Under-utilisation of internal employee assistance programme (EAP) services by the South African police service in Lephalale, Limpopo province

Abstract

An employee assistance programme (EAP) is a service provided by an employer to employees who experience personal problems. Its utilisation becomes a challenge when the targeted population prefers to use alternative services to this programme specifically earmarked for them. Such a situation motivated this quantitative research aimed to evaluate the utilisation of the employee assistance programme in the South African Police Service (SAPS) in the Waterberg district of Limpopo Province. A systematic sample comprising of 189 respondents was drawn from the total population of 398 employees. The study revealed that the employees' awareness of the programme was very low.