Employee counselling is need of the hour

HYDERABAD: With increasing proof that more and more IT professionals are failing to manage their personal and professional lives, an important question that arises is if the tech companies are doing enough towards employee-welfare.

IT companies in the city are not restricted to the major Multi National Corporations but also include many smaller firms operating which pay their employees much lower than their multi-national counterparts. Many of these smaller companies offer salaries as low as `7,000 - `15,000 per month while squeezing out more than eight hours of work per day. This leaves their employees mentally strained and with little time for their families.

It is no surprise then that suicides among both men and women have increased. In a recent case, a woman-employee who killed herself last year following repetitive fights with her husband over financial issues.
Tech experts within the company note that majority of these companies have nothing like an ‘Employee Assistance Program’ which is offered by bigger companies and multi-nationals. As part of this program, an employee gets anonymous access to psychological counsellors who do not take their issues to the company’s HR department.

While the service is free for the first few sessions, it comes at a nominal rate henceforth.
However, most of the small and medium-sized companies have no counselling services for their employees. In fact many do not even have a visiting counsellor or bi-annual sessions for their employees related to stress management or work-life balance.

“Small and medium sized companies don’t have a lot of help to offer when it comes to managing aspects like these, however we are trying to introduce the concept of Margdarshak among all companies, where employees can go and talk to at least one senior employee about their issues, informally,” noted Bharani Aroll, general secretary, Society for Cyberabad Security Council (SCSC).

Over 244 Margdarshak have been trained, however this program has percolated into 66 big companies while leaving out a major chunk.