[Comparison of two access portals of an employee assistance program at an insurance corporation targeted to reduce stress levels of employees].

Support programmes for stress reduction were offered independently in two departments (650 employees in total) of an insurance group. Both departments, referred to as comparison group 1 and 2 (CG1 and CG2), offered an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) featuring individual consultations. The employees were addressed through different channels of communication, such as staff meetings, superiors and email. In CG1, a staff adviser additionally called on all employees at their workplace and showed them a brief relaxing technique in order to raise awareness of stress reduction. By contacting employees personally it was also intended to reduce the inhibition threshold for the following individual talks. In CG2 individual talks were done face-to-face, whereas CG1 used telephone counselling. By using the new access channel with an additional personal contact at the workplace, an above average percentage of employees in CG1 could be motivated to participate in the following talks. The rate of participants was five times as high as in CG1, with lower costs for the consultation in each case.