FAQ's
Lyra Wellbeing
What is an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)?
An Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is a corporate wellbeing service that employers can provide to support the health and wellbeing of their employees. Traditionally EAPs offer free short-term counselling services to employees and their family members.
What is the Lyra Wellbeing EAP? What services does it typically include?
Our Employee Assistance Programme is called Lyra Wellbeing, and is available in over 200 countries worldwide.
It offers free, confidential, and impartial guidance and support with a 24/7 telephone support line and chat service. You can access the service in several languages, including Arabic, English, Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog and French.
It offers counselling for emotional and psychological support. It also offers practical guidance and support on legal, financial, family and work matters. The programme also includes access to an online health and wellbeing portal available in over 50 languages, and professional wellness coaching.
Is the service professional and trustworthy?
The Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA) sets the best practices and standards for EAP providers worldwide. We are the only EAPA-registered EAP provider in the MENA region. ICAS (the former name for the Lyra Wellbeing EAP) was established in 1987 and our MENA operations were set up in 2010.
Are EAPs cost-effective? What's the return on investment (ROI)?
EAPs have a low annual per-head premium. For every $1 spent on an EAP, the organisation sees a minimum $4.30 return on investment through a reduction in healthcare costs, lower absenteeism and productivity gains.
Who can call the EAP helpline?
What are the benefits of using an EAP?
An EAP is there to help with everyday challenges that we face in our personal and work life. The programme aims to confidentially help an individual to work through the issue/challenge as quickly as possible, in order to maintain a healthy work/life balance.
How many languages is the service available in?
Our 24/7/365 helpline is available in 5 languages: Arabic, English, Urdu, Hindi and French, with Tagalog available as a callback option. The Hub wellbeing app is available in over 50 languages.
Our Services
What issues can I get support on?
Our qualified counsellors can help you with problems affecting your wellbeing or psychological health, such as stress, bereavement or relationship issues.
The work-life consultants offer practical and impartial information on everyday matters, like dealing with debt, consumer rights, tenancy issues and family problems.
Our Lawyers and Financial Consultants can offer practical and impartial legal and financial advice on common issues, such as debt management, consumer rights, tenancy issues, and family law.
Wellness coaches offering professional advice on diet & nutrition and healthy exercise.
You also have available access to a range of support tools to help you make positive healthy lifestyle changes via a multilingual health app called Hub.
Is the service confidential?
Our services are fully confidential. What you share stays between you and Lyra. We may have to break confidentiality in cases where an individual might be at risk of harming themselves and/or others, the company, or are involved in acts of terrorism.
Is our conversation recorded?
No, none of the calls are recorded.
What information is shared with my employer?
Every organisation receives a half-year and/or annual report. We include high-level trends such as: the number of cases, utilized services and reported topics (divided into work-related and private). The reports are anonymised so that individuals cannot be identified.
Are there any services catered specifically to managers and HR?
HR and managers have the option to use the Management Consultancy tool. The Management Consultancy Service can provide HR and line managers with many levels of help and support.
Here are a few examples of the many issues we can help you with:
- Tackling a performance issue
- Dealing with a difficult employee
- Presenting bad news
- Addressing an absence issue
- Helping an employee with an addiction problem
- Coping with a merger or take-over
- Handling an employee’s bereavement
- Dealing with harassment or discrimination
Does Lyra have a systematic complaints management process?
Yes, we have a formal complaints process. Our data privacy officer and quality manager as well as management are informed about every complaint. Each complaint is thoroughly investigated following EAP and ethical best practices.
How do you deal with individual who might be distressed?
Our telephonic and chat team is available 24/7/365 to provide immediate support. They will conduct a clinical assessment to determine the best course of action to support the individual. This might entail them being referred to additional professional support and resources such as face-to-face counselling, legal and financial guidance and wellness coaching.
Counsellor Qualifications
What are the qualifications of your counsellors?
All our counsellors have:
- Masters Degree in psychology or allied discipline
- Multiple years of professional experience
- Training on working within the EAP model of short-term, solution-focused counselling
- Training on the culture and nuances of the MENA region
What measures for quality assurance are in place?
Lyra has a well-defined management framework and maintains Information Security Policy Standards in line with the International Standard for Information Security (ISO/IEC 27001).
Our quality manager ensures strict compliance with our high-quality standards.
Data Protection Compliance
How and where do you save personal data of our employees?
We use a customized database solution that fulfills all security-relevant specifications. Cases are captured anonymously; i.e. we do not save any personal data. Any telephone numbers or e-mail addresses that may be required for scheduling purposes with an EAP professional are deleted upon conclusion of the case.
How do you ensure compliance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)?
All data handling is carried out with strict adherence to prevailing regulations and periodic reviews are undertaken to ensure that practices remain valid. Lyra is registered as a data controller and processor with the Information Commissioner’s Office. We are fully compliant with the European Union General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).