On Being a Chameleon – A Freelance Workplace Counsellor's Perspective

On Being a Chameleon – A Freelance Workplace Counsellor's Perspective

When asked to write a chapter on a freelance workplace counsellor's perspective of his/her work, my creativity and imagination ran wild and a number of possible titles came to mind: ‘Workplace Counselling – How Not To Do It’, ‘So You Think You're Ready To Offer Workplace Counselling?’, and even ‘If Only I Knew Then What I Know Now’. These alternative chapter titles capture something of my journey as a workplace counsellor: I learned how not to do it before discovering how best to do it; I was not quite ready to start when I did; and of course, in hindsight, I have gained so much from workplace counselling that I would never begin where I did, if I had my time again. In opting for the title above I hope to capture all of these elements and indicate how the ‘chameleon’ image reflects the many ‘colours’ of the freelance workplace counsellor, and the varied roles and the multiple relationships involved. Just as chameleons change colour to blend into their environment, so freelance workplace counsellors take on the colour and hue of the context in which they work. For workplace counsellors, this demands an adaptability and versatility characteristic of chameleons.

This chapter is practical by nature and outlines the perspective of the hands-on freelance practitioner. It contains a collection of hints and tips, some ideas on what to build into the training of workplace counsellors, and examples of challenges, as well as those ‘aha!’ or BFO (blinding flashes of the obvious) moments which landed on me as if from nowhere. But first, a few words about me and my journey to becoming a freelance workplace counsellor.

Over the last six years I have worked in a range of counselling settings. In 1990, I began working as a consultant in a human resources consultancy, providing training and counselling services to well-known public and private sector organizations. Unusually for consultancies, I was recruited as a trainee Counsellorfrainer and I learned my job uniquely through ‘doing’, rather than with limited instruction or training. I now know this to be the stage of ‘unconscious incompetence’ in Maslow's learning model, where ‘I didn't know what I didn't know’ (or blissful ignorance). So I found myself providing outplacement counselling before I understood how different ‘outplacement’ was from ‘placement’. It was easy to confuse the two as I was at times working as part of a counselling team in an in-house support centre, where a company (of up to 2,000 employees) was closing a site. The counsellors’ task [Page 58]was to help individuals develop CVs and ‘market’ themselves. Sometimes, this involved direct contact with potential employers, hence the confusion at times with ‘placement’. In our spare time on site, we were also helping individuals to deal with any emotions that they were experiencing as they looked for other jobs. Bear in mind that many companies fail to recognize both the personal upheaval and the strong feelings of loss that redundancy can bring on.

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