Employees Counseling | Assignment Help
Introduction:
HR department holds a significant position in the success of an organization. It makes available a workforce that acts as a high performance fuel required for the smooth running of an organization. Industrial revolution emphasized the need of an affective Human Resource Department. Selecting the most competent workforce and getting the best out of them is the main task of any HR Department. Job responsibilities of HR personnel are pretty much different from other managerial responsibilities.
Employer provide proper training to the employees for the specified task they are given, moreover a regular interaction with the employees has to be maintained to rectify the problems they may face in performing the task and reviving their job discipline.
The HR department is engaged in providing suggestions and assistance to the concerned employees. The absence of competent and skilled HR department may result in lost of opportunities for staff development, poor staff morale and loss of credibility for the management.
Counseling is a mode of interaction of the managers with the employees but mostly it is observed that employees counseling is practiced when their performance is not up to the mark or some loop holes are detected in the execution of the task. The purpose of counseling is to improve the negative performance or behavior executed by an employee while respecting their dignity.
Benefits of Employee Counselling not only benefit the organization but also the employee may avail the opportunity to improve his work performance.
Why Counseling:
Counseling is an ongoing process. When conducted accordingly, counseling can aid in the early improvement of the situation. Since it helps employees cope with problems, it should improve organizational performance, because the employee becomes more cooperative, worries less about problems, or improves in other ways (Kaila, 2005). In an organization there are many issues that are of concern for the managers. Trying to resolve the issues personally, may not improve the situation. Managers should discuss the same with the employee to whom the issue is related. The issues developed by an employee creating barriers in the routine performance, may be intentional or unintentional. In both the cases, the manager’s concern will be notified and an employee by means of counseling may get help or a polite warning. Counseling is discussion of a problem with an employee that usually has emotional content in order to help the employee cope with it better (Kaila, 2005).
A manager or a supervisor has to be a keen observer, analyzing the work performance of every individual employee. If the work performance is not coping up with the required standards, manager and the employee have to sit together to solve the cause.
Counseling Facts:
Counseling is not as easy as the word seems like. For an affective counseling, the counselor needs to prepare himself, prepare points that are to be discussed and he should have the authority to take any immediate decision. A counselor’s skill of using the appropriate language and convincing will result in an effective counseling. The counselor’s task is to convince the employee to share his problem freely. The problem faced by an employee might be sensitive, and he might resist in discussing the same. Element of trust and confidence once developed amid the employee, he will open up freely.
Every situation is unique; each has distinct facts and different employees. Encountering with every situation, a counselor must be well prepared and exercise different technical approaches to achieve the desired results (Deb, 2006). Designing a mind map of all relevant points that are to be discussed will assist in making the counseling session successful. Prior to a counseling session, there are number of factors to be considered, work performance history, employees training, employee’s personality and either the employee is well aware of his targets. Counseling is to give the employee an opportunity to explore, discover and clarify ways of working and living more resourcefully and towards greater well-being and satisfaction (Deb, 2006).
Counseling may not be fruitful in all cases. In some cases repeated sessions of counseling may be required to achieve the desired result. Even then if counseling fails the employee will have to face the exit door.
Where Counseling becomes Compulsory:
As stated by Imundo (1991), when an employee’s behavior problems affect job performance or relationships with others, a supervisor has no choice other than to become involved. An employee is a human and can make errors due to many reasons. It could be his personal issues, health issues or due to fellow workers. Senior management should not take decisive measures without knowing the actual facts causing the decline in work performance. Any deviation from regular work performance is noted, counseling becomes necessary. Rather than viewing the performance problem from a punitive standpoint (discipline), employee counseling attempts to uncover why employees have lost their desire or ability to work productively (Robbins, 2012).
Making employees more constructive, there is a need of developing a relation between the managers and employees. An employee will be more productive if he is confident about his managers, that in case of any problem he could seek their help or guidance. Counseling is a therapy that an employee requires when he fails to come up with the required performance. The managers have to be lenient, when an employee shows decline in his work performance. This is where an affective counseling becomes eminent.
If employers are aware of such issues and take their employees dispositions into account, this may help them to tackle more efficiently various problems faced by their employees, such as lack of confidence or feelings of uneasiness at work (Evans, 2009).
Commonly two types of employees need counseling, the one who is creating the problem and the one who is having a problem. It’s better to put problems on the table for open evaluation, so long as an employee knows the manager wants the employee to succeed. By allowing the employee to provide immaculate reason for his errors and solving the issue may not only increase the confidence level among the employee but its impact on other employees will be beneficial for the company. Counseling is a proven, valuable, effective way to develop a better workforce.
Big Brother:
The work force having a common goal to achieve, in the same work area, represents a family irrespective of their different jobs and levels. There mutual cooperation will keep them on the right track. Positive task feedback from the supervisor can influence the effects of goal commitment and workload on employee creativity (Rahim, 2007). Individuals at higher level should be supportive and make them available to assist the one at lower level in case of any problem. According to Carroll (1996: 8), employee assistance is a phrase now used to describe a unified approach to intervention and assistance for a wide variety of related human problems in the workplace.
Here we are discussing the need of counseling that may provide solution to the problems faced by employee and making them more beneficial for the company. A manager or a higher-level individual may not be able to conduct an affective counseling session unless he really cares for his employee. Grigoroudis and Siskos (2010) stated that employees are considered as internal customers of the organization and employee satisfaction as an important driver for business success.
