Measuring the Effectiveness of Employee Assistance Program in the RMGs of Bangladesh: An Evaluative Study

Abstract

The core objective of the study is to examine the performance of Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in reducing or preventing job and life‐relevant problems of the workers of ready‐made garments (RMG) sector of Bangladesh. This study measures the competency and commitment of the counselors in delivering EAP services. At the outset, an extensive literature review and expert interview were conducted to identify the variables relevant to successful EAP. Considering the identified variables, a questionnaire consists of 16 questions was developed. Data have been collected from 100 workers of different RMG factories located in Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ). Regression analysis and coefficient value was calculated to study the performance of EAP. The key discovery of this study is the EAP failed to reduce job stress of the workers and conflict. Counselors were unsuccessful to show helpful behavior and attitude to the workers. Overall EAP was not successful in raising productivity and job satisfaction of the workers. The industry lacks well‐trained counselor in true sense and effective training program on stress counseling could be organized for the counselors. Relevant developmental interventions and extending scope of EAP in the RMGs of Bangladesh are recommended in details. RMG industry of Bangladesh is still immature to conceptualize and actualize EAP in principle and practice. Current study may create stimuli among the practitioners to raise the applicability of EAP in this Sector.