Counseling and Negotiation

 Ans 1 The Importance of Employee Counselling

The latest trend in Corporate HR world is “Employee Counselling at Workplace”. In this competition world there are de- stressed employees in each and every organization. It’s difficult to find a tension free employee in an organization.

Counselling helps the employees to come out from the problems, gives a new way to deal

with the problems. Counselling shows how much the employer care for the employee. Counselling may help to identify the employee the work related problems and the poor performance

Organization’s has started Counselling at their office premises to retain the current employees, the talented employees, Organization hires a professional as a counsellor to deal with the following issues:

1.  Traumatic Events

2.  Relationship Issues

3.  Physical Health

4.  Personal Stress

5.  Emotional Health

6.  Bereavement

7.  Work Relationship

8.  Phobias

9 Family Issues

10.  Financial Problems

11.  Work Stress

Meaning of Employee Counselling

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

This problem starts affecting their work, their career and their performance in job. Counselling is like giving advice, sorting out the problems of employees, guiding and helping them for the problem they face in office or in personal life.

Employee counselling is done to bring out a positive result from the de-stressed employee. In simple terms employee counselling is like a stressed person discuss about the problem or about the poor performance and other person consoles and try to sort the problem.

Counselling at Office Premises

Employees face through the stress of completing the targets, work-load, meeting deadlines, relations with subordinates or colleagues, lack of time and higher responsibility.

Counselling helps the employees to come out from the problems, gives a new way to deal with the problems. Counselling shows how much the employer care for the employee.

Counselling may help to identify the employee the work related problems and the poor performance. Benefits of counselling

1.     Helps employees to tackle with the problems effectively

2.     Employees are able to sort their problems

3.     Helps in decision making

4.     A new way to look at the perspective.

5.     Prevent termination from employer or resignation from employee.

6.     Reduces the cost of hiring new employee and training new staff.

7.     Smooth coordination between employer and employee.

Ans 4 What Is Problem-Solving Therapy?

Problem-solving therapy is a form of therapy that provides patients with tools to identify and solve problems that arise from life stressors, both big and small. Its aim is to improve your overall quality of life and reduce the negative impact of psychological and physical illness.¹

Problem-solving therapy can be used to treat depression, among other conditions.²

 

It can be administered by a doctor or mental health professional and may be combined with other treatment approaches. Overview of the Problem-Solving Mental Process

Techniques

Problem-solving therapy is based on a model that takes into account the importance of real-life problem-solving. In other words, the key to managing the impact of stressful life events is to know how to address issues as they arise. Problem-solving therapy is very practical in its approach and is only concerned with the present, rather than delving into your past.

This form of therapy can take place one-on-one or in a group format and may be offered in person or online via telehealth. Sessions can be anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours long.

There are two major components that make up the problem-solving therapy framework:³ Applying a positive problem-solving orientation to your life

Using problem-solving skills

 

A positive problem-solving orientation means viewing things in an optimistic light, embracing self-efficacy, and accepting the idea that problems are a normal part of life. Problem-solving skills are behaviour’s that you can rely on to help you navigate conflict, even during times of stress. This includes skills like:

Knowing how to identify a problem Defining the problem in a helpful way

Trying to understand the problem more deeply Setting goals related to the problem

Generating alternative, creative solutions to the problem Choosing the best course of action

Implementing the choice, you have made Evaluating the outcome to determine next steps

Problem-solving therapy is all about training you to become adaptive in your life so that you will start to see problems as challenges to be solved instead of insurmountable obstacles. It also means that you will recognize the action that is required to engage in effective problem-solving techniques.

One problem-solving technique, called planful problem-solving, involves following a series of steps to fix issues in a healthy, constructive way:³

Problem definition and formulation: This step involves identifying the real-life problem that needs to be solved and formulating it in a way that allows you to generate potential solutions.

Generation of alternative solutions: This stage involves coming up with various potential solutions to the problem at hand. The goal in this step is to brainstorm options to creatively address the life stressor in ways that you may not have previously considered.

Decision-making strategies: This stage involves discussing different strategies for making decisions as well as identifying obstacles that may get in the way of solving the problem at hand.

Solution implementation and verification: This stage involves implementing a chosen solution and then verifying whether it was effective in addressing the problem.

Other techniques your therapist may go over include:³

Problem-solving multitasking, which helps you learn to think clearly and solve problems effectively even during times of stress

Stop, slow down, think, and act (SSTA), which is meant to encourage you to become more emotionally mindful when faced with conflict

Healthy thinking and imagery, which teaches you how to embrace more positive self-talk while problem-solving

 

 

Ans 5 Distributive negotiation

Distributive negotiation is the process of dividing up the pie of value in negotiation. Distributive negotiation can be thought of as haggling—the back-and-forth exchange of offers, typically price offers, which the late Harvard professor Howard Raiffa referred to as the “negotiation dance.”

The most effective bargainers in a distributive negotiation are often those who spent a lot of time preparing to negotiate. In particular, negotiators should determine their best alternative to a negotiated agreement, or BATNA—what they’ll do if they don’t achieve their goals in the current negotiation. A job seeker might decide to pursue other job openings, for example.

Negotiators also need to assess their reservation point or walk away point—the figure at which they’re indifferent between accepting the deal they negotiated and instead of turning to their BATNA, such as $3,000 for a particular used car.

Bottom of Form

Proven Distributive Negotiation Strategies

The following five strategies from Harvard Business School professors Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman’s

book Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond will help you maximize the amount of value you claim in your negotiations:

Focus on the Other Party’s BATNA and Reservation Value. In addition to determining your own BATNA and reservation value, it is also important to try to estimate the other party’s BATNA and reservation point. When you do so, you can estimate

the zone of possible agreement, or ZOPA—the range of deals that both parties would accept. For example, if you’re willing to spend up to $3,000 on the seller’s used car and believe the seller might be willing to part with it for $2,500, the ZOPA ranges from $2,500 to $3,000. Negotiators who focus on the other party’s BATNA tend to aim higher and capture more value, according to Malhotra and Bazerman.

Avoid Making Unilateral Concessions. Once each party has made an initial offer, avoid the trap of making another concession before your counterpart has reciprocated with one of her own. If the other party won’t match your concession, it may be time for you to bow out of the negotiation and exercise your BATNA.

Be Comfortable with Silence. Negotiators often are inclined to make undue concessions or retract their offer when their

counterpart seems to be taking too long to respond. But keep in mind that your partner’s silence may be strategic, designed to make you uncomfortable and cave in. When you speak when it’s their turn to do so, “you will be paying by the word,” caution the authors of Negotiation Genius.

Label Your Concessions. As human beings, we have an innate tendency to reciprocate the gifts and concessions we receive from others. Due to this powerful norm of reciprocity, we tend to make a concession of our own when offered one by a counterpart in a distributive negotiation. At the same time, to escape such feelings of obligation, negotiators can be motivated to undervalue or overlook one another’s concessions, write Malhotra and Bazerman. For this reason, it is important in distributive bargaining to draw attention to your concessions by labelling them. That is, clarify how costly the concession

will be to you and make it clear that you’re reluctant to give this value away.

Make Contingent Concessions. To further reduce the ambiguity of your concessions, you might explicitly tie your concessions to specific actions by the other party, suggest Malhotra and Bazerman. Make it clear that you will only make your concession if the other party meets your expectations. Here’s an example: “I’m willing to pay more if you can promise me early delivery.” Contingent concessions can not only secure commitments from your counterpart but also broaden the number of issues up for discussion, perhaps transforming a distributive negotiation into an integrative one—creating value in the process.

Ans 10 What is Conflict Negotiation?

Conflict negotiation is the process of resolving a dispute or a conflict permanently, by providing for each sides’ needs, and adequately addressing their interests so that they are satisfied with the outcome.

In many negotiations, both parties are aware of what their interests are, and are willing to engage in a give-and-take process with the other party to come to an agreement. But conflict negotiation often ends with people focusing on either power, rights, or interests.

Exerting your rights or power tends to escalate disputes. But an interest-based conflict negotiation strategy tends to generate greater satisfaction and better working relationships, and is often less expensive. Unfortunately, when we’re feeling angry and wronged, power-based threats and rights-based lawsuits spring to mind. Often, these approaches are aimed at meeting our immediate needs.

Remember, however, in negotiation, your problem is likely the other side’s problem, and vice versa. This knowledge can help improve your conflict negotiation skills. Understanding that your counterpart is motivated to work with you to solve problems can promote conflict negotiation and help you collaborate to avoid worst-case scenarios, such as mortgage foreclosures, damaged reputations, and lawsuits.

The areas where you and your counterpart do not see eye-to-eye are areas of growth and opportunities for value creation. Understanding your differences, you can best work to reconcile them in order to achieve bargaining success. Increasing our respect for views contrary to our own and learning to live with fundamental differences in values and beliefs are themselves laudable goals.

 

 

Ans 8 Objectives and Goals for your Workplace Mentoring Program

The goal of a mentorship program is to accelerate the personal and professional development of mentees. This is achieved by providing mentees with guidance, advice and feedback from mentors with more experience than themselves.

For an organization that's starting a mentoring program, it’s a cost-effective and efficient way to boost employee engagement, strengthen company culture, and increase retention of high potential employees.

Many HR professionals use Together's free mentorship platform to quickly set and manage their mentoring program rather than spending weeks manually matching employees and building out mentoring activities. Our platform makes it simple.

In this article, we're going to unpack some of the most common goals and objectives for workplace mentoring programs. Our hope is that after reading this article, you'll have a clear idea of the purpose behind your program.

Why it's important that you set clear goals for your mentoring program (before launching)

Wendy Axelrod, author of 10 Steps to Successful Mentoring, emphasizes the importance of setting clear mentoring program goals. Our CEO, Matt Reeves interviewed Wendy to understand what successful mentoring programs do differently. Here's clip from their conversation: