5 Things You Need to Know About Performance Counselling

The performance of an organisation in a particular business is broadly dependent on the performance of its employees. A mentally sound and physically healthy employee ensures good performance and growth for the organisation as well.

There are various issues that employees face while working in an organisation and they need assistance to maintain a mental and emotional balance to deliver high productivity. Performance counselling hence becomes a very important initiative in helping the employees know themselves better and to critically analyze their performance.

It majorly involves identifying ones key strengths and weaknesses besides the ways in which the strengths can be leveraged and weaknesses can be overcome. Therefore, to realise the organisational goals in the best way, it becomes imperative for the managers to take care of their employees economically, physically as well as emotionally and socially.

There are various ways in which performance counselling of employees impacts the overall performance of the organisation:

1. Lowering stress levels: There may be various reasons for putting employees under stress. They can either be professional or personal. If these issues are addressed to at the right time they can save a lot of man-hours wasted in handling them during working hours. It has been found that employees, who are stressed, take more time-off from work for sickness, etc. which may be real or imagined. People who are stressed are found to suffer from many lifestyle diseases like, depression, hypertension, ulcers, etc. This generally poses huge threat in terms of cost involved in financing their treatment as well as their leaves. Hence, a proper counselling service provided to employees can help in identifying if any such stress is prevalent among the employees and how it can be reduced to improve employee performance.
2. Handling challenging situations: Challenges faced by employees can also be work related or on personal front. For instance, some employees find it difficult to perform during times of stringent deadlines and pressure. Such people need counselling so that they can better manage their performance during difficult times and handle work-related stress more positively. At times, when employees are facing certain personal challenges like, some physical or mental ailment, bereavement, addiction or substance abuse, eating disorders, work-life imbalances, etc, they need support to face such situations with the right attitude. A proper counselling can help them handle any personal or professional challenge in a regulated manner. It has to be understood by the managers that a crisis situation may be difficult for one person and not for the other; hence each employee should be given proper support to handle it better.
3. Change in employee and employer attitude: Providing various opportunities to the employees for sharing and resolving their work and life related issues, has a huge impact on employees. It is explicit of the fact that the employer is concerned about the health and performance of its employees and shows concern and empathy. It also provides a safe and confidential place for the employees to discuss and resolve their issues. Thus it is helpful in changing or forming positive attitude of the employees towards the employers, making it easier for the employer to get better and dedicated performance from the employees. Also, performance counselling makes the employer realise its responsibility towards the health of its employees and requirement of being a patient and empathetic listener. Besides, it gets both the employee as well as the employer nurture a positive attitude towards each other.
4. Improving performance levels: Needless to mention, if performance counselling is conducted, it is aimed at improving performance levels of employees. As stated earlier, there are various reasons why performance of otherwise functional employees decline. It gets directly affected by the amount of worries the employee is laden with, which can be family issues, financial issues, health issues, addiction problems or work culture or environment issues. Once, the declined employee performance is attributed to the right root-cause it can be resolved and improved with regular counselling or other interventions. This eventually enhances the performance of the employee as he/she is able to overcome any such issue that is hampering his performance and growth
5. Identifying training needs: Conducting a proper performance counselling also helps in understanding the areas which need training interventions to reduce any further issues faced by the employees. It helps in identifying training gaps and gives insight into the major technical and non-technical aspects where proper trainings are needed by the employees for improving their performance. It also assists in addressing certain issues from the core so that they do not occur any further among the employees. There is a lot of financial impact also, as it helps in maintaining a mentally and physically stable workforce and decreases any expense on losing well-trained employees.

Workplace performance counselling is gaining importance and popularity more and more in recent years. Being a well-researched process, it has been helpful in reducing a lot of health related issues for the employees and has always helped in improving their further performance. Although face-to-face counselling seems to work the best yet online counselling has become significantly popular.