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The ‘Blue Monday’ Myth: Why Suicide Is More Prevalent in Spring, and How Employers Can Build a Year-Round Culture of Support

Forgive me for mentioning suicide during what’s often seen as the most uplifting and optimistic season of the year.However, I’m a mental health professional who has provided employee wellbeing support for many years.  That means I understand only too well how, for some people, springtime can herald pain rather than pleasure....

Mind Your Language! How The Words We Use Change Over Time

Beyond EAP celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2024 – a fact I still can’t quite believe!I don’t need to tell you that lots of things have changed in the past decade (we all remember Covid, after all).  But one particular change I’ve noticed is in the language I’ve been using to describe self-development and wellbeing.Just as fashions change, so do the words we use.We humans are constantly expanding our vocabulary, since new words are added to the Oxford English Dictionary every ye...

In the Hot Seat: Q&A with Sandie Dennis, Founder of Beyond EAP

With Beyond EAP’s 10th anniversary approaching, I found myself reflecting on the many employees we’ve supported in a variety of different situations. As I reflected, something interesting occurred to me. We ask so many questions in the course of our therapy work, so why not turn the tables?I then made the (brave!) decision to offer an employee we’ve supported the chance to ask me anything they wanted: about Beyond EAP and about me personally.What would they most want to know? Read on to fi...

Why Does Your Employee Keep Resisting Support?

As an HR professional, you might have experienced the following scenario. A line manager talks to you in confidence about an employee whom they feel needs extra help.  Yet when you approach the employee to offer the required support, they aren’t as receptive as you expected them to be.  They might resist your recommendations altogether, or the therapist you referred them to later mentions that they’ve been cancelling their appointments.Thankfully, we rarely encounter this scen...

What Really Happens in a Beyond EAP Therapy Session?

Partly due to the necessary confidentiality that surrounds it, therapy can feel like a mysterious practice in which all kinds of strange things take place behind closed doors. As such, there can be some misconceptions about what therapy sessions involve.  I’ve personally had conversations with company directors who assume I’ll treat their employee’s brain like a malfunctioning computer: quickly logging in and deleting the past!In reality, nobody has the power to delete somebody e...

Beyond EAP: A Year in Review 2023

It’s time for our Beyond EAP end-of-year review, which as ever, includes plenty of ups and downs.  One particularly significant ‘up’ for us was the launch of our first online training course, How to Successfully Support Employees Through Maternity Leave… and Beyond.We’re extremely proud of our specialist training, which was developed by popular request and has already helped many employers.  Click here to find out more, and pre-register for our upcoming courses.Broaching the ...

What employee therapy do we provide at Beyond EAP?

Note: this is a follow-on from our previous blog post: “Can’t HR provide workplace therapy?”When people hear the word “therapy”, many aren’t sure exactly what it means.  They might know that you’re supposed to feel better after receiving therapy, but how this happens remains a mystery.It’s partly for this reason that HR professionals can be expected to provide all manner of what is seen as ‘people’ support: for example when an employee becomes seriously ill, or they’ve...

“Can’t HR provide workplace therapy?”

In August 2022, I shared a blog post about the benefits of counselling in the workplace.  It was widely-read and I received a lot of feedback on the content: in particular the section that asked if HR could provide workplace counselling.Much of the feedback I received came from HR professionals who rightly bemoaned the fact that they are expected to take care of “anything to do with people” – including counselling and even intensive therapy!...

Mishandling Flexible Working Requests

I’ve recently had a family member go through a really bad experience regarding her flexible working request with her employer. *Hearing such bad practice, I wanted to highlight how this could have been avoided and how it leaves the employee feeling on their return to work.When an employee goes on Maternity leave, behind the scenes there are major decisions made around whether to even apply for a Flexible Working Request. Then there are the hours of pondering, planning, and considering the docu...

How to deal with grief

Grief is the emotional reaction to a loss; mourning is the process we have to go through to adjust to the world after a person has diedGrief is intensely personal, contradictory, chaotic and an unpredictable internal processGrief causes us physical and psychological pain and it cannot be avoided but instead navigated. It hurts!To grieve we need to find a way of ending the pain of loss, not to fight it or block it. It requires a lot of hard work and the process has to be worked through to enable ...

An alternative view on new motherhood and work

It can be difficult to speak openly about the pressures of new motherhood and work.From the moment you tell your employer that you’re expecting, it’s easy to feel as though you’re letting them down.Then, once your baby is born – and it feels as though your entire world has changed – it’s on to worrying about how you’ll cope when you return to work. Will you be able to catch up straight away... and will your colleagues be sympathetic if ‘business as usual’ takes a little longer ...

The Seven Key Pillars of Health and Wellbeing

“Health” can also refer to the emotional, mental, and even social aspects of ourselves (as many of us discovered during lockdown!)It is the combination of these crucial factors that paint a comprehensive picture of our health and wellbeing.Many employees have been referred to me for support over the years, due to their unhealthy reactions to stress. These reactions can occur on a daily basis, with the employee usually only sleeping for a few hours. They then feel too tired and unmotivated to...

How to Recognise Situational Depression

Perhaps you weren’t aware that there was more than one form. Yet throughout lockdown, you may have unexpectedly gone through what many people refer to as ‘down’ days.Unsurprisingly, this is a subject I’ve heard a lot about over the past weeks. Several of the employees I support have mentioned experiencing ‘down’ days for the first time, or that they are supporting a loved one who is going through them.These days can feel particularly terrifying if you haven’t experienced them befor...

Alcohol as Self-Medication. How to Spot the Signs

One of the most significant changes we have noted at Beyond EAP is that more employees have turned to substances like alcohol, to help them cope with life’s daily demands.When we think about all the brandnew challenges Covid-19 brought, this may not seem surprising. Suddenly, we were thrown into home-schooling our children, providing round-the clock care for elderly loved ones, or supporting our families through grief, stress, and illness all while trying to keep a roof over our heads in a ne...

Employee Trauma Support: A Practical Guide

What does the word 'Trauma' mean to you? Everybody has their own personal definition of trauma, and that’s because trauma affects us all in very different ways.Many people assume that trauma can only result from a unique event that is recognisably shocking, such as being a victim of a serious crime.But the truth is that physical and emotional trauma can be caused by any number of life events, including those that may appear ‘harmless’ to those on the outside.That’s why our experienced th...

Boost wellbeing, ease stress and sleep better

Whenever I begin supporting a new employee, I always ask them about their eating habits.You might think this would be a strange question, when I specialise in supporting mental health. Yet answers have included somebody taking in nothing but coffee for two whole weeks, then wondering why they were on the brink of a ‘breakdown’.I’ve been there myself, by the way.In my twenties, I followed a dreadful diet. I went through several losses and periods of deep trauma, and I found it extremely dif...

How to Speak to Someone Who Is Grieving

When I was seventeen, my best friend’s Mum died from cancer.Sadly, she had had the illness for a long time, which gave me some space to think about how I would support my friend when she needed me the most.But when the tragic time finally came, I felt totally unprepared.It was incredibly uncomfortable. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I tip-toed around the subject whenever it couldn’t be avoided. But mostly, I kept quiet, for fear of saying the wrong thing.I was afraid of upsetting ...

Combining Fertility Treatment and Work: Advice for Employers

It’s a simple fact that having children changes your life. As such, most employers have clear legislation-guided policies in place, which allow for these natural and expected life-changes. Soon-to-be parents understand that they are entitled to a certain amount of leave, some of which is paid. They will be encouraged to keep in touch with their employer during their leave, as a temporary replacement is asked to step in and cover their work. When they return, they will be expected to eas...

Beyond EAP: A Year in Review 2022

2022 has been a year of memorable ups and downs. The good news is that the world gained greater control of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet the outbreak of war in Ukraine, coupled with unprecedented rises to the cost of living, have presented challenges on a global scale. Happily, employers are aware of these challenges, and many are prepared to offer help. In January, Beyond EAP ran a LinkedIn poll which asked employers if they planned to increase employee support in 2022. 100% said yes. Long Cov...

The Links Between Wellbeing and A Good Night’s Sleep

In my role as an employee support coach, there is one recurring issue that employees talk to me about over and over again.“They’re not getting enough sleep.” Perhaps fortunately, it’s a problem I understand very well. I have been plagued with sleep issues since childhood; an area that I believe has contributed to the bouts of depression that I experienced earlier in my life.  And so, I’ve made it a personal mission to conquer my sleep issues, once and for all. I have even recently...

Why Boundaries + Balance = Self-Care

“What are you doing for you?”Regardless of their individual challenges or specific issues, I tend to ask this question of every employee I support. But usually, the question is met with silence, and then by a confused stare. I understand why. All I have to do is think back to the time, around twenty years ago, when I felt overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, and utterly lacking in energy. I knew nothing about how to practice self-care. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t be where I was at that point in ...

5 Things She Could Be Thinking (But Not Saying)

How to Manage Maternity Leave, So You Retain Happy and Talented EmployeesMany employers think of the words “maternity leave” as a signal for change.Change as in: who’s going to provide maternity cover, and for how long? How and when will you keep in touch with your new mum, so that when she finally returns to work, she can pick up right where she left off?Meanwhile, the new mum herself will be experiencing an overwhelming barrage of emotions, some of them for the very first time.While issu...

What are the Benefits of Counselling in the Workplace?

Does the idea of counselling in the workplace strike you as strange?   Perhaps, you may think, the terms are a little oxymoronic.  From our experience at Beyond EAP, many employers believe that any problems should be left at home.   Why?  Problems are personal, not professional.  Anyway, pausing problems and challenges to focus fully on work – which, let’s not forget, employees are paid to do – can be therapy in itself, can’t it?  Bringin...

Why Work with a Corporate Wellness Coach?

In our experience, the words “workplace wellness coach” can cause nervous confusion among corporate employers. For one thing, they’re not sure how a “wellness coach” might work… so will this person start causing disruption in the workplace? For another, how can anybody coach wellness, when the term itself is so ambiguous? In fact, wellness does have a clear definition, although it isn’t widely known and is often misunderstood. The Global Wellness Institute officially defines w...

Riding an Emotional Rollercoaster: Why Adoptive Parents Need More Support at Work

“It’s OK, you can always adopt”. If you’re unable to have a child, the chances are you’ll have heard these words before.  But although they’re usually meant well, the people saying them often have little understanding of the many complications involved in adopting a child. Some of the employees we have supported through the process have likened it to riding an emotional rollercoaster. Similar, but not the same: maternity and adoption  At Beyond EAP, we have worked with many...