#1622 Employee experience EEXP - Clarify wellbeing support responsibilities and remove ambiguous term “counselling” change request pending
“Counselling” is ambiguous in an employment context and can be read in ways that don’t fit this skill - Level 5
Current text (SFIA 9)
“Maintains awareness of the physical and emotional welfare of employees, and provides counselling when required.”
Proposed text
“Maintains awareness of employees’ physical and emotional wellbeing. Provides appropriate support and guidance, and facilitates access to specialist services when appropriate.”
Different interpretations of “Counselling” :
Professional counselling: in the welfare sense it is a qualified discipline with its own training and ethical standards. Expecting Level 5 practitioners to provide it overstates the required competence and creates duty-of-care risk.
Management counselling: in HR usage it often means an informal stage of disciplinary or performance action, which belongs to Performance management, not Employee experience.
Translation and regional variation: equivalents range from general advice to psychological therapy, and in some regions “counselling” implies a documented warning.
The proposed wording describes what is actually intended: supportive engagement, judgement about when specialist help is needed, and enabling access to it.
Proposed change applies to Employee experience
Current status of this request: pending