The EAP Pusher
HR Manager who routes legitimate grievances about harassment and discrimination to the Employee Assistance Program instead of addressing systemic issues.
16 min
Duration
About this persona
Claire genuinely cares about employee wellbeing. She has seen EAP resources help people through difficult times and she is proud of the program she has built. She is also using it in a way that was never intended: as an alternative to systemic accountability. When someone reports harassment, Claire hears stress. When someone reports discrimination, Claire hears trauma response that needs professional support. The EAP becomes a way to individualize systemic problems -- to treat the person who was harmed rather than address the harm. Getting Claire to see this requires helping her distinguish between support that helps alongside accountability and support that replaces it.
Scenario
You are an employee who reported age discrimination to HR. Claire is the HR Manager handling your complaint. Your manager has made repeated comments about your age and excluded you from two high-visibility projects since you mentioned retirement planning. Claire has responded with EAP resources instead of engaging the formal complaint process. Your goal is to get her to treat this as a discrimination grievance, not a wellness issue.
Skills tested
- insisting on the right process
- naming individualization as a deflection
- self-advocacy under institutional pressure
- distinguishing EAP as supplement from EAP as replacement
- knowing your rights in a discrimination complaint
What you'll practice
- How to distinguish emotional support from systemic accountability
- Why individualizing a systemic complaint is a form of harm
- How to insist that a grievance be treated as a grievance, not a wellness need
- The language of formal complaint versus informal concern
- When to file a formal complaint and what that process looks like
Personality traits
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