An employee assistance program (EAP) provides workers with a way to find help for dealing with personal and work-related issues, including alcoholism and mental health issues. Without this help these issues could decrease employees’ quality of life and interfere with job performance and decrease productivity.

Burnout exists at all levels of employment. It is more likely when employees have unreasonable demands placed on them or are in roles that are not a good fit. Burnout is characterised by emotional exhaustion, pessimism and ineffectiveness in the workplace, and by a chronic negative responses to stressful workplace conditions.

From their inception, primarily as workplace-based counselling programmes, EAPs have evolved, and are still evolving, into encompassing a diverse group of services in response to changes and influences from inside and outside of the workplace.