How Do Perceived Employee Assistance Programmes Influence Proactive Behaviour and Job Performance? A Moderated Sequential Mediation Model

ABSTRACT To help employees survive and thrive in volatile environments, organisations need to provide better support to maintain employee wellbeing and improve their performance through employee assistance programmes (EAPs). However, there remains a limited conceptual understanding of how perceived EAPs have a positive effect on employees and what the boundary conditions are. To fill this gap, we establish a moderated sequential mediation model suggesting that perceived EAPs could foster work‐related flow, which will, in turn, fulfil employees' basic needs and subsequent proactive behaviour and job performance. We contribute to the existing literature by identifying a novel and complex psychological pathway and highlighting the enjoyable and intrinsically motivating foundations of EAPs. Furthermore, we examine whether peer support and supervisor support act as boundary conditions to theorize the multi‐stakeholder essence of EAP processes. We treat EAPs as an integral component of strategic HRM and elucidate the strategic roles of EAPs in improving employee wellbeing and performance.