe Now!