One of the inclusive parts of your WorkLife Hawaii contract is how we help your company with Formal Supervisory Referrals. Most of your employees will come to us voluntarily, either through finding our brochure, seeing our poster in your workplace, or through a gentle reminder through a co-worker or supervisor. Sometimes a gentle reminder is not enough.

Supervisors and managers dealing with an employee with an increasing performance issue can formally refer the employee to their EAP. Although this is still most often voluntary on the employee's part, it is an important process and tool for a manager or supervisor to consider.

The supervisor or manager can call us for some coaching on how to get the employee help or how to deal with an increasing performance problem or a sudden perfomance issue that makes it clear the employee needs to change. We provide a form the supervisor or manager will use to: 

• Document the performance issue

• Document the attempts to intervene

• Document the expectations in performance

• Document the manager/supervisor is attempting to provide assistance; and

• Document the conversation took place

This does not force an employee to get help, but reasonable employees will get take advantage of assistance to change a performance issue. Other employees will start to make it clear that they will not do whatever it takes to change.

We can help these employees for a variety of performance-related issues, and help them with any underlying issues or situations that you may not be aware of that are creating these situations. It's not the employer's business to talk with an employee about why they are late to work every day, for example. It's the employer' business to let them know it's important that they change whatever they need to change to get to work on time. We can help them with these issues and with a solutions-focused approach help them find a way to resolve their performance issues.

Also, when an employee is formally referred to WorkLife Hawaii, they usually sign a release that lets us share what they want us to share with their manager or supervisor. This allows a helpful dialogue that can not only help us help the employee, but often helps us coach the manager or supervisor on their options.

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