A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COUNSELING SKILLS AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN THE HEALTH SECTOR

Festus Uwakhemen A. PhD

May 9, 2023

Background of the Study

All over the world, it has become a common trend to position guidance counselors in organizations, especially medical facilities, to develop an actively mental population and ensure that people in society have improved inter-personal relationships. This is orchestrated by the fact that several millions of people are struggling with mental health issues. Many of these challenges are aggravated by lack of audience, depressive thoughts, and accumulated silence over a long time. (Matliwala, 2013) According to Shalcross (2013), many developed and developing economies of the world are setting up counseling as a discipline and have found ways of integrating the ethics of social justice and rights advocacy as part of this process. These setups have now made the art of counseling become a globally recognized career path with immense benefits and prospects. Therefore, it becomes imperative that pre-programmed and pre-designed skill sets are infused into the art and act of counseling to ensure its effectiveness, putting contemporary global challenges and socio-economic discrepancies into consideration.

Description of the Subject

The concept of counseling skills is based on the premise of counseling and skill implementation. In essence, counseling can be described as the process of rendering help to individuals or a collective group of individuals who are in need of self-realization. On the other hand, skill set are intellectual techniques learned over time to increase work effectiveness. According to Curry (2007), counseling skills are interpersonal or technical techniques that counselors use to give assistance to people passing through challenging personal issues to drive them towards happiness. Counseling skills are important requirements for medical practitioners, psychologists, and professionals who deal with human behavior and people management issues.

Career development can be seen as a congenial aspect of occupation and personnel management for cooperate organizations and even small enterprises as firms ensure that their human resource personnel is equipped personally and career-wise to ensure the enhancement of the business goals of the firms as well as to enhance the profitability and viability of the firm. In the medical sector, industrial professionals arm themselves with career development goals and programs. Hence, several skill sets are acquired during their professional careers to enable them to meet up with the industry’s challenges. Hence, for medical practitioners, psychologists, and people management workers, a necessary skill required for their occupation and career advancement is the acquisition and implementation of counseling skills.

Counseling Skill- A 21^st Century Soft Skill

The trend of globalization and the digital divide has created the need for soft skills in contemporary times. These skills are mainly formed out of the personal characters and attributes that we possess. They enable us to interrelate with others from a mental rather than merely physical point of view. According to the WHO (2006) and cited by Alexander & Winne (2006), soft skills, also known as life skills, are described as ability-driven potentials inclined towards positivity in behavior that arms individuals with the capacity to face the challenging demands posed by daily living. Soft skills encompass psycho-social potentials in conjunction with interrelation capabilities, which gives individuals and career professionals the capacity to provide solutions to challenging problems, relate with people exquisitely, develop and manage healthy and profitable relationships, and play the role of leaders and team builders. According to Ndum & Onukwugha (2013), all of these capacities are embedded in counseling skills; hence, it is tagged as a soft skill required by career professionals, especially those in the healthcare and people management sectors, to advance their careers and make informed decisions regarding their societal relevance. The need for counseling skills as a soft skill is due to the regular trends of structural changes in work climates and increased information processing across the world occasioned by information technology and the digital economy (Seale, 2019). Implementing counseling skills by career professionals in the field of guidance and counseling is now seen as a new normal, especially for those who intend to develop their careers and be more effective in their job responsibilities. In early times, the industry focused on the technical know-how involved in counseling, which emphasized note-taking, record-keeping, and information recall. Today, the changing nature of the world and world system necessitates adopting soft counseling skills of empathy, self-awareness, confidentiality, and active listening as skill sets required by counselors and other career professionals in the medical sector. Counselors are naturally seen as having the personality of being helpers, with a great deal of willingness to assist others through resourceful advice and unbiased guidance. (Worth, 2004; Swirsky, 2017). Also, according to Lambie & Williamson (2006), the numerous on-the-job hazards faced by counselors and career professionals who do counseling as part of their routine work also prompts the need for the adoption of soft counseling skills to weather the storms without any personal emotional frailty. These job hazards are occasioned by imbalanced case files, low job social status, and issues in compensation administration. They could adversely affect the positive effectiveness of a counselor’s career paths.

The Counseling Process and Skills for Counseling

According to Maddux (2010), the counseling process is a two-way inter-communication exchange leading to the movement or transfer of emotional aura from the counselor to the person being counseled, who can also be called a client, since the counselor is being paid for service rendered. This process involves the counselor using various techniques and tactics to effortlessly pass information in the form of communication with clients, employing a feedback mechanism.

The techniques employed during the counseling process are called counseling skills, and they include active listening (the application of eye contact, face language, and gesticulation to imply focus and engagement with respect to the information released by the other party) as well as questioning or probing skill (which according to Ndum & Onukwugha (2013) serves as a way for the counselor to properly interpret the information emanating from the lips of the clients, as well as better apply deep thinking into solving personal problems) Other skills tagged as counseling skills according to McLeod & McLeod (2011) includes efficient communication, ability to takes notes, organizational skills, time management skill, proper record keeping, high level of confidentiality, amongst others.

Theories and Empirical Evidence of Counseling Skills

Several theoretical models and postulations can be used to support the premise of the applicability of counseling skills and their impact on the career development of professionals in the health care sector of the United States. One of these theories is the theory of positive psychology as propounded by Hughes & Gration (2009) and further investigated by Magyar-Moe, Owens, &Scheel (2015), which alludes to the optimal and exceptional functioning of the human mind and how these functionalities can help improve the livelihood of individuals and communities. With this theoretical postulation, counselors who are equipped with counseling skills are seen as not just people helpers but as nation builders, since the effect of their counseling sessions reverberates through the actions and interpersonal relationship of individuals undergoing counsels and guidance, and these actions are directly or indirectly transmitted into the communities where they are domiciled. The premise of positive psychology is derived from the fact that humans are internally gifted with talents and potentials. When channeled positively, these potentials can lead to self-actualization and fulfillment of purpose for the individual. The strengths of positive psychology can be seen in the form of positive human virtues and character disposition which includes integrity, humility, high self-esteem, self-confidence, gratitude, and self-efficacy, all of which can be strengthened and fortified in the character disposition of an individual when counseling skills are vehemently instituted into the career operational status and working tools of guidance counselors and other professionals who have active involvement in counseling.

Several researchers have created studies leading to investigating results related to counseling skills. For instance, Masdonati, Massoudi & Rossier (2009) initiated a study that analyzed the theoretical underpinnings of the various forms of counseling skills and how they contribute to the enhancement of guidance counselors in various organizations. Likewise, he observed the relationship that exists between counseling skills and career development programs and goals. This study shows substantial links connecting various counseling skills of listening, comprehension, questioning, taking notes, interpreting, and self-awareness and empathy to the rate of career development trend experienced by human resource personnel. In the same vein, the work of McNulty &Fincham (2012) indicated the effectiveness of various counseling skills, and their level of applicability in solving problems rose during counseling sessions. According to CfBT (2020), career development of professionals in the health sector of developing economies is greatly affected by the adoption of high-level communication skills into the occupation of counseling and guidance.

In the same vein, a research work by Challoner and Papayianni (2018) analyzed the role of formulation as a critical counseling skill utilized by counselors and psychologists to effectively guide medical interventions and procedures done through therapy.

Target Audience

For this current study at hand, the target audience is the active working population of the United States located within its health sector, especially those working as medical personnel, paramedics, and guidance counselors in cooperate organizations and small businesses and local business units.

METHODS

To collect data needed for this study, a survey generated through the internet was implemented to acquire quantitative data that served as the study’s primary data. The survey would include basic demographic information about the respondents and the questionnaire to get responses based on the study’s variables of counseling skills and career development. Secondary data sources will come in the form of research works, magazines, journals, online articles, academic research papers, seminars, textbooks, published and unpublished works. Simple regression analysis was used to test the relationship between counseling skills and career development, which are the two variables of the study. The analyzed data was presented in the form of descriptive statistics in a frequency distribution, mainly tables, with the use of SPSS Version 21 software for data analysis and computation.

RESULTS

RESPONDENTS’ DEMOGRAPHY

TABLE 1: DEMOGRAPHY OF RESPONDENTS’ SEX

Which gender type do you belong to?

Gender
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Male	42	52.5	52.5	52.5
	Female	38	47.5	47.5	100.0
	Total	80	100.0	100.0

Source: (Researcher’s Field Survey, 2021)

TABLE 2: RESPONDENTS’ AGE RANGE

Which age range do you belong to?

Age
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	20- 30	40	50.0	50.0	50.0
	31-40	31	38.8	38.8	88.8
	41-49	9	11.3	11.3	100.0
	Total	80	100.0	100.0

Source: (Researcher’s Field Survey, 2021)

The table also shows that 13% of the respondents are between the ages of 16 and 19 years, 37% are 20 to 23 years, 38% are between 24 and 27 years, while the remaining 12% are 28 years and above.

TABLE 3: RESPONDENTS EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION

Which of the following is your academic qualification?

Educational qualification
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	OND	7	8.8	8.8	8.8
	HND	10	12.5	12.5	21.3
	BSC	50	62.5	62.5	83.8
	MSC	3	3.8	3.8	87.5
	PHD	10	12.5	12.5	100.0
	Total	80	100.0	100.0

Source: (Researcher’s Field Survey, 2021)

Table 3 indicates that 8.8% of the respondents are polytechnic diploma holders, 12.5% are Higher National Diploma holders, 62.5% are university degree holders, 3.8% are Masters Degree holders, while the remaining 12.5% are Doctorate Degree holders. We can infer from this investigation that the respondents have high educational status; hence their responses would be highly educative and useful for academic work.

TABLE 4: RESPONDENTS LEVEL OF WORK EXPERIENCE

Which of the following is your level of work experience?

Years of experience with Current Establishment
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	1-10yrs	56	70.0	70.0	70.0
	11-20yrs	20	25.0	25.0	95.0
	21-above	4	5.0	5.0	100.0
	Total	80	100.0	100.0

Source: (Researcher’s Field Survey, 2021)

Below is a tabular summary of the descriptive statistics for the respondents

Statistics
		Marital Status	Gender	Religion	Age
N	Valid	80	80	80	80
N	Missing	0	0	0	0
Mean		1.48	1.48	1.25	1.61
Median		1.00	1.00	1.00	1.50
Std. Deviation		.595	.503	.436	.684