In keep­ing with the pol­i­cy in­tent to con­tin­u­ous­ly im­prove the sup­port of em­ploy­ee well­ness and job per­for­mance in the pub­lic ser­vice, the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr. Daryl Din­di­al has start­ed the re­view of the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP).

A state­ment said the The CPO en­gaged the ser­vices of con­sul­tants to as­sess the pro­gramme’s ex­ist­ing ser­vices, ben­e­fits, and process­es with the in­tent to im­prove the de­liv­ery of EAP ser­vices for pub­lic ser­vants.

Din­di­al said EAP ser­vices have been avail­able to em­ploy­ees in min­istries and de­part­ments since 2004 and there were re­vi­sions to the pol­i­cy by the Cab­i­net in 2009.

He said the well­ness and well-be­ing of em­ploy­ees must be giv­en pri­or­i­ty to en­able the State to max­imise the full po­ten­tial of its em­ploy­ees.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he is con­cerned about the over­sight and gov­er­nance of the cur­rent sys­tem in­clud­ing the lev­el of ser­vices pro­vid­ed to those who are in need of as­sis­tance in a con­fi­den­tial, con­sis­tent and cost-ef­fec­tive man­ner. He shared the view that the EAP re­quired ur­gent re­view to strength­en the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary lev­els of in­ter­ven­tion for our em­ploy­ees.

The CPO said he ac­knowl­edges the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing the health, safe­ty and wel­fare of all in­di­vid­u­als em­ployed in the Pub­lic Ser­vice and recog­nis­es that sev­er­al fac­tors can neg­a­tive­ly im­pact em­ploy­ees, as well as their per­for­mance.

He has al­so not­ed that the pan­dem­ic al­so high­light­ed a num­ber of chal­lenges em­ploy­ees are grap­pling with out­side of the work­place that is im­pact­ing them in the work en­vi­ron­ment.

Din­di­al main­tained that a healthy work-life bal­ance is key to em­ploy­ee well-be­ing and in De­cem­ber 2022 he launched the Per­son­nel De­part­ment’s very own “CPO Well­ness and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre.”

A mul­ti-faceted space equipped with all of the mod­ern ameni­ties to main­tain staff’s phys­i­cal and men­tal well­ness and a floor lay­out de­signed to ac­com­mo­date the de­part­ment’s staff for in-house team-build­ing ini­tia­tives, so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, train­ing and de­vel­op­ment of em­ploy­ees in min­istries and de­part­ments and work-re­lat­ed com­mit­ments.

The EAP con­sul­tan­cy re­view is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed this month