Age, Gender, and Work Status Determine Who’s Seeking Help for Marital/Relationship Issues Says WarrenShepell Research Group Report Examining Couple Relationship Trends of 150,000 Canadian Workers

TORONTO, February 7, 2006 - With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, a new report shows that it may be possible to predict who is trying to save their relationship. A new study from the WarrenShepell Research Group has uncovered which employee groups are accessing counselling services for relationship issues outside of the workplace.

“Age and gender clearly play the largest role in the likelihood of an employee seeking counselling services to deal with personal relationship issues,” says Rod Phillips, president and CEO, of WarrenShepell. “Interestingly enough, job levels, and full or part-time employment status also contributed significantly to the likelihood of certain types of employees seeking help.”

Phillips is citing the organization's Marital/Relationship Issues: An EAP’s Perspective, released today. The Report is an examination of Employee Assistance Program (EAP) access patterns in over 150,000 employees working for 1,098 companies in Canada. Three years of WarrenShepell proprietary data (2002-05), was used, specifically looking at any adult individual who accessed any form of counselling for any reason related to their relationships with a significant other.

“Employees in their thirties were the most likely to access EAP for marital-relationship issues,” says Phillips. “In fact almost one-quarter of them access counselling services to resolve relationship issues.”

The report also showed that 22 per cent of men who accessed EAP services did so to specifically explore issues related to their personal relationships. Surprisingly, only 17 per cent of women who accessed EAP services did so for the same problem. This means, that despite the traditional stereotyping, men are willing to express concerns and to work at resolving serious relationship issues.

The report also uncovered the fact that more supervisors and managers (20% of them) accessed EAP for marital/relationship discord than other employees (18% of them). Specifically:

• Male supervisors and managers under 40 years of age, with fewer years of service, access EAP for relationship problems more often than the average employee (39% versus 24% of average employees).

• Female supervisors and managers between 30 and 49 years of age, working full-time and with fewer years of service, access EAP for relationship problems more often than the average employee (31% versus 24% of average employees).

In addition, there were significant differences among industries in terms of employee reports of marital/relationship problems. Industries that showed the highest rate of marital/relationship problems were associations, automotive, entertainment, unions, and construction (30% of their accesses). However, some industries fared better than average including communications, media, advertising, and Internet.

"By understanding employee demographics and their importance as drivers of relationship issues, we’re better able to predict the circumstances that cause negative work-to-home spillover, which affects the quality of employee relationships with their partners,” adds Gerry Smith, vice president of organizational health at WarrenShepell.

“And since it’s reasonable to assume that poor relationships within the home are at the root of much productivity loss for Canadian employers, including increased absenteeism for personal and family issues,” continues Smith, “it benefits employers to have the means to target these employee groups and explore ways in which they could help their employees maintain strong personal relationships. Research estimates employers could save $1 billion per year in direct costs if they eliminated this negative work-to-home spillover.”

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ABOUT WARRENSHEPELL and the WARRENSHEPELL RESEARCH GROUP
WarrenShepell is a leading provider of Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) and related organizational health and wellness services, offering services to over 3,000,000 employees and their families in over 2,500 organizations in Canada, the United States and internationally. The WarrenShepell Research Group is a subsidiary of WarrenShepell. Its mandate is to educate employers and business leaders on mental health issues as they impact the workplace. The WarrenShepell Research Group offers a precise understanding of health and wellness trends by conducting sector and issue-based analysis. www.warrenshepell.com.

© 2005 WarrenShepell