Need of Counseling at Workplace and Approches

Need of Counseling at Workplace

Apart from their personal problems, there are various reasons which can create stress for the employees at the workplace like unrealistic targets or work-load, constant pressure to meet the deadlines, career problems, responsibility and accountability, conflicts or bad inter-personal relations with superiors and subordinates, problems in adjusting to the organizational culture. Counseling helps the employee to share and look at his problems from a new perspective, help himself and to face and deal with the problems in a better way. Counseling at workplace is a way of the organization to care about its employees.

Counseling Approaches

There are two types of approaches

Directive counselling

Non directive counselling

Directive counselling

In a directive counseling session, the manager takes the lead and does most of the talking. These meetings are relatively brief covering only enough time to fully cover the counseling plan. The manager opens the session with a definition of the problem which initiated the need for the counseling. Generally, this approach is used for conduct situations where the violation is straight forward and the expectations are clear.

When using the directive approach, a follow-up meeting is not necessary unless the conduct has not improved and change has not occurred. A follow-up meeting is usually needed for performance counseling. Performance counseling is handled through a more non-directive approach, since the total involvement of the employee is necessary in achieving change in performance-related issues.

Non Directive Counseling

This approach differs considerably from the directive approach. The manager is still in control, but the employee is responsible for much of the discussion. In this approach, the manager must use advanced counseling techniques to keep the employee talking about the problem, its causes, and possible solutions. This approach is normally used for performance related counseling where the employee is failing, or nearly failing, one or more critical elements of the position.

When planning to conduct a non-directive counseling session, allow two hours for the meeting. While most meetings using this approach last less than two hours, you should allow that much time to provide an adequate opportunity to develop proposed solutions for the problem. These meetings are time consuming, but essential when attempting to improve employee performance.