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Performance Management Perspectives

Published March 2007

I Want My EAP: MTV Networks’ Take on Employee Assistance Programs

Ben Warden

Traditionally, the goal of an employee assistance program (EAP) is to help employees deal with personal problems that might aversely affect their work and well-being — EAPs generally include counseling and referral services for employees and their families.

This is no exception for MTV Networks, a division of Viacom.

As with any other profit-based corporation, MTV Networks has a board of directors, a CEO and is publicly traded. Yet, the company also must meet the demands of the young, creative, content-producing generation, which is a challenge Lisa Grossman, MTV Networks director of human resources, knows well.

"Our culture is really unique — there's a mix of production, creative and corporate folk — and all of our employees come first here because they drive our business," she said. "It's very important to have satisfied employees who are happy, productive and have the tools and resources they need to be successful in their jobs."

MTV Networks used an EAP based out of a hospital until 2001, when the company was told that part of the hospital's business was closing down.

That summer, a search for a new EAP began, and Corporate Counseling Associates (CCA) was one of the firms considered. Before the search was completed, though, Sept. 11 happened.

The terrorist attacks seemingly put everything on hold, but CCA offered immediate services in their wake.

"We didn't even have a signed contract with CCA, and they agreed to provide the same level of services that they would if were a client without a contract or having paid any money at that point," Grossman. "So, right from the get-go, this partner was ready to provide services for us."

Since then, CCA has been providing MTV Networks employees services in a wide array of areas from substance to financial troubles.

A confidential program, CCA provides utilization reports of how employees at MTV Networks learned about and used CCA's services, both by the number and by the topic, which Grossman said is especially helpful to her and the HR department.

"It is useful information for us because it informs the general health of our organization and what the issues are that are affecting our people," Grossman said. "Our utilization reports guide our programs and policies."

In addition to the traditional aspects of an EAP, CCA helps MTV Networks with other matters.

"They also assist in our production work in the sense that the standards on some of our shows require some evaluation of the people we have on them, and CCA is providing some of those services," Grossman said. "That's something different and unique CCA does for us."

The core of CCA's relationship with MTV Networks is with its employees, however.

As mostly a content-producing entity, Grossman said employees' health and happiness is the highest priority.

Further, employees' physical and emotional well-being always has been linked to a company's bottom line but never so much as now, in dealing simultaneously with a multigenerational workforce and the demands of the digital age.

"We're on the cusp of evolving into this digital world," Grossman said. "It's really an exciting time here."