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The National Employment Counseling Association (NECA) is pleased to announce the 2001 NECA Workshop that will be held on 3/15/01-3/16/01 at the Marriott River Center Hotel in San Antonio, Texas. We are excited about the variety of interesting topics that will be covered and the numerous good speakers who will be presenting at the workshop.
The theme for the two-day workshop this year is "Employment Counseling At It's Best: Celebrating the Human Spirit." The following agenda items are provided for your information: San Antonio Workshop Agenda
You can get more information about NECA, the upcoming workshop and pre-registration online at www.employmentcounseling.org You will not want to miss this opportunity to have access to information that can keep you knowledgeable and current with employment counseling issues.
As your President, I look forward to meeting you and welcoming you to our Workshop. If you have any questions, please contact me or our Workshop Chair Dr. Mary Ann Radebach at mradebach@msn.com. See you in San Antonio!
While we employment counselors surely have a feel for what we do, it is important that we understand it factually, and can document it fully, so we are able to convey to potential corporate clients and government representatives what we offer, why they need us, and why they might be ill-equipped to provide it themselves. One facet of this is a thorough understanding of where the corporate managers themselves typically fail, and what exactly the difference is between coaching and counseling.
Let's take a look at the first prong of this two pronged issue - what we offer and why they need us. Leo Robert, in "Career Counseling Works for Employers, too", states: "When managers invest time in developing employees, they are keeping intellectual capital in-house. Career counseling and career development will communicate to employees that the organization cares about their career and future." In other words, career counseling is a key tool in that all-important process of employee retention.
Why hire an outside career counselor? Mary Shurtleff and Steve McKenzie, in their SHRM white paper, answer this query: "Many managers are not good counselors," they state emphatically. "Those managers who lack knowledge of the proper counseling process tend to view counseling as having a 'heart to heart' talk on one end of the spectrum to telling someone to 'shape up or ship out' on the other. The managers who want to avoid being the 'bad guy' may tend to deny that a problem exists or operate from a position of conflict avoidance. In either case, the manager hopes the problem goes away on its own."
Shurtleff and McKenzie offer their definition of career counseling: "Effective counseling is not 'doing' something to someone. It is helping a person do something to herself for herself. Effective counseling will cause a person to change her behavior not because she has to, but because she wants to." Hear what the Department of the Army's Civilian Personnel office has to say: "Career counseling is the method by which you explain the career development process and help the employee identify career goals and career plans. Career development begins and success depends on effective career counseling."
Finally, the by-laws of the National Employment Counseling Association defines Employment Counseling as the process whereby an employment counselor and counselee work together in order that the latter may gain better self-understanding and knowledge of the world of work and more realistically choose, change, or adjust to a vocation. This assistance is provided so that the counselee is helped to (a) recognize the problems involved, (b) make effective, satisfying decisions, and (c) select an appropriate kind of work or developmental task. In helping a counselee gain better understanding of self in relation to the world of work, the counselor may use both individual and group counseling methods and techniques.
The following chart, taken from "A Sounding Board in Cyberspace," Fortune, September 28, 1998, clarifies and organizes the differences between counseling and coaching:
Career Counseling Coaching Typically short-term… in response to a particular issue (i.e. self-assessment, occupational exploration, resume critique, job/assignment evaluation, etc.) Typically long-term… weekly meetings to review progress. Often requires a commitment of two months or longer. Pay as you go. Rates are per hour comparable to coaching. Locked in at specified rate for a set period of time. Rates per hour comparable to career counseling. Limited E-mail follow-up. Regular and encouraged Email follow-up during retention period. Frequently regulated by state government Currently, no regulation of activity Credentials include a Master's degree in counseling, psychology, social work, or related field. Grounded in counseling technique and tools including listening and facilitation skills as well as testing and assessment. Blended experience based on credentials and past work. Varied professional and philosophical backgrounds. Depending on desired approach, this may be a boon or a bane. Focus on Career, vocational, as well as work/life issues and balance. Broader focus. In addition to career related offerings, some coaches cover personal wellness, nutritional advice, interpersonal relationships at home and image makeovers.
While my research into a variety of credentialing processes indicates coaching does not require a degree, I discovered that of twenty career coaches seven were degreed: three with career counseling degrees; one with a BS in Education; two Banking and Finance degrees; and one Economics degree. I don't know why a degreed counselor would want to obtain specific credentials in the coaching area, except to obtain the marketing and promotion offerings from those establishments. Stan Gibson, in his PC Week article "Hey, You! Get Back in the Game!" describes coaching as "similar to mentoring in the communication of information. "Yet," he clarifies, "coaches can not take the place of a good mentor. A mentor can also be a role model. A life coach cannot."
The Department of the Army's Civilian Personnel Office provides a supervisory guide with their own take on the coaching vs. counseling issue: "Coaching is the personal activity of the supervisor," they write. "It is a learning process involving a teacher-student relationship between the supervisor and the employee. Coaching involves creating opportunities on the job to help an individual overcome weakness and improve knowledge and skills. Coaching requires mentoring the individual's performance, with the coach pointing out where and how the employee could improve performance. Coaching provides an opportunity to use knowledge and skills…while counselors listen more and are more concerned with attitudes, feelings and motivation than action."
One personal thought - While there are those who suggest counseling can happen by phone, I believe this to be problematic. I am convinced this imposes serious limitations on the counseling process. You, the counselor may, for instance, fail to see some base issues: i.e., bad breath or body odor that is changing how people interact with your client; Additionally, I would find it difficult to confront a client over the phone about a personal issue that may impact her or his work life. What may be deemed a personal attack on the phone and could result in a hang-up by the client could be handled far better in person, where you the counselor can see the reaction and assist with the transition to the new behavior.
In summation, we as career counselors offer our corporate employer clients the opportunity to retain vital key employees by offering short-term professional career and vocational guidance leading to a high level of employee career self-reliance. To recruit and retain vital employees, savvy employers will retain professional career counselors.
Endnote: This article was prepared in response to a corporate client request for information (client considering consolidation to cut their budget and resort to phone counseling).
One-stop staff who share confidential customer information without authorization and administer and interpret tests my be breaching ethical codes, say workforce experts. There are new staffers working in one-stops and many haven't been trained in how to handle some of these issues, said officials.
To confront any possible problems before they occur, state officials in Wisconsin have included a module on ethics in state training programs for local one-stop staff. Professional workforce development and counseling associations have also addressed the subject in their standards of conduct. Individuals running the resource rooms and receptions areas need to be professionally trained in ethics. Many of these individuals are volunteers or program personnel who have been dropped into the situation and may not know what to do, said Roger Gantzarow, director of counseling and testing for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. "It would be great if every staff person had a college degree in the field or was certified as a career development facilitator, but that's not the case," he added.
Gantzarow often refers to the Ethical Standards for Career Development Facilitators guide from the Center for Credentialing and Education, as well as the ethical standards of the American Counseling Association when training staff throughout the state.
Concerning tests and assessments, staff should adhere to the requirement laid out by the test publishers as to who may administer and interpret the tests, and what qualifications are needed. When staff members deviate from those guidelines, the possibility arises that they are providing the wrong information and may be the target of a lawsuit, said Gantzarow. Several widely used tools require that staff meet certain qualifications, he added.
Individuals must be certified to administer and interpret the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test. Any individual may be trained to meet the requirements for administering the General Aptitude Test Battery, however, there are minimum qualifications for interpreting the results, such as 30-plus upper-level university credits in counseling and test administration. The Career Occupational Preference System Interest Inventory is easy to administer and doesn't require a lot of training, but staff should be trained in test interpretation. The Self Directed Search job match and interest tool is another simple test to administer, but interpreters should have a background in counseling, education or psychology, Gantzarow added.
Workforce development staff can find out the exact requirements for the administration of more than 2,000 tests through the Mental Measurements Yearbook from the University of Nebraska's Buros Institute. The multivolume work offers an "unbiased review" of the pitfalls, norms, reliability and validity of tests, said Gantzarow. Local staff can likely find it in the reference area of their local libraries. The Employment and Training Administration also offers a useful resource, Testing and Assessment: An Employer's Guide to Good Practices, that was released in 1999, he added.
When there is doubt about the requirements, staffers should just say "no" even though their supervisor wants them to administer or interpret tests, he said. Indeed, telling clients incorrectly that they did not perform well enough or failed can have a real impact on their getting a job or changing careers. "Clients and customers can sue staff for giving false information," he added. Confidentiality and the need for customer privacy is also an issue. Sharing or releasing information without a client's consent can leave staff open to lawsuits. Customer interviews, for example, should not take place in resource areas or waiting rooms, but in rooms that offer privacy. Staff at a center's welcome desk or reception area should steer clients to private rooms. Again, when in doubt take precautions, said Gantzarow. "With so many workers' rights laws and the individual nature of problems that arise, often it makes more sense for frontline staff to refer questions to state offices," said Marilyn Putz, director of the Walworth County Job Center office in Elkhorn, Wis. "We want the customers to get the right information," she said.
The sharing of customer information among one-stop partners could be a problem, she noted. However, her center has a policy in place forbidding one-stop partners from copying information from other partners' forms as well as a policy of never duplicating forms. Customers have to sign a release form before information is shared, said Putz.
Outsourcing testing and assessments also avoids the problems of staff giving the wrong test or assessment, she said. If a staffer finds that a customer needs some type of evaluation beyond the initial assessment, then the customer is referred to the local technical college or other providers that are equipped to perform in-depth testing and assessments. The center will also purchase test instruments that are returned for evaluation. Obtaining reliable results from testing frequently requires that staff members have advanced degrees. Most one-stop career centers are designed for self-service and don't have that kind of personnel, said Putz.
The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals is in the middle of revising its code of professional ethics, and the draft specifically addresses customer confidentiality. Overall, NAWDP members pledge to "respect and safeguard the customer's right to privacy by promoting confidentiality in gathering, recording, storing and sharing personal and sensitive customer information."
"The confidentiality issue has been magnified mostly because of the rising number of partners in one-stops," said C. Paul Mendez, executive director of NAWDP. "Overall, it's a training and awareness issue, that staff know they don't chat about customers in the employee lounge."
The NAWDP draft also says that management should not "require or encourage staff to take on work assignments for which they are not prepared or competent unless training and/or direct supervision is provided."
One of the goals of the one-stop system is to have all the staff cross-trained so that everyone can assist customers, Mendez added. However, professionals should politely resist performing work for which they are not trained and are not competent to do. "It's not that that staff would be considered uncooperative, it's just that it is a professional responsibility," he said. For instance, staff who aren't familiar with the intricacies of the earned income tax credit should not be explaining it. A staff member without proper training should not be leading a job search workshop. The issue of competency also applies to the concept of customer service - that customers and the community expect to and should receive the highest level of service, he added.
The rise of the Internet and intranet systems and their use by one-stop partners has also spawned another set of concerns. There should be levels of security in the office and the one-stop system software, Mendez added.
Indeed, the American Counseling Association released guidelines last year establishing standards for the use of electronic communications over the Internet. One-on-one counseling should only be done through secure Web sites or e-mail applications using encryption technology that prohibits access by third parties. Counselors should provide only general information over sites that are not secure, noted the guidelines.
Of course, it almost goes without saying that dating and sexual relationships between staffers and customers is usually verboten, the workforce officials noted.
Christopher Maloney
EMPLOYMENT & TRAINING REPORTER
Volume 32, No. 14
WI Dept. of Workforce Development
P.O. Box 7946
Madison, WI 53707-7946
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