Counselor’s role in a workplace
To help employees to increase their self-awareness so as to make them more effective as an individual and in turn, effective in their job. Counseling is an effective and preventive people management strategy for organisations.
Peter F. Drucker stated in his article “ Managing Oneself “ appeared, for the first time, in Harvard Business Review that: “In a few hundred years, when the history of our time is written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event the historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, nor ecommerce. It is the unprecedented change in the human condition.For the first time literally substantial and rapidly growing number of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves and society is totally unprepared for it” Thousands of employee surveys all over the world show a worrying trend of loss of work-life balance. There is an urge necessity to do something before this starts hampering productivity and staff well-being. This will be the challenge of human resources directors in the next few years.
It is the people in the organisation who are the most important and valuable asset. They have emotions, feeling and a tender heart. Sometimes emotions and feelings create problems and men and women could not overcome and lose their confidence and fail to put their mind in the work. These problems do not necessarily relate to the work. They may be family problems, financial problems, marital problems etc. All have a negative impact on their jobs. They can’t work properly and can’t put hundred percent.
Organizations have realized the importance of having a stress-free yet motivated and capable workforce. Therefore, many companies have integrated the counseling services in their organizations and making it a part of their culture. Organizations are offering the service of employee counseling to its employees.
The troublesome situation can be created at any time and due to any reason. Some of the causes are, fear or threat, worries, anxiety, hostility. All these are the mental processes created in the minds of people affecting their behaviour at the workplace. The need is to make sincere efforts to remove the real causes from their mind, restore confidence and self respect and bring them on track.
Professional counseling helps people learn to manage themselves. As isolation and mismatch of expectations increase, one still needs the old-world touch of empathy.
The counselor’s support provides that.
Professional counselors can address many situations causing emotional stress, including, but not limited to:
- Anxiety, depression, and other mental and emotional problems and disorders
- Family and relationship issues
- Substance abuse and other addictions
- Sexual abuse and domestic violence
- Absenteeism
- Career change and job stress
- Social and emotional difficulties related to disability and illness
- Adopting to life transitions
- The death of a loved one
- Appropriate referrals after assessment
- Campus to corporate transitions
Indicators that can show you when you should seek counseling are when you’re having difficulties at work, your ability to concentrate is diminished or when your level of pain hampers wellbeing.
Dimensions that can be added to workplace counseling:
- Managers could be trained in some basic counseling skills.
- Some growth and development workshops can be conducted in emotional intelligence.
- Transactional analysis, marriage enrichment, etc, can also be conducted by the counselor.
A counselor in a workplace can:
- Work with designated personnel as a thinking partner, a revealing mirror, and a pacesetter among others
- Help in leveraging core capacities of employees.
- Help create a culture for greater synergy in organisational learning and development.
- Help employees increase their self-awareness so as to make them more effective as an individual and in turn, effective in their job.
In short, counseling is an effective and preventive people management strategy for organisations.
Benefits to the organisation:
- Decrease costs related to turnover, burnouts, absenteeism and accident-related disability.
- Improvement in employee performance and therefore increase in productivity.
- A counselor can play the role of a business partner to manage behavioral problems brought about by organisational changes.
The counseling service shall bring back work-life balance and serve as a developmental model rather than a problem solving model.
Counselling can be provided externally through an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), typically comprising a face-to-face counseling, a telephone helpline, and critical-incident debriefing. Some counselors are embracing new technologies and offer email, instant messaging and online counselling.
This can help employees in more remote settings, or those who travel frequently as part of their job.In an in-house service, counselors may be directly employed by the organization.
Change cannot be arrested. It is continuous. One should aware of the change and face it boldly and courageously and should not lose confidence. For self development one should make his/her swot analysis to know one’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities available present and future and the possible threats in his way.