Are you an employer experiencing these situations in your company? Then it is time to call in for workplace counseling.

The shift in the behaviour of the employees,

Are you experiencing tantrums and anger bursts from your employees? Specially from those who are usually good at controlling their anger?

Staff that experience issues at home are likely to be destructive at work. They may create an overall unpleasant environment for the other employees. Employees are unlikely to open up to their bosses about this and employers are unlikely to take the direct burden. Thus when these changes are noticed, workplace counseling arrangements can help employees with such issues. This is their sign that their employees are under stress and in need of help.

Too many accidents

The shift in concentrations at work can be caused due to being clustered in other issues. Employees may be constantly thinking of other problems, maybe at home. This can affect their focus at work and cause them to make silly mistakes. The scolding that may follow can negatively affect the employee even further. Thus, this is a sign for the employers that their staff may be facing issues that need fixing.

Large workloads

If the employers feel like their staff is about to be under a large workload, they can arrange counselling to deal with the upcoming stressful days. This situation is common during festive days. Efficiency and productivity are extremely important these days. Therefore, arrangements to help the employees keep up their game can be of great help to prevent absentees and stress.

If the majority of employees find it hard to meet deadlines

Are you noticing a reluctance in work being submitted prior to the due date? Is your staff seem to be slacking off? During this time counseling at the workplace can help with identifying these issues and what is causing them. It may be the workload or other problems outside the office. Solutions will be proposed to the employees and you will have a general idea of how to make things easier for your team.

Performance issues and common fatigue

Your staff may be fatigued when they are exhausted beyond limits. This can affect their ability to perform and keep up the efficiency. One person slacking off means more work on the other and will eventually lead to a very unhappy and tired set of workers. As mentioned before, the key is a healthy employee mindset. Thus, this can lead to the destruction of the company.

Cultural, racial or other fundamental issues

If employees or one of them is racist, sexist, etc. there can be issues between employees. These extremist people may stir up distinctions, bullying, or other hateful problems within the employees. This leads to the mental stress of the victims. If employers recognize such behaviour within the setting it is their job to make sure equality persists in the work environment. This is especially problematic if the employer is an extremist. Employers can either get help by counseling extremist employees or ask them to step down to assure peace in the workplace.

Harmful addictions between employees

If employees are likely to smoke cigarettes or use alcohol or drugs, it can impact their daily lives negatively. This is a temporary solution used by generations to escape reality for a while. These addictions alter not only family lives but the productivity of one when it comes to the workplace. If employees show signs of addictions such as frequent hangovers or leaving the chair every 10 minutes for a smoke, it may be time to bring in a counsellor.

In general, any time you feel like your team is reluctant, unhappy, tend to leave the company, complain, take leave too often, you should consider hiring a counsellor for the betterment of your employees. Most of them may be drowning in issues that they can not talk about. Maybe they cannot afford to go for counselling or do not have the time for that. If you want efficiency in your company to last, it is your job to make sure that your team of employees is up for what it takes.

There are steps on how to conduct workplace counselling to its maximum benefit.

• Step 1 – Addressing the issues
• 2nd Step – Deciding on the type of counselling
• Step 3 – Giving/accepting feedback
• 4th Step – Follow up and solution

Check if these boxes are ticked in the counselling program you want your employees to undergo.

An understanding counsellor

Make sure you don’t put your staff through the experience of having to talk to a rage-filled person. The counsellor you choose for your employees to open up to should be trustworthy, understanding, patient, flexible, and a good listener. Keep in mind, that you are telling your team that this is a place to relieve stress. A judgemental, rude, and money-minded counsellor may worsen the situation of your company. At times, workplace counseling involves phone calls too. The counsellor chosen must be able to be nice to your employees, helpful, and should have faith in their betterment.

Schedules and goals

Workplace counselling should not last a long time. This method is goal-oriented. Thus the counsellor should have a plan and the targets to achieve.

However, the situation may be worse than expected and the counsellor may need more time. If the employer’s genuine goal is the betterment of his employees, he should be flexible to this. The counselling process goes from earning each employee’s trust to giving a solution to each of their problems. Employers should be understanding and allow them space, time, and resources to get to the planned goals.

Achieving the targets

As stated before, workplace counseling is goal-oriented. Thus, at the end of the day, the goals must be reached. An experienced counsellor in workplace counselling may be the best option for this. You could dig up their past experiences and success rate before handing over the employee counseling.

We have established the importance of workplace counseling. However, despite its upholds, it is still not a practice that can be seen at every company.

There may be a few reasons that employees may be reluctant to take on workplace counseling. There are also things that may hold employers back from providing counselling. Below are a few.

Resource cost

Workplace counseling takes time and resources in the form of payment for the counsellors and more. Counsellors may need more time than predicted based on employee situation and their issues. Time is always critically important when it comes to the corporate world. Thus, the time spent on counselling can take a toll on the business. At times, employers may not be open to change their hectic work ethic. Without being open to changes there is no point in counselling.

Confidentiality issues

The entire office talking about all their problems sounds like gossip to some. They worry whether their teammates will get to know their problems. There is also the worry that if they open up about difficulties such as pay and workload, it may result in their employers kicking them out. In other words, they would rather work under stress than be unemployed. Due to the distrust and unwillingness to disclose personal information to someone who will possibly tell the boss or the team, employees may not take psychology.

Perspective regarding counselling

Most people regard psychology and mental health as taboo topics. Due to this reason, people do not seek help for mental health. Especially, men. Toxic masculinity plays some part here. Men do not like to admit to the fact that they need help. Thus, they would rather not disclose their matters to a counselor and look weak. Men misinterpret manliness to be about drowning in issues regardless of the stress, and not complain.

On the other hand, employers worry that clients would not want to work with an employee who underwent counseling. Clients can deem them misfits to be involved in the business. Due to these reasons, employers try to keep the practice hidden. However, employers that take action to take care of their employees should be proud and celebrated.

Our own experiences and many success stories have made us believers of the telehealth platform. We believe that there is growing evidence showing online mental health support to be just as effective as in-person consultations. Armed with this knowledge, we work to bridge the gap between you and professional mental health support. Above all, we work through easily accessible technologies at your fingertips.

​Your comfort and convenience is our priority. We provide a comprehensive, continuous yet flexible platform to conduct telehealth. Given the higher rates of mental health issues in regional Australia, our team recognises that often those who are in need of mental healthcare assistance the most, find it difficult to reach out, faced with many barriers and obstacles.

Our telehealth platform aims to facilitate better mental health support, taking out travel costs, the commute, and long waitlists people in the regional areas of Australia often face. It is our vision to relentlessly exploit and pursue new technologies. And we bring quality healthcare to you, when you want it, where you want it, how you want it.

Depression is one of the stages of grieving. This is when you keep to yourself and go through the pain alone. However, after the depression stage, you slowly start getting the handle of your emotions and proceed to slowly move on. The problem is if you are stuck in the depressive zone and are not making any progress. Grief can easily make you depressed. Some of the depressive signs during grieving are,

• feeling guilty, angry, revengeful, worthless. Basically, being mad at yourself than focusing on the grief.
• grief makes you feel better around other people. Depression just makes you want to isolate yourself.
• you long for the deceased person.
• unlike while grieving and being vulnerable to emotions, depression makes you numb.
• wanting to die because you long to rekindle with the deceased person is grief. Wanting to die because you feel worthless is depression.

In general, after a while of mourning, if you’re still wanting to kill yourself or like to isolate yourself, there is a good chance that you’re depressed. It is vital you seek professional help before things affect you extremely badly.

Bottled-up feelings of revenge, regret, or guilt could have you hating on everyone else. The smallest things that everyone does around you will piss you off. You may have no patience or control over yourself, and you may find that these emotions burst out without you really wanting them to. This is a sign that you are dealing with emotions that you have never talked about to anyone. This situation is common if your last conversation with the loved one you lost is an argument, or if their death is caused due to something that indirectly involves you. In other circumstances, it can be due to having to separate when you find your spouse cheating. Rage has no limit or a limited cause. When you find yourself causing pain and fear to the ones you love, while experiencing a loss, you should seek grief counseling.

Except for these, look out for the below symptoms. These are common occurrences in the normal process of grieving. They should pass with time. However, if they don’t, you should consider grief counseling.

• unstoppable crying
• significant weight loss or weight gain
• having trouble focusing
• insomnia issues

There is no right or wrong time to seek grief counseling. However, seeking it faster avoids damage getting worse and you will have the chance to healthily guide your emotions from the first stage. This does not mean, the sooner you seek counseling the faster you will get over the loss. Grieving is a process everyone must go through at their own pace. Dealing and overcoming emotions one at a time. Grief counseling provides you the guidance to get through this process healthily.