Counselling

As observed in the Inception Report stress, depression and anxiety contribute to 11.8 million employees days lost in 2010 and 13.3 million days lost in 2011. The treatment of such sicknesses involves a combination of medicine, talking therapy and self help. The RMC centre aims to decrease the number of employees days lost due to stress, depression and anxiety by remotely connecting employees with practitioners capable of prescribing appropriate medications and providing an onsite counselling through video conferencing. Counselling can be described as a communication therapy, which enables a person to talk about their problems and feelings in a confidential environment (NHS, 2012). The RMC counselling aims to help employees conquer problems that are causing pain or making them feel uncomfortable. Counselling can be used to treat depression, anxiety, long term illness, Borderline Personality disorder, post traumatic stress and many more. The RMC centre provides a separate mental health section as shown in Fig (Emilios drawing of room), which enables a safe confidential environment for the employee to discuss and explore complicated emotions. The room also uses high definition video conferencing system which allows the counsellor and the employee to communicate remotely by simultaneous two way video and audio transmission. The video conference system provides resolution of up 1080p at 30fps with speed up of to 1024kbps. This captures perfectly the expression and gestures of both participants, due to the enhanced colour depth and high quality sound. The counsellor would receive clear video imaging of the employees facial expressions and gestures, which are vital for the communication of the employees emotional needs. The noise free environment created by high quality sound being transmitted to both participants combined with the high video refresh rate, allows the creation of an uninterrupted social presence between the counsellor and the employee. This makes the employee feel more comfortable, hence more willing to talk about complex issues.

Benefits of Counselling
The number of people applying for compensation claims due to work related stress has increased, as stress related cases increased from 516 in 2001 to 6,428 in 2002 (Dyer, 2009). However, employers offering confidential counselling at work give their organisation protection against employees compensation claims. According to a research carried out by McLeod over 90% of employees who use workplace counselling are highly satisfied, and level of work related stress decreases by more than 50% after

counselling. Counselling helps to provide employees with work satisfaction and more importantly it has been recorded to reduce sickness absence rate in organisations by 25 to 50% (McLeod, 2001). Providing counselling at work also takes pressure away from managers by providing constructive means of dealing with difficult staff situation. Furthermore, it improves the reputation of the organisation as investing on your employees well being also improves the organisation quality of service.

Counsellor Job profile