Workplace counselling is an employee support intervention that is usually short term in nature and provides an independent, specialist resource for people working across all sectors and in all working environments.

Giving all employees access to a free, confidential, workplace counselling service can potentially be viewed as part of an employer’s duty of care.

Why counselling at workplace?

Employees face lots of problems in day to day life, they may have problem with their subordinates, colleagues, system of the work or may have problem in personal life.

This problem starts affecting their work, their career and their performance in job. Employees face through the stress of completing the targets, work-load, meeting deadlines, relations with subordinates or colleagues, work-life balance, lack of time and higher responsibility.

Thus, it is vital to address the behavioural problems and conflicts between the employees as soon as they are detected and control the issues at the very beginning. With the increasing incidence of stress in the modern employee’s life more and more organizations are adopting counselling to retain their best employees and improve quality of their work life.

Employee counselling is done to bring out a positive result from the de-stressed employee. It is a psychological technique and that is used in various forms.

The main objective of it is to support the employees by providing them advice, guidance, suggestions to solve the prevailing problems and improve physical and mental conditions, performance and which can take many forms. 

The aim of counselling is to provide help and support to the employee during the difficult times of their lives to enable them to face problems and challenges successfully.

It is generally conducted as a private face-to-face meeting between the employee and the counsellor where the counsellor attempts to understand the employee’s problems and give him suggestions.

Main Characteristics of Employee Counselling are:

(a) Service offered to employees.

(b) Service is conducted in organisation.

(c) Focus is on problems faced by employees.

(d) Objective of counselling is problem solution.

(e) Employee counselling serves all concerned.

(f) Employee counselling is a continuous process.

(g) Role of counsellor is important in counselling.

(h) Half knowledge is a dangerous thing, is completed through counselling.

Prerequisites of Employee Counselling are:

1. Listen and Show Confidence:

Do not ignore the employee problems as trivial. Believe in their abilities, show confidence in their work and tell them that the organization has a lot of expectations from them. Such trust and confidence motivates the employees to resolve issues and perform better.

2. Focus on the Problem and not the Person:

However big or small the problem is, it is affecting performance and needs to be discussed. But remember the real culprit is the problem and not the person. So, instead of focusing on the employee, try to focus on understanding the problem.

3. Give Suggestions and Solutions:

After understanding the problem, try to help the person solve it. Take the employee’s opinion about the ways the issue can be resolved. Analyse the various solutions and give suggestions. 

4. Create an Action Plan:

Create action plans for yourself and the colleague. Clearly note down the actions that each party has to perform. Show active involvement to make the team member feel comfortable with your initiatives and motivate him/her to perform to the best of his/her abilities.

5. Follow up:

Follow up after regular intervals to see if the counselling has helped. It not only shows the genuine interest in the well-being and performance of the team mate but also helps to identify gaps and other issues. 

Importance of Employees Counselling:

1. It provides employees with an atmosphere where they can share and discuss their tensions, conflicts, concerns, and problems with their supervisors.
2. It is a process of helping employees to realise their full potential by making them understand their strengths and weaknesses.
3. Counselling provides employees with the reassurance and courage to face the problems confidently.
4. Releasing emotional tension is an important function of counselling. Release of tension may not solve the entire problem but it removes mental blocks to the solution.
5. Counselling sessions also help employees to get an opportunity to understand the business environment and set realistic goals for further improvements.
6. It even gives the employer an opportunity to understand the employee’s perspective and set mutually agreeable goals for future.
7. It can even help the management decide about the need for training and development programs to sharpen the employees skills and increase their level of confidence on the job.
8. A good counselling session generally helps in winning the trust and faith of the employees.
9. It provides more autonomy to employees and positively reinforces their desirable behaviour and tries to create conditions in which the employee is able to learn from his mistakes.

Thus we can say workplace counselling is an important factor in building a healthy organizational environment.

The pressures to succeed, conflicts that might occur with one’s superior or co-workers, and personal problems which inhibit performance can become overbearing for some employeesand that is why workplace counselling is so important to the success of an organization.