Name:  Russ Hagen     

Address: 1103 Martin Luther King Drive 

City: Bloomington, IL

CEO:  Russ Hagen

Product: Behavioral Healthcare

Phone: 309-433-7916 & 800-433-7916  

Year Founded: 1988

      Employee Assistance Programs have been used successfully in the United States for decades and at least one company is trying to expand the concept to Mexico and other countries.

      EAPs have been proven to increase productivity by helping employees work through personal problems — whether they are problems at work, home, school or elsewhere.

      “In the human experience, no one is immune from having problems in their life,” says Russ Hagen, CEO of Bloomington, Ill.-based Chestnut Global Partners. “Throughout the course of life we will all experience problems and some of us will have difficulty coping with that.”

      Chestnut Global Partners has trained mental health providers on call 24/7. Covered employees can access the service by calling a toll free number that connects to care givers in Mexico City. Once connected, the care-giver assesses what action needs to occur to help the employee through the issue.

      “The theory is employees who are experiencing these kinds of issues have difficulty performing their best at work,” says Hagen “It’s in the company’s best interest for these employees to get the help they need.”

      Chestnut Global Partners is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chestnut Health Systems, also based in Bloomington, Ill. Chestnut Health Systems, in collaboration with several leading EAP providers from around the world, formed a partnership of EAP and behavioral health companies to establish a global network called Chestnut Global Partners. Chestnut Global Partners provides international employee assistance programs and family support programming in addition to other behavioral healthcare services that are responsive to the demands of international business.

      Chestnut Health Systems has been providing domestic EAP services since 1988.   It has also provided international services for more than five years.

      Although EAPs have been around for decades in the United States, they are a new concept in Mexico and other emerging countries. Chestnut Global Partners is active in more than 100 countries and provides the service for Caterpillar, Archer Daniels Midland and FedEx in Mexico. Chestnut Global Partners has also targeted China, Brazil, India, Russia and other emerging countries.

      “There are certain countries we have made a decision to commit to,” Hagen says. “We’re there (Mexico) because a lot of our existing or potential future customers are already there or are contemplating doing business there.”

      Since the concept of EAPs is foreign in Mexico, Chestnut Global partners’ challenge is to convince domestic industry of the program. To date, CGP’s Mexico clients are all U.S. based multinationals familiar with the concept.

      “People in the U.S. are well familiar with the concept,” Hagen says. “In Mexico, the nationals may be totally unfamiliar with the concept.”

      Although specific costs vary by the number and type of service contracted for, Hagen estimates an EAP costs $2.50 to $3 per employee, per month. In the United States, where EAPs have been studied for years, there is documented evidence that EAPs accomplish the following:

      •Lessen absenteeism and turnover.

      •Decrease work-related accidents.

      •Increase workplace productivity and workplace cooperation.

      •Help resolve work-related and personal challenges that impact performance at work.

      •Prevent supervisors from getting overly involved in an employee’s personal difficulties, while remaining involved in their workplace welfare.

      •Identify and help impaired employees who may be unsafe.

      •Express an attitude of caring and goodwill to the workforce and its families.

      •Mitigate time-consuming disciplinary actions and grievances.

      Services offered by Chestnut Global Partners include:

      •Local National Employee Services – This is an Employee Assistance Program that works with in-country clinicians to assist local nationals in a manner fitting to the local culture.

      •International Assistance Services (IAS) – This is a support system, tailored to unique settings and customized for client companies, that focuses on supportive service provision to expatriates and their families.

      •Crisis Intervention Services – This component consists of immediate, real-time telephonic or web based access to trained crisis intervention staff.

      CGP treats providers collegially and makes them an integral part of program implementation. At the heart of the approach is a recognition that professional help works best when there is a direct relationship between those asking for help and those providing the service. CGP views the following practices as key in implementing a successful program:

      •Ensuring that local providers understand the principles of EAP and know how to effectively make those principles relevant and appropriate to the local culture.

      •Ensuring that local providers have the infrastructure, sophistication, and systems to deliver a high quality and responsive service.

      •Have the monitoring and quality management systems in place to coordinate and integrate services over time and across geographies.

      •Having local providers align and integrate at key regional sites.

      •Ensuring that local providers have the financial motivation to build a close and consultative relationship with your regional offices by paying them reasonably and quickly.

      •Providing management and supervisory training in the native language(s) on identification and referral of the troubled employees to the EAP.

      •Promoting the EAP to local employees and families in culturally appropriate ways.

      •Providing direct local access in the caller’s native language and dialect.

Competitive advantages

      Chestnut Health Systems has a significant history developing and providing interventions to assist persons to make meaningful behavioral change. The growth of workplace services has been a natural extension of diverse experience with prevention, treatment, program evaluation, and industry leadership. Chestnut also has considerable expertise and experience collaborating with local, state and national government agencies, service providers, research institutions, and small and major corporations.

      Through its clinical and prevention programs, as well as through the work of research and program evaluation conducted by its Research Institute, the organization has accomplished pioneering work in areas of behavioral health treatment modalities, screening and assessment technologies, and motivational interventions. Chestnut Health Systems manages the most extensive database of behavioral health and treatment information available, and continues to rapidly expand capacity to manage large amounts of data in systems that link multiple sites. 

      The past two years were marked by increased competition among international behavioral health providers for contracts with multinational companies. CGP established itself in the international services market two years prior to this flurry of activity, and its ability to identify and partner with existing providers and set up qualified networks positions it to be an industry leader.

      CGP has a clear reputation among major industry partners as a service-based organization. It is known and experienced consistently as responsive, and as being quick to take action to resolve problems and address situations with unique and customized solutions.

      It can provide ready access to research-based interventions, and its program services and training methods benefit from the extensive evaluation work accomplished through its research division.

      It has a widely known track record of excellence in recruiting, training, credentialing and managing local clinicians and service providers who understand the full value of the EAP and workplace service model.