Employmee Assistance Program: Can it be used to scare you from suing your employer?

Question

Can an employer require you to see an EAP counselor that you do not select and neither the employer nor the EAP counselor tells you the actual reason you are being sent to the EAP. If this happens, what recourse does the employee have?

Answer 1

If your company has a human resources department, it may be advisable for you to visit with them about your best course of action. If you feel you are being threatened or intimidated into covering up the misdeeds of others or supervisors, you may be best off going to the counselor, but each time, you should be able to put a note in your employment file explaining your feelings about doing so.

Include that you are willing to co-operate and you are unsure why you are being asked to go, but you are complying. Ask HR to put notes in your file about discussions you have with the counselor that relate to what reasons you are required to attend the meetings.

These notes as the situation unfolds are much more credible than a hastily written account of the situation at a later time. You should have the right to put your feelings about the situation into your record in HR and/or Payroll. That way if things go bad for the person who is requiring this of you, you have something to stand on to keep yourself and your job secure, if possible.

Answer 2

Always bear this in mind. You work for your employer not the other way around. They are paying you to do what they want and you agreed when you were hired. If you don't want to do that anymore, then you should leave their employ.

I do not know if they can "force" you to go to an EAP counselor but they can make it a condition of your continued employment with them. If you don't want to abide by that stipulation, then again, you should leave.