Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) provide counselling and consulting services that focus on the prevention and/or remediation of personal problems experienced by employees, or members of their families. EAPs are currently considered one of the main vehicles for occupational stress management and are rapidly evolving into providers of holistic wellbeing programs in the workplace. This form of service delivery has, however, been criticised for focusing interventions at the individual rather than at the organisational level. This review examines the history and development of Australian EAPs, discusses issues unique to the delivery of psychological services in a workplace environment, and considers evidence for the effectiveness of EAPs. While research evidence is not fully supportive of the effectiveness of EAPs, data suggests that these programs do impact positively on employee mental health, and are perceived by employees as a desirable workplace resource.

This study aimed to test a path model in which work stress affects policewomen's functioning in their family environment through a component of burnout, emotional exhaustion. Work role stressors assessed were role ambiguity and role overload. Work based support from supervisors, but not colleagues, was predicted to reduce role stressors and emotional exhaustion, and improve perceptions of family functioning (cohesion and conflict). Data was collected via a mail out survey to all (1081) policewomen in an Australian state police service. Useable surveys were returned by 421 policewomen. Path analysis using LISREL 8.5 indicated a good fit to the model. Supervisor, but not coworker support reduced role stressors, which had a significant path to family cohesion and conflict, through emotional exhaustion. The findings suggest that a fruitful avenue of exploration of stress transmission to the family would be an examination of behaviours linked to emotional exhaustion. Additionally, interventions designed to reduce stress in policewomen should include supervisor training in social support. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The concept of a maximum-typical performance dimension has received theoretical and empirical support in research on the construct of job performance. The critical distinction between maximum and typical performance resides in the postulate that under maximum test conditions motivational factors will be constant and maximal. The present study challenges the notion of the maximum performance paradigm by testing the effects of proximal (self-efficacy) and distal (need for achievement) motivation on performance under maximum test conditions. The authors used a walk-through performance test to evaluate the performance of 90 employees. The structural model demonstrates significant pathways between latent measures of motivation and performance ratings. The findings confirm the explanatory power of the motivation construct under maximum test conditions.

It has been argued that models of stress need to be occupation specific. Policewomen are an occupational subgroup who experience stress differently from male officers. Sixteen sources of felt stress were rated by 206 policewomen. Exploratory factor analysis suggested a three-factor model of operational, interpersonal, and management/organizational stress. Confirmatory factor analysis with a second sample of 213 policewomen confirmed the three-factor structure. Interpersonal stressors accounted for most variance in ratings of felt stress. This suggests that the interpersonal climate experienced by female officers contributes significantly to rated stress levels, and consideration of this finding should be given in interventions to reduce work stress for female officers.

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