The Narrative
I’ve done twenty-five years in HR, but nothing prepares you for a 3 am call from a project lead: “Sir, our fresher tried to jump from hostel terrace. We dialed your Employee Assistance hotline, but full 40 minutes no one picked up!” That night, my blood ran cold—so much for all those posters and fancy Zoom launches of EAP “wellness partners.” We ended up rushing the boy to hospital ourselves and looping in his family before the EAP even texted back.Next week, the vendor sent the usual “systems outage, sorry for inconvenience” mail. I lost it. Escalated to CEO, called the EAP director on a Sunday, made him listen to our team’s panic calls. He admitted: they were short-staffed, most calls at night get routed to Bangalore landline with one junior trainee.We scrapped the vendor, put our own mental-health champions on rotation, and sent a public mail to all managers: “If your team is in crisis, call HR first, not EAP!” Still, I keep thinking—how many more juniors suffered silence before someone finally shouted loud enough? Sometimes, real help means calling out the vendor, not just paying for nice brochures
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