Perception of workplace counselling by non-academic staff at the university of Zambia.

Abstract

The study sought to assess the necessity of workplace counselling among non academic workers at the University of Zambia. The study was guided by three objectives which were: to establish how non academic workers at UNZA perceive workplace counselling; the second one was to establish the counselling needs of non academic workers at the University of Zambia and the third being to find out how workplace counselling can help non academic workers at the UNZA. The study used the descriptive research design. This involved the use of quantitative and qualitative data collection. The study used questionnaires to gather information from non academic staff at the institution and an interview guide to gather information from the Heads of Department. The population was 80 while the total number of questionnaires distributed was70 and the interview guide was administered to 10 Heads of Department. The study found that the workers at the institution were of the view that workplace counselling was a necessity to workers at a workplace and had an understating of what workplace counselling meant. They cited a lot of benefits of the workplace counselling when administered or offered to workers properly such improving their lives of the workers and creating a conducive work environment. Workers at the University of Zambia expressed concerns at the lack of publicity by Management, poor advertising coupled by poor marketing strategy by the Counselling Centre which leads to workers not accessing the services despite have several needs that needed help by the counsellors. The University of Zambia Management should work at sensitizing the masses at the point of entry for all categories of staff not to non academic staff only because the study established that even the academic staff had no idea as to whether the counselling centre which was established at the institution catered for both the workers and the students. By so doing some of the work related problems could be dealt with by the centre in order to improve work performance other than what is prevailing at the moment where workers rely on peer counselling.