Workplace therapy is an initiative in support of The King’s College that is typically short-term in nature and provides individuals working across all industries and in all work places with an autonomous, specialist resource. It can theoretically be seen as part of a company’s duty of care to provide all workers access to a free, secure, workplace counseling service.
The therapy process is about supplying an employee with a rallying point, giving them a safe place to talk about things that bother them, and encouraging counselors to help them find their own solutions to issues or learn new ways of managing problems. This is not about providing tips, but about having a means of allowing an individual to find a way forward that is unbiased, emotionally intelligent and open.
Workplace counselors have a specialist perspective and skillset, since they have two clients, the worker in front of them and the company as a supplementary client, in essence. Workplace advisors are aware of the context in which the workers function and have a critical view of the setting to which the staff will return.
As workplace therapy is short-term (up to several one-hour meetings), professionals are typically “integrative,” indicating they have educated and developed other professions into a core therapeutic approach. Counselors may be individual-centered or have cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) expertise, transitional analysis, gestalt therapy, solution-focused therapy, or one of the other areas. The choice of the counselor ‘s strategy generally matters less than the nature of the relationship between the counselor and the client, with faith and transparency helping to improve progress.
Workplace counselors provide resources in all fields, locations and sizes to individuals in organizations. The long waiting times, lack of expert insight and rigidity of appointment times and locations make occupational therapy a more appealing choice for many employees, though counseling is accessible on the NHS. Some companies pay for therapy, depending on the size of the staff, by hiring a corporate psychologist, either full time or part time, or on an ad hoc basis. Other firms want to participate in a program of employee assistance (EAP). EAPs, mostly from a national pool of vetted partner counselors, are standalone packages that provide the provision of therapy assistance.
Several factors determine how counseling is given within an entity, mainly the size of the organization and the funds available.
Organizations sometimes assume that the counseling service they pay for can only be used to resolve concerns specifically relevant to the working life of the employee. While work-related problems can, of course, directly affect the performance of an employee, including stress, overwork, bullying and difficult colleagues, personal problems can have a similar negative effect.
Experiences such as deprivation and loss, relationship and family issues, drug abuse and stress at home can all worry and divert someone’s thinking from work. This may also be a big concern in certain security-sensitive sectors.
Workplace therapy also benefits workers who are away from work, and there is evidence that counseling assistance can speed up the recovery of an absent worker, saving money for the company in the long run. In general, a potential customer is someone who works in an organization.
You can now find out more about counseling at Select Psychology that can offer you a variety of counselor services and counseling therapies.
