Abstract:
Stress in the workplace has been affecting the performance of employees in health
institutions by leading to absenteeism, high employee turnover, poor employee-client
relationships and poor productivity. There is no empirical evidence on whether
counselling programs in Kenyan county hospitals have been effective in dealing with
these challenges despite the introduction of counselling programs in these hospitals.
The general objective was to investigate the influence of counselling on employee
performance in the health workers in Narok County referral hospital. Specific
objectives being on how disciplinary, personal and career counselling affect the
performance of health workers in Narok County referral hospital. Basing on the
Person-Centered Approach, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Social Efficacy
Theories, the research took a descriptive research design whereby the researcher
sampled 303 employees with a sample of 91 respondents sampled by stratified
random sampling. The data collection was done by questionnaires and interviews
and analyzed with the help of the descriptive statistics, correlation and regression.
The results showed that personal counselling influenced employee performance
significantly in a positive way (r = 0.563; p = 0.014) whereas disciplinary
counselling described 46.3% of the performance change. There was also a positive
relationship between career counselling and better staff motivation and commitment.
Overall, counselling interventions improved time management, teamwork, and
employee-client relations as well as service delivery. The research finds counselling
to be very important in reducing stress related inefficiency and enhancing employee
performance in healthcare. It suggests the need to institutionalize and enhance
counselling programs, make them available to all health professionals and to
incorporate them in the human resource policies of hospitals.
Keywords: Disciplinary Counseling, Personal Counseling, Career Counseling,
Employee Performance
