Oputa, Ebele Rose

EFFECTS OF WORKPLACE COUNSELLING ON JOB COMMITMENT, PRODUCTIVITY AND RETENTION AMONG CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEES IN NIGERIA’S TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

OPUTA, EBELE ROSE

2014

EFFECTS OF WORKPLACE COUNSELLING ON JOB COMMITMENT, PRODUCTIVITY AND RETENTION AMONG CALLL CENTRE EMPLOYEES IN NIGERIA’S TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

BY OPUTA, EBELE ROSE

NCE (ENGLISH/RELIGION) COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, ABRAKA (1984) B. A. Ed (ENGLISH) DELTA STATE UNIVERSITY, ABRAKA (1998) M. Ed (GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING) UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS (2004)

A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS (WITH EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY) SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D) IN GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS

FEBRUARY, 2014

APPROVAL

THIS RESEARCH WORK HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS, FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS

………………………………… ….……………….. DR. I. P. NWADINIGWE DATE SUPERVISOR

………………………………… ….……………….. DR. M. B. UBANGHA DATE SUPERVISOR

………………………………… ….……………….. PROF. G. C. ILOGU DATE HEAD DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS (WITH EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY)

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SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS

CERTIFICATION This is to certify that the Thesis “EFFECTS OF WORKPLACE COUNSELLING ON JOB COMMITMENT, PRODUCTIVITY AND RETENTION AMONG CALL CENTRE EMPLOYEES IN NIGERIA’S TELECOMMUINCATIONS INDUSTRY”

Submitted to the School of Postgraduate Studies University of Lagos

for the award of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D) is a record of original research carried out

By OPUTA, ROSE EBELE in the Department of Educational Foundations (with Psychology)

……………………………..... …………………… ……………….. AUTHOR’S NAME SIGNATURE DATE

……………………………..... …………………… ……………….. 1ST SUPERVISOR’S NAME SIGNATURE DATE

……………………………..... …………………… ……………….. 2ND SUPERVISOR’S NAME SIGNATURE DATE

……………………………..... …………………… ……………….. 1ST INTERNAL EXAMINER SIGNATURE DATE ……………………………..... …………………… ……………….. 2ND INTERNAL EXAMINER SIGNATURE DATE

……………………………..... …………………… ……………….. EXTERNAL EXAMINER SIGNATURE DATE ……………………………..... …………………… ……………….. SPGS REPRESENTATIVE SIGNATURE DATE

DEDICATION

This Research Work is Dedicated to Almighty God: My Saviour, My Guide,

My Guard, My Wisdom and My All

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Glory to God Almighty for the great things he has done in my life. He alone gave credence to my very essence and the success of this research work. All support, care and love that I received in the course of my education came from Him. I thank God for the opportunity to undertake and complete what He and I started together. I am grateful to Him for making my Ph.D a reality.

My profound gratitude goes to my two supervisors, Dr. I. P. Nwadinigwe and Dr. M. B. Ubangha for their encouragement. Their strict instructions and guidance led to the completion of this work. I am forever grateful to them.

I appreciate my fatherly Head of Department, Professor G. C. Ilogu for his quiet but persistent encouragement and his brotherly concern for my success. I am especially thankful to Prof. (Mrs.) A. M. Olusakin, my ever smiling and tireless teacher, friend and sister for her prayers and encouragement. To my most respectable Dr. (Mrs.) O. M. Alade, I am grateful for her good counsel. Her advice gave me wisdom that brought polish to this work. Thank you. Throughout the research process, my indefatigable lecturers were available to mentor, coach and motivate me; prodding me on with such gentleness and sometimes strictness that encouraged me. I am grateful to God for providing such good people as my lecturers – Prof. (Mrs.) Osarenren, Prof. (Mrs.) Omoegun, Dr. C. E. Okoli, Dr. (Mrs.) B. Makinde, Dr. (Mrs.) I. I. Abe, Dr. S. Aletan, Dr. S. Oni and Rev. (Fr.) F. M. Isichei. I pray that God Almighty will bless you all abundantly.

The non-academic staff of my department were also helpful: Mrs. Shade Adefila (for her support and good will), Mrs. Kehinde Ogunlabi (for her sisterly advice), Madam J. Sobande and their colleagues. I thank Mr. Onoka of the Department of Science & Technology Education for his expert advice during some of my presentations. My sincere appreciation goes to the managers and supervisors of the call centres where I carried out the research work. I thank my bosom friend Bernard Ameh for giving me access to MTN and Globacom. I am also grateful to Peter Nwaeke (MTN), Helen Owuasu-Akinola (MTN), Mercy Alex (Globacom) and Ekah Nsia (Visafone) for their support in their different centres. My special thanks go to all the call centre

vi employees of these companies who agreed to participate in this study. It was their resilience that got the results for this study. God bless them all richly. I am sincerely grateful to my three field assistants whose competence and meticulousness aided my data collection and collation. I appreciate my colleagues on the Ph.D programme: Dr. Favour Nwolisa for her prayers and strong words of encouragement (her consistency kept me focused), Dr. Akin Akinteye for his comradeship (his not ever getting discouraged was a strong point for me), Dr. Johnson Fakorede, Dr. Ijeoma Aneke, Dr. Stella Anyama, Dr. Bamidele, Mrs. Atuegbu, Mrs. Babatola, Mrs. Obadere-Akpata, Mrs. Nkechi Iwuagwu, Mrs. Ify Madueke and all other Ph.D students in the department. I also humbly offer my encouragement to my peers not to relent but to push on and achieve their target. To my friends, I say thank you. They supported me in different ways throughout this work: Bola Andrew-Bello (you are a friend and sister indeed), Emmanuel Sunday, Oghenekevwe Odejeh, Jacob Tofio and Chiedu Olu (your contribution is not quantifiable), David Bedgood (never failed to buy me any book I requested), Paul Nicholson (for your PUSH-PUSH philosophy), Adewuyi Adeyanju and Uche Uwah (my IT specialists), Femi Ariba, Toyin Lolu-Ogunmade, Francis Akpomedaye, Benedict Iheukwumere, Henry Ajayi, Oliver Ogbuonye, Israel James (made my life easier), Kato Tabara (for his strong support for this work and for me) and Mrs. Kumbi Oke (my ever smiling prayerful neighbour). Special thanks to Bassey U. for his friendship, constructive criticisms, gentle prodding, insightful comments and careful editing that made my work richer. I am really grateful for those kind words and works and laughter from you all that lifted my heart and kept me going. God bless you all.

My greatest appreciation is to my family: my sister Adaobi Larry-Agugor (my best friend, comrade and supporter); my sister Ngozi Owuasu for her constant prayers; and my brothers Ifeanyichukwu and Azubuike Oputa for their love, support and care. God‘s gift to me is Chiedozie Olu, my friend, companion and confidant. I appreciate his love, strength, advice, prayers and the quiet and peaceful support that gave me peace of mind and kept me focused to achieve success. God bless you in every way. EBELE ROSE OPUTA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page i - ii Approval iii Certification iv Dedication v Acknowledgements vi - vii Table of Contents viii - x List of tables xi - xii List of figures xiii List of appendices xiv Abstract xv

Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Background to the study 1 – 13 1.2 Statement of the problem 13 – 17 1.3 Theoretical Framework 17 – 44 1.4 Purpose of the study 44 - 45 1.5 Research Questions 45 1.6 Research Hypotheses 46 1.7 Significance of the study 46 – 47 1.8 Scope of the study 48 1.9 Limitations of the study 48 1.10 Operational Definition of Terms 49 – 51

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Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1 The meaning and significance of Workplace Counselling 53 – 62

2.2 History of Counselling in the Workplace and its Impact in 62 – 81 America, United Kingdom, Malaysia: Lessons for Nigeria

2.3 Workplace Counselling and Employee Commitment 81 – 93

2.4 Workplace Counselling and Employee Productivity 93 – 102

2.5 Workplace Counselling and Employee Retention 102 – 111

2.6 Demographic Factors Affecting Employee Commitment, Productivity and Retention in Telecommunications Industry: 111 – 127 Gender, Age, Qualification, Professionalism/Course of Study and Organizational Tenure

2.7 Studies in Gestalt Therapy 127 – 136

2.8 The Place of Workplace Counselling in the Curriculum of 136 – 140 Nigeria Universities

2.9 Summary of Reviewed Literature 140 – 142

Chapter Three: Methodology 3.1 The Study Area 143 - 144 3.2 Research Design 144 - 145 3.3 Population 145 3.4 Sample and Sampling Procedure 145 – 148 3.5 Instrumentation 149 – 155 3.6 Reliability and Validity of the Instruments 156 – 159 3.7 Recruitment and Training of Research Assistants 159 – 160 3.8 Procedure for Data Collection 160 – 171 3.9 Method of Data Analysis 171

Chapter Four: Results, Discussion of Findings 4.1 Test of Hypotheses 172 – 198 4.2 Summary of Findings 199 – 200 4.3 Discussion of Findings 200 – 213

Chapter Five: Implications, Recommendations, Suggestions for Further Research, Summary and Conclusion 5.1 Summary of the study 214 – 215 5.2 Conclusion 216 5.3 Implications for Counselling 216 – 217 5.4 Recommendations 217 – 218 5.5 Contributions to knowledge 219 5.6 Suggestions for further research 219 - 220

References 221 – 253

Appendices 254 – 267

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE TITLE PAGE

Table 1 EAP Clients average, Self-ratings- Pre & post EAP Utilization 98

Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Table 2 146 Gender and Age

Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Table 3 147 Gender and Organizational Tenure

Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Table 4 147 Gender and Educational Qualification

Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Table 5 Gender and Course of Study 148

Table 6 Concurrent Validity of Instruments 157

Table 7 Test-Retest Reliability Coefficients of Researcher‘s Three Instruments 158

Descriptive Data on Pre and Post test Scores on Employee Table 8 Commitment due to Experimental Condition, Gender and Experience 173

Analysis of Covariance on Level of Employee Commitment due to Table 9 Experimental Condition, Gender and Organizational Tenure using the 175 Pretest Commitment Scores as Covariate

Table 10 Protected t-test Analysis of the Difference in Commitment due to176 Organizational Tenure

Descriptive Data on Pre and Post test Scores on Employee Table 11 178 Productivity due to Experimental Condition, Gender and Experience

Analysis of Covariance on Level of Employee Productivity due to Table 12 Experimental Condition, Gender and Organizational Tenure using the 180 Pretest Productivity Scores as Covariate

Descriptive Data of Pre and Post Test Employee Retention due to Table 13 182 Experimental Condition, Gender and Experience

Analysis of Covariance on Level of Employee Retention due to Table 14 Experimental Condition, Gender and Organizational Tenure using the 184 Pretest Retention Scores as Covariate

Protected t-test Analysis of the Difference in Retention due to Table 15 186 Organizational Tenure

Means, Standard Deviations and Correlation Matrix between the Table 16 188 Predictor Variables and Employee Commitment

Model Summary of Regression Analysis for the Independent Variables Table 17 189 Predicting Employee Commitment

Relative Contribution of the Independent Variables in Predicting Table 18 190 Employee Commitment

Means, Standard Deviations and Correlation Matrix between the Table 19 192 Predictor Variables and Employee Productivity

Model Summary of Regression Analysis for the Independent Variables Table 20 193 Predicting Employee Productivity

Relative Contribution of the Independent Variables in Predicting Table 21 194 Employee Productivity

Means, Standard Deviations and Correlation Matrix between the Table 22 196 Predictor Variables and Employee Retention

Model Summary of Regression Analysis for the Independent Variables Table 23 197 Predicting Employee Retention

Relative Contribution of the Independent Variables in Predicting Table 24 198 Employee Retention

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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1 Productivity gap due to organizational restructuring and 7 unmanaged changes

2 Maslow‘s Hierarchy of Needs 22

3 Herzberg‘s Two-Factor Theory 25

4 Functional Leadership Model 40

5 Managerial Grid 42

6 The purpose of Workplace Counselling 56

7 The Meaning of Employee Commitment 91

8 Effect of an increase in labour productivity at 99 all levels of employment

9 Normal Curve showing Retention Strategies 110

10 Factors Affecting Retention 112

11 The Gestalt Group Cycle of Experience 132

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LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX PAGE

EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT ASSESSMENT A 254 - 255 QUESTIONNAIRE (ECAQ)

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY ASSESSMENT B 256 - 257 QUEESTIONNAIRE (EPAQ)

C RETENTION CHECK INDEX (RCI) 258 - 259

D ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT SCALE 260 - 261

E STANFORD PRESENTEEISM SCALE 262

F JOB SATISFACTION SCALE 263 - 264

G ABBREVIATIONS 265

H APPOINTMENT AS PART TIME RESEARCH ASSISTANT 266

I LETTER OF INTRODUCTION FOR RESEARCH WORK 267

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ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effects of workplace counselling and the mediating influences of gender, age, qualification, course of study and organizational tenure on the job commitment, productivity and retention of call centre employees in Nigeria‘s telecommunications industry. The study utilized descriptive survey in the first phase to obtain baseline data while the second phase was quasi-experimental pre-test post-test control group design used to assess the effect of the training programmes on participants. A total of 361 respondents were initially drawn by stratified sampling from three telecommunications companies to provide baseline data for the study. However, the final sample drawn proportionally consisted of 101 (46 male and 55 female) call centre employees identified as those having challenges with commitment, productivity and retention. Six hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Respondents went through an assessment test to qualify for the treatment using three instruments: Meyer‘s (1997) Organizational Commitment Scale, Koopman‘s (2002) Presenteeism Scale and Purani‘s (2007) Job Satisfaction Scale. Three other research instruments were also used to obtain relevant data for the study: Employee Commitment Assessment Questionnaire (ECQA), Employee Productivity Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ) and Retention Check Index (RCI). The data collected were analyzed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Multiple Regression statistical tools as applicable. The findings indicated that workplace counselling has positive impact on the commitment, productivity and retention of call centre employees. The effects of gender, age, qualification, course of study and organizational tenure were also discussed. The results of this study were situated within the existing body of knowledge and their implications for Counsellor Education were discussed. Some conclusions were drawn, a number of recommendations were made and suggestions for further studies in this area were also proffered.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

All humans need someone to talk to, to confide in or to seek advice from. In business, family relations and at work, people constantly have challenges and specialists may be available to assist in solving the diverse problems. Such assistance could be through counselling, business ideas, consulting or even calls made to offices and handled by the staff. Relationships may be built through such assistance and opportunities for growth created. Similar experiences may occur in the call centres. The emergence of the call centre as multi-faceted mediator between the service provider and the client may have created ample employment opportunities for employees and profitability for employers.

Although technological demands and human capital requirement are on the increase, the trend may not be as favourable for employees as it is for employers. According to Doman (2009), this trend is underpinned by three main factors: availability of young employees who to a great extent need basic incomes, low level salaries compared with other 'white collar' jobs/segments and access to advanced Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) infrastructure. This condition could affect the loyalty of

1 employees. For example in Nigeria, most of the call centre staff may not be so young and may be mostly university graduates. They may also require good wages to cater for their growing needs which cut across self, marriage, family and/or further education. In addition, they may require support in terms of advice; guidance and counselling to enable them make valuable decisions.

The historical origin of professional counselling in Nigeria has been traced to the school system with a philosophical base and emphasis on educational and vocational counselling (Ubangha, 2000). This has since expanded to cover personal-social matters. However, some Nigerian youths may graduate from the schools without imbibing lessons from counsellors or counselling that may have been provided by the schools. The same youths may graduate to the world of work and sometimes become maladjusted to workplace challenges. The Nigerian workplace may sometimes be characterized by stressors such as heavy traffic, poor remuneration, difficult policies and procedures which can lead to tension and distress at home and in the workplace where personal problems often end up unconsciously affecting performance. These stressors may transcend to counselling needs. Okpede

(1998) identifies the counselling needs of workers as marital, educational development, vocational/career management, personal-social and retirement.

The above may not be uncommon needs in the call centres anywhere in the world including Nigeria.

The development of telecommunications in Nigeria began in 1886 when a cable connection was established between Lagos and the colonial office

(Nigeria‘s colonial master was England) in London. Ajayi (2008) presents the growth in three stages: Pre-Colonization Period (1953 – 1959) which marked the first serious attempt at planning telecommunications services in Nigeria.

It provided for the expansion of the trunk linking Lagos and Ibadan and then

Port Harcourt with 116 manual exchanges. The second stage, Post-

Colonization Period (1960s to 1990s) introduced the five-year periodic development plans. The focus in this period was the expansion of the network to meet both commercial and industrial needs. The specific objectives were the installation of telephone lines to achieve a total number of 90,000 and the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the telephone equipment and other infrastructure damaged during the civil war. In 1986, the telecommunications arm of the Department of Posts and

Telecommunications was merged with the Nigerian External

Telecommunications (NET) to form the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited

(NITEL) for both internal and external telecommunications services in

Nigeria.

The insufficiency and unavailability of lines for users resulted in the deregulation of NITEL (Iromantu, 1994) and the birth of the Nigerian

Communications Commission (NCC) established by Decree No. 75 of

December 31st, 1992. The objective was for the commission to regulate and promote an orderly and efficient development of telecommunications and to promote the provision of efficient public telecommunication services in

Nigeria. The present stage covers the period of 2000 to 2013 with NCC dividing the telecommunications market into urban/semi-urban and rural market with a total of fourteen network operators (Fadeyibi, 2009). The

Nigerian telecommunications industry may have undergone radical changes over the past few years driven primarily by the granting of mobile licenses. In

2002 the NCC embarked on a process of licensing fixed wireless local loop operators which gave birth to the Global Systems for Mobile Communication

(GSM) telephones in popular use today. Call centres were introduced in the early 1960s in the UK and in 2000 in Nigeria and have become the tool for the success in this high level of competition amongst the operators. Call centres are very important to the effectiveness of any organization using the service. Doman (2009) defined call centre as a coordinated system of people, processes and technologies that effectively integrates organizational resources and multiple channels of communication. Call centres are the focal

4 point of the firm; the link between the entire organization and the external customer.

The Nigerian Telecommunication market has moved to a fully liberalized market where there is a high level of competition in terms of marketing, staff commitment and retention. Consequently, there appears to be a lot of stress and employees may bear the baggage of personal problems to their workplaces, which in turn could affect their work delivery adversely.

Employers therefore need to recognize the importance of developing and preserving valuable human resources which Mullins (2002:238) quoting

Peters and Waterman (1982 – best-selling author of Corporate Excellence) refers to in the advice:

―Treat people as adults. Treat them as partners; treat them with

dignity; treat them with respect. Treat them – not capital spending

and automation – as the primary source of productivity gains… In

other words, if you want productivity and the financial reward that

goes with it, you must treat your workers as your most important

asset‖.

Modern business organizations tend to look at their challenges in new ways and may seek various avenues for taking care of the workforce in terms of health, emotions, motivation and satisfaction. According to Carroll (1996), employers have discovered that a healthy workforce is productive. One avenue

5 available could be workplace counselling. The provision of workplace counselling has steadily expanded over the past thirty (30) years, with more than 75% of medium and large organizations in Britain and North America making counselling available to their staff (Carroll and Walton, 1997). In

Nigeria, workplace counselling has not become popular as it is still a new phenomenon and employee commitment, productivity and retention remain topical issues. Counselling at work may be a useful tool for encouraging the teeming workforce to perform better. Buckingham and Coffman (1999) posit that the working population in any organization can be divided into three categories. Category 1 constitutes 26% and they are people who are engaged, loyal and productive. Those in category 2 constitute 50% and are those who are not engaged but just putting in time. The last 24% are category 3; they are those who are actively disengaged therefore unhappy and spreading their discontent. This means that in practice only 26% of the working population is fully engaged in their work. Research (Cartwright and Cooper, 1999; Bridges,

1991) shows that commitment, productivity and retention rates generally decrease as employees become distracted and confused about organizational changes and challenges; for example, unmanaged changes restructuring, corporate downsizing, mergers or even expansion and policies that affect them at work. The productivity gap due to these problems is presented in Figure 1.

What employees may require most in difficult times are supervisors, managers, counsellors and significant others who would support, encourage and listen to them to help them discover their innate talents and skills that would drive the way they adjust to life and perform better at work. This might result in greater commitment.

The need for commitment could be related to the fact that in most organizations, employees have been found to distance themselves emotionally and physiologically from their organizations even when the pay is highly competitive (Ogba, 2007). Usually, committed employees are those

7 who feel as though they are truly valued at work. In call centre work, committed employees consistently deliver effective customer care by ―going the extra mile‖ for customers. Commitment may also lead to productivity.

Saad (2003) reports that highly satisfied groups of employees often exhibit above-average levels of customer loyalty, productivity, safe practices and love for their companies. This means therefore that commitment ties up with productivity. In spite of excellent organizational commitment, productivity may still remain a dilemma because managers require skills and ability to take employees to their peak performance level or a flow situation where according to Efuntayo (2010) a "whole-person" experience is involved. This means that it would require an understanding and involvement of the total person for an employee to be committed and productive. From the foregoing it can be seen that workers anywhere including call centre employees do not just work for the financial gain but may also want to be valued and treated as real human beings.

Commitment and retention could be linked to organizational tenure of employees. For example, new employees may often exhibit high level of enthusiasm while longer serving employees may remain on their job and try to be more productive because they feel committed to their organizations. In addition, in Nigeria, it appears to be a common practice that when organizations advertise for experienced employees, they often include age

8 limits which makes it difficult for some people to get better jobs. This however may be advantageous to the employers as they may be able to retain their skilled and experienced staff and maintain their reputation as organizations of choice. When such advertisements are made, there is often no specification as to gender of the required employee. This implies that tenure, age and gender may not be related to employee commitment, performance or retention. However, irrespective of gender, tenure and age, it may be possible for course of study and qualification to influence the way workers commit to or produce on their jobs. This is so because due to the unemployment rate in Nigeria, the course studied in school may not affect the type of job a person does. It is therefore not surprising to find engineers in call centres or in banks. However, regardless of the course of study or qualification, the average Nigerian worker may be highly productive and committed if he is happy. Therefore, the need arises for organizations to develop strategies for retaining this category of employees in the call centres given the volatile and competitive nature of the telecommunications industry.

One of the most viable options available may be workplace counselling.

Experiences in Europe, America and presently Malaysia as discussed later in this study, may be a reflection of the effectiveness of workplace counselling.

According to McLeod (2001), workplace counselling is the provision of brief psychological therapies for employees of an organization which are paid

9 for by the employer to eliminate the need for corrective action, attrition or termination. What this implies is that organizations employ and/or recruit personnel to work solely for the purpose of ensuring that all of their other staff are in a good state of mind to perform work effectively. McLeod (2001) concludes that counselling at work is well received by employees. In a research for the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy in the

United Kingdom, McLeod (2001) posits that over ninety percent of employees who made use of workplace counselling were highly satisfied with the services received, would make use of it again if necessary and would recommend it to colleagues. The counselling strategy is quite different from other forms of ‗assistance‘ like Coaching, Mentoring and Training. It is not exactly clear what distinction can be made between the four constructs as they are quite similar in several ways. However, the teacher support network

(2007) an online guide, summarizes the differences as follows:

 counselling deals first and foremost with helping people overcome

problems using the past to search for present behavioural

occurrences whereas coaching is concerned with enhancing

performance.

 coaching could be solution focused and action oriented; addressing

aspirations, objectives and tasks while counselling is more meaning

based and focuses more on feelings and self understanding.

 mentoring on the other hand, provides a mechanism by which

experienced managers can pass on their wisdom; using advice and

guidance in helping to shape their protégé‘s values and beliefs in a

positive way. This is in contrast to coaching and counselling, where

the emphasis lies on getting the person to come up with his/her own

solutions.

 training is about passing on information, skills and knowledge and

helps people to develop cognitive skills and capabilities. While often

directive, Training is also delivered in a coaching, facilitative style.

However it is different because while training imparts information,

coaching draws existing knowledge and understanding out of the

person concerned.

The above summary obviously puts counselling in a different light from the other constructs. Counselling unburdens a guided person to achieve results through his own efforts. People may have desires which have to be satisfied so that they can attain self achievement. This statement is in line with the precepts of Fritz Perls‘ (1969) Gestalt Therapy which is used as treatment in this research work. Gestalt therapy is a humanistic therapy technique that focuses on gaining an awareness of emotions and behaviours in the present rather than in the past to help the client understand himself. Clients work on uncovering and resolving interpersonal issues during therapy. The therapist

11 creates experiments for the clients to assist their self-awareness of what they are doing and how they are doing it so that they can manage the situation.

This research tests the efficacy of the Gestalt Therapy in helping employees understand their performance and personal problems so that they can adjust to circumstances in the organizations they work for in terms of commitment, productivity and intention to leave or stay.

Although there are evidences that workplace counselling is effective because more than 75% of medium and large organizations in Britain and North

America continue to make counselling available to their staff (Carroll and

Walton, 1997), the question remains whether the same impact is felt in other parts of the world like Nigeria. McLeod (2010) identifies 34 studies (including controlled and naturalistic studies) in which reliable pre and post counselling data were collected with case studies. It was found that employees who received counselling were highly satisfied and believed it had helped them resolve their problems. Counselling was also associated with 75% reduction in anxiety and depression, sickness absence and improvement in other organizational outcomes such as more positive work attitudes, fewer accidents and enhanced work performance. Inspite of this success, many employees are doubtful about management reaction to their attending counselling sessions and the question of who should be a workplace counsellor still exists. The general picture is that workplace counselling is

12 appreciated by its users and has a positive impact on objective measures.

Organizations in Nigeria will do well to implement workplace counselling for increased performance and retention. It is on this premise that this researcher set out to investigate the impact that workplace counselling can have on the commitment, productivity and retention of the call centre employee in Nigeria‘s telecommunications industry givens their gender, age, course of study, qualification and organization tenure.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The unemployment rate in Nigeria is very high and stood at 23.9% in 2011

(ILO, 2011) and 23.4% in 2012 (ILO, 2012). This has made joblessness a very serious matter as university graduates in all professions including

Engineering, Law, Humanities, Management, Science and Technology have to work in low cadre employment like call centre. The problem of joblessness is a concern for educationists because it is the students they teach who become either jobless, underemployed or gain employment in call centres and remain frustrated. Additionally, graduate unemployment diminishes the self worth and job satisfaction of educationists who often measure their career success by the young talents they have groomed and mentored to successful careers. Schools are established to provide the critical human power to drive the engine of technological and economic development of a

13 nation. Therefore when the products of the school system cannot find jobs that are at par with their training, concerns are often expressed by accountability advocates that the huge private and public investment in education is not yielding the desired dividends and those saddled with this responsibility have failed. Some (Ilich, 1971; Gabbard, 1998; Prakash and

Esteva, 2007) at the very extreme have advocated for deschooling of the education system.

Unfortunately, ggovernment efforts at reducing unemployment and cushioning its effects may not have been completely successful. Apart from job creation efforts and skills acquisition campaigns, there appears not to have been any serious attempt to encourage or engage Nigerians who are already working in terms of career management and other advisory services.

Therefore most graduates seem to be unguided.

In the telecommunications industry in Nigeria (as in other parts of the world), the call centre employees are the image makers of the companies they work for. Regrettably, these employees tend to believe they are ‗glorified servants‘ because they perceive they are given mean treatment and the low salaries they earn. The call centre work is such that staff cannot negotiate their salaries nor influence decisions taken about their pay. In addition, many of the call centre employees are outsourced agents who have to work on a No-

Work-No-Pay contract. Therefore the employees might monetize their leave/breaks and as a result, have no work-life balance or time to improve in terms of their education, career or social life. On the other hand, the supervisors complain that the agents are under-productive by not meeting their deadlines and assigned targets. This apparent non-synchronization in the expectations of staff and employer is a matter of concern as the result may be mostly low productivity, low commitment and oftentimes, high attrition.

According to Barnes (2001), call centre employees are increasingly used to promote the organizations and to give quality service to customers; yet the assets (abilities, training and skills), intelligence, feelings, thoughts and health of these employees seem not be taken into consideration in their employment contracts even though they are educated. They tend to suffer high levels of insults including customers who give verbal sexual abuse and scream at the employees. The employees therefore may feel they are not appreciated and face a lot of psychological problems which Denga (2001) lists as depression, anxiety and low self-concept because they perceive the society and sometimes their colleagues regard their job level as mean and low. This may also lead to a high level of disloyalty amongst the call centre staff.

Course of study and qualification could be a bane to effectiveness in the call centre. With engineers, accountants and physicists amongst others working in the call centre, there may be a lot of unhappiness. These professionals may soon begin to compare themselves with their counterparts in other departments who have received promotions or transfers. This situation might cause emotional stress and as a result unrest, poor commitment, low productivity and sometimes high attrition.

The problems of length of service and age are also of critical concern. There are some employees who may feel they have spent too many years in the call centre and need to make changes at least through promotions especially because they continually get older. However, because there is no vertical/upward mobility (promotion) or horizontal/cross functional movement

(transfers or secondments) in this department, such employees may become aggrieved and frustrated hence reducing commitment and increasing attrition.

Another area of concern is that of gender. In most cases, the male employee may have to handle his ego working in a predominantly female environment in the call centre. Conversely, most women may have difficulties because of the schedules assigned to them combined with the need to support their families given the economic situation in Nigeria. Work life balance could be affected by work patterns set by the organizations as even the married

16 employees have to work night shifts and on weekends including Sundays.

This may affect productivity, commitment and ultimately employee intention to leave or stay.

Continuity culture is another challenge in Nigeria. In 2006 and 2007, Airtel

(formally ZAIN) invited the Unilag Consult to counsel the agents.

Unfortunately, due to organizational re-structuring, the programme was stopped. MTN started designing a programme to do the same but jettisoned the idea in the face of competition. The attempts by both MTN and Airtel may not have made any impact in Nigeria and employees continue to encounter challenges in the workplace without assistance.

The challenge facing both government and educationists therefore is how counselling can be used to alleviate these problems.

1.3 Theoretical Framework

Carroll (1997) argues that there is no theoretical basis for workplace counselling. Drawing from Albert (1985), Carroll says that it is difficult to understand workplace counselling as there is little theory governing its nature because different models have to be applied to different people and organizations. However, the theoretical framework of this research work was based on the humanistic theories. Humanism is a psychological approach that emphasizes the study of the whole person. The humanistic theories

17 emanated from the concerns raised by therapists against the supposed limitations of the psychodynamic and behavioural theories which the humanists perceived to have failed to adequately address issues like the meaning of behaviour, the nature of healthy development, creativity, mysticism and love. Humanism came to be known as the ‗Third Force‘.

Humanistic psychologists perceive human behaviour from two angles: through the eyes of the observer and through the eyes of the person behaving. Theorists like Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow took up the challenge to develop the humanistic theories which today are very popular and applicable in the workplace. Humanistic psychology expanded its influence from the 1940s and the 1980s till present times. The impact of humanism can be understood from three major areas:

 it offered a new set of values for approaching an understanding of human nature and the human condition

 it offered an expanded horizon of methods of inquiry in the study of human behaviour

 it offered a broader range of more effective methods in the professional practice of psychotherapy (McLeod, 2007)

The following are the basic assumptions of Humanism:

 man has a capacity for goodness, creativity and freedom

 humans are not only spiritual; they are rational, purposeful and autonomous

 humans have free will; not all behaviour is determined

 all individuals are unique and have an innate (inborn) drive to achieve their maximum potential

 individuals must empathize with and have unconditional positive regard for others

The summation of the humanist beliefs according to Orpen (1998) are that:

 the present is the most important aspect of the person and therefore humanists focus on the here and now rather than looking at the past or trying to predict the future  humanistic theory is reality based and to be psychologically healthy, people must take responsibility for themselves, whether their actions are positive or negative  the individual, merely by being human, possesses an inherent worth. Actions may not be positive but this does not negate the value of the person  the goal of life should always be to achieve personal growth and understanding. Only through self-improvement and self-knowledge can a person be truly happy

Humanism can be applied in the areas of education, motivation, person centred therapy, qualitative methods and abnormal behaviour (incongruent, low self- worth). The selected theories for this study are:

 The Theory of Human Motivation (Hierarchy of Needs) – Abraham Maslow (1943)

 The Theory of Gestalt Therapy - Fritz Perls (1940)

 The Social Exchange Theory - (Emerson, 1976)

1.3.1 Theory of Human Motivation: Hierarchy of Needs

Motivation is often the driving force by which human beings achieve their goals. Motives indicate the meaning of human behaviour and they reveal a person‘s values; they often affect a person‘s perception, cognition, emotion and behaviour. The theory of human motivation derives from Abraham

Maslow‘s (1943) interest in applying psychological principles to areas like behaviour and attitude in organizational settings. Maslow‘s theory of human motivation is one of humanistic theories. The theory argues that human beings are motivated by their needs. When people satisfy their needs, they attain peak experiences which are moments when people become energized and highly perceptive. Maslow described the humanistic movement to which he belonged as the ‗third force‘ (Maslow, 1954) emphasizing how the movement was different from Freud‘s Psychodynamics and Watson‘s

Behaviourism. Freud believed in the unconscious state of man where the real person is buried deep beyond awareness and that man can do certain things without being aware. Maslow acknowledged the unconscious but argued that man is nearly always aware of his drives and motives. He added that without obstacles in life, man would be psychologically healthy, with deep self- understanding, accepting of his world and able to face and deal with his problems. In relation to call centre employees, the presumption is that they can adjust to their work environment and live better lives once they achieve

20 self understanding. The theorist believed in the positives of mankind and that the power of thought is based on free will.

The most popular contribution from Maslow is his Hierarchy of Needs which forms the basis of the human motivation theory. The basic precept of this hierarchy is that man is born with certain needs. Without meeting the needs, man cannot move upwards in life. He categorized the needs into basic and higher order needs. The needs graduate through five levels from the lowest physiological to the highest self actualization needs. He postulated that in general, people need to fulfill the basic needs that are lower in the hierarchy before they can move on to fulfilling higher needs. According to Maslow, self- actualization is the highest need that humans strive to fulfill as expressed in

Figure 2.

Maslow‘s theory states that a person‘s deficiency needs (like physiological survival, security and love) must be satisfied before he can be motivated to focus on higher level needs like self esteem and actualization. At the first and lowest level, man must satisfy his physiological need for food, shelter and clothing. This is sensible as it is obvious that a starving person has no need for love but would rather focus all his energy on satisfying his hunger. At the second level of safety and security needs, man seeks protection and strives

22 to secure his job or whatever gave him sustenance at the first level. Only after these two are met can man begin to look at attaining the third level of social needs where he would satisfy friendships and family relations. At this level, man strives for social acceptance and group interaction. At the fourth level of self esteem, man seeks self respect and respect from others in the group or within his locus of influence. He seeks to progress career and increase knowledge about the world that would give him a sense of high self worth. The fifth and last level is called the need for self-actualization which refers to self-understanding and acceptance. Maslow posits that to truly know one‘s self means to feel like one has accomplished all what one sets out to in life. This infers that human actions are directed toward goal attainment; any given behaviour could satisfy several functions at the same time; for instance, a call centre staff who gets high rating on productivity from the quality assurance group could begin to sense he has job security and this can satisfy his need for belongingness and self-esteem. To get to this level means that one cannot feel hate, shame or guilt but accepts the world and human nature as good.

These five levels on Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs are further broken down to consist of all the desires a person could have in Steve Reiss (2002) theory of the 16 basic desires. Reiss did a detailed study of other researchers and theorists (Kohn, 1993; Plato, 1966; Freud, 1963; Aristotle, 1953; Piaget,

1952; Maslow, 1943; Skinner, 1938; Murray, 1938). He paid particular attention to Maslow and concluded that motives are the reasons people hold for initiating and performing voluntary behaviour. According to Reiss (2002), the 16 basic desires that motivate human actions and define personalities include: Acceptance (the need for approval); Curiosity (the need to learn);

Eating (the need for food); Family (the need to raise children); Honor (the need to be loyal to the traditional values of one's clan/ethnic group);

Idealism (the need for social justice); Independence (the need for individuality); Order (the need for organized, stable, predictable environments); Physical activity (the need for exercise); Power (the need for influence of will); Romance (the need for sex); Saving (the need to collect);

Social contact (the need for friends: peer relationships); Status (the need for social standing/importance); Tranquility (the need to be safe) and Vengeance

(the need to strike back/to win). Each basic desire is theoretically regarded as a continuum of potential motivation anchored by opposite values such that individuals are motivated to aim for a point of moderation called a set point or sensitivity. In other words, people are generally motivated to experience what Aristotle (1953) called a moderate mean.

Apart from Reiss‘ 16 basic desires theory of motivation, one that is similar to

Maslow‘s postulations and which is relevant to workplace management is

Herzberg‘s two-factor theory (1959). This theory like Maslow‘s states that

24 one set of conditions must be met to prevent employee dissatisfaction

(Hygiene factors) while another set must be satisfied to motivate employees to better productivity (motivator factors). This theory is therefore called the two-factor theory. Herzberg believed that meeting the hygiene factors was not a condition to implementing the motivator factors. Figure 3 shows the hygiene and motivator needs as well as the effects on organizations and employees when they are implemented:

The implication is that if the telecommunications companies wish to prevent and reduce employee dissatisfaction only, then they should focus on implementing policies, salaries and supervision. If however, they would want to improve productivity through employee motivation, they need to implement the motivator factors (growth, status, recognition) more. In addition, organizations could decide to focus on both hygiene and motivator factors to achieve 100% success. In relation to call centre work, the companies may wish to increase or improve commitment, productivity and retention by implementing both hygiene and motivator factors. That way, the call centre employees may be able to satisfy their lower level needs and look forward to higher levels.

Motivation is the engine of action; the variable that directs behaviour every day. A high moral standing may lead to loyalty and dedication to the organization. An organization with demotivated employees is likely to be more exposed to fluctuations of the staff, breaches of internal regulations and lack of concentration in achieving the organizational objectives. Cornea

(2013) referencing Crewson (1997) considers that motivation can result in higher productivity and commitment. Commitment to the organization involves a combination of three distinct necessary factors: a strong trust and acceptance of organization's aims and values, the desire to work hard for the organization and desire to remain a member of the organization. The

26 relevance of Maslow‘s theory can be better understood in reference to the term psychological contract. In an employment relationship, the psychological contract is the fairness or balance (typically as perceived by the employee) between how the employee is treated by the employer and what the employee puts into the job.

Although Maslow was no practitioner of psychology, he suggested an approach to therapy that aims to remove the obstacles to personal growth so that humans can achieve their full potential. Counsellors and educationists need to guide and teach their clients to achieve their potentials. This would help the clients to move toward self-actualization. Maslow also described eight behaviours that can lead to self-actualization:

 concentration or becoming fully aware of what is going on within and around the individual

 growth choices: making choices that challenge individuals and lead to personal growth rather than choosing security

 self-awareness: acting in accordance with one‘s inner nature instead of being influenced by others' opinions

 honesty and taking responsibility for one‘s actions rather than doing what makes one look good

 judgment: if one follows the first four steps, one gains the capacity for better 'life choices' and develops a more accurate intuition

 self-development in the sense of learning to utilize one‘s talents to the fullest. This is an ongoing process

 peak experiences are moments of self-actualization and could also be described as moments of rapture, awe, wonder or ecstasy. Doing what leads to these experiences can help one to self-actualize

 lack of ego defenses or being aware of the way individuals distort their images of reality when they try to defend their ego and being able to drop that behaviour when appropriate

Maslow's concept of self-actualization relates directly to the present day challenges and opportunities for employers and organizations - to provide real meaning, purpose and true personal development for their employees.

The following assumptions can therefore be made in relation to the study:

 call centre employees may only become more effective and valuable as employees if they are motivated

 telecommunications organizations need to recognize employees‘ need to grow and as such, offer development support to individual staff in the direction that the person seeks to grow and become more fulfilled so they can attain commitment and increase productivity

 Maslow and Herzberg‘s theories suggest that call centre work can be done by any level of employee if they can see the motivating factors

 call centre workers can go through the eight behavioural changes that can make them feel less dehumanized and the organizations can achieve stronger levels of employee retention

1.3.2 The Theory of Gestalt Therapy

The theory of Gestalt therapy emanated from a combination of existing concepts in the field of psychology. These are psychoanalysis as well as existentialism. The founders, Fritz and Laura Perls with Goodman all had their background training in psychoanalysis but built their Gestalt on Humanistic principles. Fritz Perls and his wife Laura criticized the psychoanalysts for insisting on the unconscious. In his first book, Ego, hunger and aggression

(1942), Perls position was that man has the capability to be good and to consciously solve his problems. Gestalt is a German word meaning pattern or assemblage. It works with direct perception of what a person is sensing, feeling and projecting in the present and not the past or future. In both its theory and practice, Gestalt theory is a biological and educational model.

Humans are viewed as organisms that are part of nature, living in natural predisposition to changing circumstances which Perls (1951) called organismic self-regulation. The therapist should view the client as always possessing innate principles of healthy functioning so that he should be guided to live freely based on natural principles and capabilities. Woldt and

Toman (2005) state that Goodman, one of the Gestalt founders, believed that wise and virtuous people learn and live in accordance with natural ways; therefore the therapist should engage the client in ways that allow nature to do the healing process which includes sensation, awareness, mobilization of

29 energy, action, contact and withdrawal/satisfaction (Zinker, 1994). According to Yontef (1993:33) quoting Perls (1976), the gestalt therapists‘ belief in the theory of personality is that:

"There is only one thing that should control: the situation … If you

understand the situation you are in and let the situation you are in

control actions, then you learn to cope with life."

The gestalt view of human nature is that man is capable of being independent and can deal with his own life problems himself. Therefore the therapist should take the client from the environmental support to self support so that the real personality of the client is restored. This infers that educationists and counsellors can lead their clients to self actualization as in Maslow‘s theory of human nature. Perls also believed that clients should be able to regulate themselves when they know what is happening in the environment around them. Corey (2012) outlines the basic concepts of Gestalt theory and therapy as holism, field theory, figure-formation process and organismic self-regulation. Holism refers to the unification or completeness of the being/person. This means that the therapist does not have to deal with aspects of the individual but with the totality of the person. Second principle is field theory which is the idea that it is important to see a client in their environment because it is usually in constant change. This means therefore that seeing the call centre

30 employees at their place of work would open them to free expression and total understanding of their problems. Third principle is the figure- formation process which refers to how a client may deal with experiences from time to time because he has the capacity or consciousness to do so.

Fourth principle of organismic self-regulation is a process that deals with a client‘s equilibrium in which it is disturbed by a need, sensation or an interest in the self. Gestalt therapy is an approach to personal development and growth; it offers a framework for advancing and developing any part of human life; that is the idea behind organismic integrity. The following precepts guide the use of Gestalt therapy:

The concept of the now - the present moment is an important factor in

Gestalt therapy. The past and future are sometimes a client‘s way of not dealing with the present. The reason that sometimes the past can come up in the present is because often times the clients feel that the past is incomplete.

Hence the Gestalt theorists believed in getting the client to view their current situations and emotions in solving the problems. This could be because in practice, a person can become elated the moment he can solve immediate problems and then he can think about the next problem.

The concept of unfinished business - this concept deals with having unexpressed feeling usually of the past. This can sometimes leave unnecessary emotional feelings that may interfere with a client‘s present

31 feelings. Hence there is a need for the therapist to guide the client to restore his original personality. This may be achieved through counselling.

Contact and Resistances to contact - it is important for change and growth to happen; to have contact. Effective contact is when a client is able to interact with nature and other people without losing their senses.

Resistance is a way a client may deal with certain issues or problems.

However, it can sometimes prevent people from experiencing the present in the way they should.

Energy and blocks to energy - where energy is located in a client is very important especially how it may be used and how it can be blocked. Energy can be expressed through a client‘s posture, body appearing tight, not deep breathing and looking away and avoiding contact. Sometimes a client is not always aware of their energy or where it is located. It is the counsellor or therapist‘s responsibility to guide the client to achieve this level.

The gestalt as a now-therapy, is similar to De Shazer‘s (1988) solution focused counselling which focuses on what the client wants to achieve through counselling (Gestalt - solutions) rather than on the problems that made them come for counselling. The theory emphasizes people‘s strengths and competences instead of their perceived deficits, weaknesses and limitations. The framework of solution focused counselling resembles most of the gestalt and is based on the following assumptions:

 all people have strengths and inner resources to solve life‘s challenges

 change is one of life‘s constants - not only is change possible, it is always happening

 the counsellor‘s role in the therapy session is to help each client identify the change that is occurring and to help him/her increase that level of change

 a person does not need to know what caused a problem to be able to solve it

 the client is the expert in his/her own life

De Shazer (1988) emphasizes that change is inevitable and by asking questions that imply that change is certainly going to happen, the therapist contributes to the client‘s expectation and trust in a new thing to happen.

This kind of question is called the miracle question and has become the most well-known and popular intervention among the solution-focused approach users. The miracle question emerged when a client said that her problem was so serious that it would take a miracle to solve it. The therapist followed the clients‘ suggestion and asked: ―Well … suppose that would happen… what would be different?‖ The answer was about change. Solution-Centred counselling is a short term approach that does not focus on the past but on the present (like Gestalt Therapy) and the future. By helping people identify the things that they wish to have changed in their lives and also to attend to those things that are currently happening that they wish to continue to

33 happen, the clients find the solution to their problems. The primary benefit of solution focused counselling is that the client and counsellor usually identify clear goals at the start. As a result, they would both know what success looks like and therefore can easily identify when counselling is no longer required when the client has learnt to believe in himself. This theory aligns with the intrinsic and social exchange theories. If the counselling sessions are successful, the clients would realize what intrinsic values motivate them and how they can be satisfied. The clients‘ self esteem would grow and they would begin to see their role and the benefits accruing to them in the organization; this in turn will maximize commitment and productivity.

Fritz Perls (1951) posits that no individual is self-sufficient; the individual can exist only in an environmental field. The individual is inevitably at every moment, a part of some field. His behaviour is a function of the total field, which includes both him and his environment. By exploring the individual‘s complex nature, the Gestalt standpoint provides a system capable of overcoming problem resolution and of achieving full potential and joy in life

(Barrett, 1997). The theory recognizes the inborn drive in human beings towards achieving positive health and growth (Anderson, 2008); hence any change is realized through awareness. Anderson (2008) describes the process of getting a person to achieve the positive growth as analytic Gestalt theory at work. This refers to the holistic Gestalt theoretical perspective

34 which can be valuable to call centre employees in order for them to learn more about themselves, their work and capabilities and be able to move towards fulfillment in all areas of their lives. The assumptions therefore that are drawn from the Gestalt theory are as follows:

 there are three levels to the average call centre employee – the individual himself (intrapersonal), the individual who cannot function alone but within an environment with others (interpersonal) and the individual with his group in their environment following rules (system)

 the counsellor needs to work with and through these three levels to enable the individual value himself and his organization; as a result become more committed and therefore more productive

 goal setting is important for call centre employees to deliver work and self achievement

 organizations will improve retention if they invest in strategies that would develop their employees

1.3.3 Social Exchange Theory

The central idea of the social exchange theory is that all relationships are based on give and take, although the balance of this exchange is not always equal. The theory explains how people feel about relationships with others depending on perceptions of the balance between what is put into the relationship and what is received from it, the kind of relationship deserved and the chances of having a better relationship with someone else. For

35 instance, a person needs to review his input and contribution to the organization compared with his earnings and other benefits so as to make decisions on whether to stay or leave the organization. The relevance of the social exchange theory to this study is that an organization will engage in exchanges of resources in terms of work, wages and benefits and allow continual stay of the workers in its employ if the resulting rewards are valued and produce growth and development of the employees. Social exchange theory derives from several distinct lines of theoretical work in the Social

Sciences, including Social Behaviourism, Utilitarianism, and Functionalism as expressed in the works of Blau (1964); Coser and Rosenberg (1969); Ekeh

(1974); Cook and Whitmeyer (1992). According to Ekeh (1974), this theory is best understood when the impacts of exchange of resources between industrial establishments and residents of host communities are positive and balanced. This means that the exchange of resources (like salaries and work patterns) between the establishment and call centre workers is low and imbalanced when only one side benefits. The original works of Ekeh (1974) focused on tourism industries and local residents as host. According to Ekeh, factors like economy, environment and social culture of a place affect residents‘ perception of tourism and their support for or opposition to tourism industries in any given area. Significant to this is that there are no industrial activities without their effects on people. Proper planning and assessment

36 would therefore foresee negative effects to avoid and open positive opportunities to effectively utilize. This if done, would aid rewards to enjoy and avoid ill effects that could pose resistance from residents. Implicit to call centre employment is that when only the telecommunication companies benefit from the job productivity of the employees without sufficient reward, then there will be disloyalty and high level attrition. Conversely, when both parties benefit, the workers will be happy to continue to stay and work with more commitment.

The theory posits that social behaviour is the result of an exchange process aimed at maximizing benefits and minimizing costs. Within this framework, social behaviour is viewed primarily in terms of the pursuit of rewards and the avoidance of punishment and other forms of cost. Individuals engage in interaction for the following reasons: anticipated reciprocity, expected gain in reputation and influence on others, altruism and perception of efficacy and direct reward. According to this theory, people weigh the potential benefits and risks of social relationships. When the risks outweigh the rewards, people will terminate or abandon that relationship. If however, the rewards outweigh the risks, then the people become committed to the relationship.

Social and business transactions incorporate both material benefit and psychological rewards including status, loyalty and approval. For example, in the work place the supervisor provides a subordinate with support and

37 monetary reward while in exchange, the subordinate increases personal devotion and expertise at work. According to Meyer, Becker and

Vandenberghe (1991), it is reasonable to assume that employee willingness to contribute to organizational effectiveness will be influenced by the nature of the commitment they experience.

Therefore, if an employee is exposed to proper advice and guidance and can align his vision with that of the organization, his loyalty level becomes higher.

Workplace counselling may therefore be required to enable the employee see the reward and gains and for the organization to also achieve commitment, increased productivity and retention.

A similar theory is the Functional approach theory which states that good leadership brings out the best in the employees. This means that if the leadership of the telecommunications companies is good then the call centre employee will be more valuable. The functional approach theory is a leadership model developed by John Adair in 1973. Adair (1973) saw leadership as a total process that would consider how best to involve and engage the people to achieve organizational effectiveness on the condition that they get motivated (intrinsically or extrinsically). For Adair, motivation is inherent in human beings therefore it is imperative for the management of an organization to direct efforts towards methods of fostering job satisfaction and removing frustration as a means of job retention. Adair (1973) therefore

38 developed a model which shows how people interact with the jobs they do.

The most obvious group need is to have a purpose-directed task. In order to achieve a common objective, the group must work as a team. This means group needs must be satisfied but there is also the need to present a positive image in the corporate life inherent in the individual member rather than in the group itself.

The individual brings variety of needs/desires including physical, social and vocational which are all aspects of the 16 basic desires which may or may not be met by participating in the activity of the group to be successful. The activities are categorized as activity towards a common goal (Task Needs), maintaining themselves (Group needs) and meeting the requests of people

(Individual needs). The interaction of the three needs is shown in Figure 4:

Task Needs

Group Individual Needs Needs

Figure 4: Functional Leadership Model Adair (1973)

It is pertinent to note that these agents interact with each other and each one has influence over the other two. Consequently, where the task is seen to have been achieved, the morale of all members of staff who make up the team will be high. Conversely, a failure to achieve the goal will lead to low morale among all members of staff. Unless there is cohesion, there will be

40 isolated individuals who will find it difficult to achieve their goals. The model states that leaders must balance the actions they take across all three key areas if they want their group to succeed. This model aligns with Blake and

Mouton‘s (1964) Managerial Grid. The grid plots the degree of task- centeredness (task needs) versus person-centeredness (individual need) as it relates to how a leader manages his group needs and ensures satisfaction of individual basic needs. The grid identifies five combinations as distinct leadership styles as shown in Figure 5:

(2003)

Managerial Grid Managerial

: Managerial : Grid Blake Mouton & (1964); source: Wily Editors

5 Figure

The areas are interdependent and the relationships many and complex; if a leader focuses too much on one area and neglects the other two, or uses a particular style and neglects the other four, then the group will experience problems. In order to improve organized human effort these characteristics and their interrelationships must be indentified so that once recognized, they may be taken into account in the management of the staff. The impact of the leadership styles hypothesized in the grid can be better understood from March (1991) clarification of exploitation and exploration. Exploitation includes refinement, choice, production, efficiency, selection, implementation and execution.

Exploration includes search, variation, risk taking, experimentation, play, flexibility, discovery and innovation. March (1991) posits that organizations must continuously search for a balance between exploration and exploitation; exploration alone creates innovativeness, but is likely to lead to too many underdeveloped ideas; exploitation alone, although assuring competitiveness, is likely to lead to inertia. It is only when the three areas and the five styles are balanced that organizations will realize the power of employee loyalty and productivity. The following assumptions arise from the theory:

 when employers satisfy their employees, the employees in exchange will

input and produce more work

 when call centre employees grow as people, they automatically become

more effective and valuable as employees

 good leadership can bring about increased productivity and heightened

employee retention

1.4 Purpose of the Study

The aim of this study was to test how effective workplace counselling could

be in the improvement of call centre employee job commitment, productivity

and retention. The specific objectives therefore were to:

1. determine if workplace counselling would impact on male and female call

centre employee commitment regardless of length of service.

2. examine whether male and female call centre employees significantly differ

in their productivity based on workplace counselling and how long they

have worked.

3. investigate whether workplace counselling and organizational tenure would

impact on male and female call centre employees‘ intention to leave their

organization.

4. examine if gender, age, organizational tenure, qualification and course of

study of call centre employees will predict employee commitment.

5. explore the possibility of call centre employees‘ job productivity being

predicted by their gender, age, course of study, qualification and

experience.

6. investigate if gender, age, course of study, qualification and experience of

call centre employees will predict their retention.

1.5 Research Questions

This research attempted to answer the following questions.

1. will there be any significant gender difference in post-test commitment

scores of call centre employees with varied years of experience?

2. would experimental condition and organizational tenure affect the post-test

job productivity scores of male and female call centre employees?

3. what would be the effect of Workplace Counselling and organizational tenure

on male and female call centre employees‘ retention?

4. what is the independent and joint contribution of each of the five predictor

variables: gender, age, organizational tenure, qualification and course of study

of call centre employees to job Commitment?

5. will the five predictor variables: gender, age, organizational tenure,

qualification and course of study of call centre employees account for a

significant variance in their post-test job productivity?

6. what is the independent and joint contribution of each of the five predictor

variables: gender, age, course of study, qualification and organizational tenure

of call centre employees on job retention?

1.6 Research Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were tested in this research work:

1. there will be no significant gender difference in post-test job commitment

of call centre employees with varied years of experience.

2. experimental condition and organizational tenure will not significantly affect

post test job productivity of male and female call centre employees.

3. workplace Counselling and organizational tenure will not significantly

improve male and female call centre employees‘ retention.

4. gender, age, course of study, qualification and organizational tenure of call

centre employees will not independently or jointly contribute to their job

commitment.

5. job productivity of call centre employees will not significantly account for

their gender, age, organizational tenure, qualification and/or course of

study.

6. gender, work age, organizational tenure, qualification and course of study

of call centre employees will not independently or jointly contribute to their

retention.

1.7 Significance of the Study

Counsellors, psychologists and educationists would find this study useful in

guiding and teaching their students those skills that would enable them build

46 profitable careers and make the right vocational choices to reduce joblessness.

The importance of this study to individuals especially call centre employees, cannot be overemphasized as employees at all levels would appreciate the underlying issues that affect the way they work and can achieve work-life balance as they capitalize on support services offered by their organizations.

Organizations in every sector would understand those ingredients required to gain staff commitment, increase productivity and ultimately engage their employees to achieve maximum retention.

Managers of labour and employers at all levels would find the research useful in building organizations of repute where their staff would find peace and satisfaction and become more committed and productive.

The Nigerian policy makers especially the Nigerian Communications

Commission (NCC) would also see the need for promulgating laws that will compel employers to cater for their employees.

In addition, authorities in Nigerian universities would understand that it is imperative to include workplace counselling as a full course for their students. This will not only provide employment opportunities for their students but also allow guidance counsellors to impact beyond the schools.

1.8 Scope of the Study

The study covered call centre employees in the Telecommunications Industry in Nigeria. There are numerous intricately related factors to employee and employer relations in organizations. However, only the commitment, productivity and retention of employees in relation to their gender, age, qualification, course of study and organizational tenure were considered.

This study was limited to workplace counselling as a strategy to achieve increased employee commitment, productivity and retention by means of

Gestalt Therapy.

1.9 Limitations to the Study

Though there are overall evidence of employee welfare practices among organizations in Nigeria, insufficient literature in the use of workplace counselling and especially using gestalt therapy adopted in Nigeria‘s telecommunications industry proved to be a major limitation to the study.

Other major limitations included the shifts hours of work run by staff, job insecurity and frequent resignation from the companies. There was also high level security and reluctance of the operators to allow visitors in the call centres.

1.10 Operational Definition of Terms

Workplace Counselling: This refers to advice, treatment and training given to call centre employees using Gestalt therapy. It is also called Employee

Assistance Programme (EAP) or Counselling at Work.

Employee Commitment: This means the feeling of loyalty by the employee for the organization. Commitment is measured as the sum of scores on items in the Employee Commitment Assessment Questionnaire (ECAQ).

Employee Productivity: Employee productivity refers to the number of calls a call centre employee is able to take or make in a day/week/month. In this study, productivity is used interchangeably with performance. It is measured as the sum of scores on items in the Employee Productivity

Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ).

Employee Retention: This refers to employees‘ intention to remain with the company they currently working for. For this study, intention to leave or stay is assessed as the sum of scores on items in the Retention Check Index

(RCI).

Course of Study: refers to professionalism. There are two broad categories of Science & Technology and Humanities & Management.

Call Centre Employee: This refers to the employees involved in providing assistance and courtesy to customers of a telecommunications company.

They are also referred to as customer care staff and/or call centre agents.

When users of the networks have challenges, they call this category of staff for support on 180 for MTN, 111 for Globacom or 333 for Visafone.

Call Centres: this refers to the place of work for call centre employees in

MTN, Globacom and Visafone.

Globacom: This is the registered name of the multinational telecommunications company in Nigeria; it means Global Communications because the owners plan to make it a global network. It is 100% Nigerian owned.

Visafone: Visafone Communications Limited is a wholly owned Nigerian telecommunications company incorporated in Nigeria on June 20, 2007. It is the biggest CDMA Company in Nigeria.

Airtel: The fifth largest telecommunications operator in the world operating in 19 countries of the world including Nigeria where it was the first to get a license of operation. The company has changed names six times since it started operations in Nigeria: Econet Wireless Nigeria (2001); Vodacom

Nigeria (2004); V-Mobile Nigeria (2004); Celtel Nigeria (2006); Zain Nigeria

(2008) and now Bharti Airtel Nigeria (2011). Their call centre was located in

Asaba, Sapele and Lagos but all have been collapsed into one location in

Iganmu, Lagos.

Etisalat: is a Nigerian company formed by the partnership of Mubadala

Development Company and Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates. Etisalat acquired the Unified Access License from the Federal Government in January

2007 and is the fifth largest operator in Nigeria. The call centres are located in Victoria Island and Oshodi, Lagos.

Meta Analysis: Meta Analysis refers to a research strategy where the researcher examines the results of several previous studies instead of conducting new research with participants.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

The effects of workplace counselling were examined by reviewing related research literature under the following subheadings:

2.1 The meaning and significance of Workplace Counselling

2.2 History of Workplace Counselling and its impact in America, United Kingdom, Malaysia: Lessons for Nigeria

2.3 Workplace Counselling and Employee Commitment

2.4 Workplace Counselling and Employee Productivity

2.5 Workplace Counselling and Employee Retention

2.6 Demographic Factors (gender, age, qualification, professionalism/course of study and organizational tenure) affecting Employee Commitment, Productivity and Retention in Telecommunications Industry

2.7 Studies in Gestalt therapy

2.8 The Place of workplace counselling in the curriculum of universities in

Nigeria

2.9 Summary of reviewed literature

2.1 The Meaning and Significance of Workplace Counselling

The significance of workplace counselling is imbedded in its usefulness in improving workers‘ lifestyle, attitude, productivity and interest in the organization. Majority of employees today find themselves under significant pressure to produce work maximally. The employers in turn, want to get the best out of workers but with fewer resources. This tension between the limited organizational resources given to employees and the increasing productivity demands by employers contributes to a variety of problems experienced by employees. These problems exacerbate the difficulty of managing work and life.

Workplace counselling can be a source of organizational change as the introduction of a counselling service may begin to change the way that managers and other staff think and talk about their emotional difficulties and personal problems. When workplace counselling started in the 1940s, the focus was on providing early intervention for employees struggling with alcohol- related problems. In time, the field has grown to address more complex employee health, behaviour, work-life challenges as well as organizational challenges. The Employee Assistance Professional Association (EAPA, 2010), provides a comprehensive and generally accepted definition of employee assistance as the work organization‘s resource that utilizes specific core technologies to enhance employee and workplace effectiveness through prevention, identification and resolution of personal and productivity issues.

EAP is also a worksite-based program designed to assist (a) work organizations in addressing productivity issues and (b) employee clients‘ in identifying and resolving personal concerns, including but not limited to health, marriage, family, finance, alcohol, drug, legal, emotion and stress issues that may affect job performance (EAPA, 2010). These could be counselling and employee engagement programmes. There are eight functions that work based counselling and employee assistance programmes perform for organizations and individuals:

1. consultation with training of and assistance to Management including

managers and supervisors who wish to help troubled employees, enhance

the work environment and improve employee productivity.

2. active promotion of the availability of support services to employees, their

family members and the work organization.

3. confidential and timely problem identification/assessment services for

employees with personal concerns that affect job productivity and

commitment to the organization.

4. use of constructive confrontation, motivation and short-term intervention

with employees to address problems that affect productivity and

retention.

5. referral of employees for diagnosis, treatment and assistance as well as

case monitoring and follow-up services.

6. assisting organizations in establishing and maintaining effective relations

with clinical and other service providers for the organization.

7. consultation to organizations to encourage availability of an employee

access to health benefits covering medical and behavioural problems.

8. evaluation of the effects of EA services on organizations and individual

job performance (EAPA, 2010).

As a result, counselling at work might impact positively on the culture of the organization. The service could be a resource to retain the mental health of employees in order for them to contribute to the growth and well being of the organization. Reiterating the rationale for workplace relationships, Sanders

(2006) views counselling as the heart of guidance programme. This implies that counselling is concerned with the feelings, attitudes and emotional disposition of an individual about himself and the situation facing him. According to

Sanders (2006), counselling is an activity freely entered into by the person seeking help; it offers the opportunity to identify things by the clients themselves that are troubling or perplexing. It is in fact a particular kind of helping like any other but has its own ideas, values, skills, limits and ethics.

Feitharn and Dryden (1993) define counselling as a principled relationship

55 characterized by the application of one or more psychological theories and a recognized set of communication skills modified by experience, intuition and other interpersonal factors to clients‘ intimate concerns, problems or aspirations. Its predominant philosophy is one of facilitation rather than of advice-giving or coercion. This implies that counselling is a partnership in which both client and counsellor achieve goals together. Carroll (1996) says that the importance of workplace counselling can be determined in its purpose which in turn should be seen as a continuum of between personal and organizational concepts as represented in Figure 6:

Organizational Personal concept concept of of Counselling Counselling

Fig 6: The purpose of Workplace Counselling (Carroll, 1996)

At the extreme named ‗‘Personal concept of counselling‘‘, Carroll (1996) says that clients constantly choose what issues to bring to counselling sessions to be used for their own purposes. These include personal and professional problems, career and work related issues. This means that the client determines the purpose and impart of counselling. At the other extreme, named

―Organizational concept of counselling‖, Carroll (1996) opines that counselling service is obtained to help employees attain satisfaction and therefore become loyal; the primary purpose of workplace counselling is to facilitate employees‘ work. It therefore means that there could be a misunderstanding of what the employee expects and what the employer requires from the workplace counselling relationship. This puts a question mark on the effectiveness of workplace counselling.

One of the major limiting factors to workplace counselling services use is the widespread stigma and discrimination for mental health and addiction problems.

This may result in many employees who could benefit from professionals, avoiding seeking help because of fear of discrimination or shame at work. A number of authors (Nixon and Carroll, 1994; Carroll and Holloway, 1997;

Pickard, 1997) have struggled with the issue of whether or not workplace counselling can justifiably be called counselling in the real sense of the word in terms of training and professionalism. This confusion could be because research has not been steadfast in using empirical data for measuring the effect of

57 counselling. More often than not, practitioners have relied on anecdotal evidence with limited empirical data to support outcomes from counselling interventions; rather, improvements were traditionally measured through self- report surveys of client satisfaction (Harris and Arredonondo, 2002; Harris,

Adams, Hill, Morgan and Soliz, 2002; Csiernik, 2003; Dersch, Shumway, Philips,

2004; Csiernik, Hannah and Pender, 2007) or other more general level of functioning scales (Masi and Jacobson, 2003; Hargrave and Hiatt, 2004; Back-

Tamburo, 2005; Greenwood, DeWeese and Inscoe, 2005). Although there are several key research-based books and texts in the area of workplace counselling and employee assistance services (Carroll, 1996; Oher, 1999;

Attridge, Herlihy and Maiden, 2005; Richard, Emener and Hutchinson, 2009); there is a dearth of empirical research based work and more is required to clear the disparity on the effects.

According to the Institute of Personnel Management (1992), workplace counselling does not require much of pure counselling skills because anyone in management, human resources or personnel officers can conduct counselling.

According to Carroll (1995) there have also been conflicts between managers and counsellors with their counselling values. Some managers see workplace counselling as a means of becoming involved in the politics of the organization and used by some factions for their own ends. in addition, while most Managers in organizations see counsellors as exhibiting professional arrogance,

58 counsellors see them as people who sacrifice human values for profit. Carroll

(1996) however opines that the two worlds of counselling and organization can exist amicably if they work towards understanding their roles in the lives of the employees. Workplace counselling is concerned with developing employee competence in order to succeed in corporate life. It enables individuals appreciate themselves. When employee difficulties are handled appropriately, results for both the troubled employee and the workplace have been positive and cost-effective (Boone, 1995; Hiatt, Hargrave and Palmertree, 1999;

Hargrave, Hiatt, Dannenbaum and Shaffer, 2007). Carroll (1996) explains that workplace counselling is a way for the organization to care about its employees; offering these employees a facility that is confidential, easily accessed and tends to alleviate distress within a reasonably short period of time. Workplace counselling may become an insurance policy against the threat of compensation claims made by employees exposed to work-related stress (Carroll, 1996).

According to Sanders (1998), counselling is not solely aimed at unhappy people or those who are well but worried; it is increasingly demanded by people for whom psychiatric services have failed or does not seem to make an impact.

This implies that counselling might be a gentle, natural way of alleviating distress for the employees and saving the reputation of the organization.

Counselling of staff may become an essential ingredient for organizational survival. McLeod (2001) posits that apart from helping the individual to

59 understand and help himself, looking at situations from new and positive perspectives to aid better decision making, it ultimately helps in developing coping strategies to deal with situations and stress. Increasing complexities in the lives of the employees create the need to address various aspects like declining performance, being stressed during office hours and/or bad decision- making. In such situations, counselling may become useful in dealing with them. It may cover all the aspects related to employee efficiency like the targets, employee's responsibilities, problems faced, employee aspirations and inter-personal relationships (Akosua, 2010).

Carroll (1997) stresses that organizations generally implement workplace counselling or take on employee assistance programmes in order to maintain a productive working environment by reducing absenteeism and increasing employee supports for a period. The U.S. Department of Labour posits that workplace counselling or employee assistance programmes improve work place performance and productivity in four ways. The first way is decreased absenteeism rates in the organization while the second way is reduced accidents and workers compensation claims. In addition is the improved employee retention and reduction in labour disputes and finally, reduced medical insurance costs for employers.

According to Cotton and Hart (2003), the wellbeing of employees influences organizational productivity and performance through improved employee

60 productivity. It may therefore be in the interest of organizations in Nigeria to avoid uneconomic use of their human resources and provide counselling services at work as one way of improving and sustaining employee performance, achieving business targets and showing commitment to employees as individuals so that attrition rate is reduced.

Counselling of employees might be of significant help in behaviour modification in such a way that it could re-enforce the desired behaviour while improving and increasing employee job productivity (Akosua, 2010). The support might become an avenue for gaining employee commitment and reducing attrition.

Firth-Cozens and Hardy (1992) conclude that Workplace Counselling can have a dramatic impact on positive work effectiveness and contribute to significant improvements on most attitude-to-work factors such as opportunity for control, skill use, job demand, clarity, feeling valued, interpersonal contact, competence, work spill-over, adequacy of pay and job satisfaction. Workplace counselling may be both a distinctive activity undertaken by people agreeing to occupy the roles of counsellor and client as it is an emergent profession. It could be a service sought by people in distress or in some degree of confusion who wish to discuss and resolve these in a relationship within disciplined and confidential settings than friendship and perhaps less stigmatizing than helping relationships offered in traditional medical or psychiatric settings. This perhaps, is the definition that sums up the relevance of counselling in the workplace as it

61 considers every aspect including wellbeing, work and relationship between the counsellor and the employee seeking assistance.

2.2 History of Workplace Counselling and its impact in America, United Kingdom and Malaysia: Lessons for Nigeria

According to Coles (2003), the history of workplace counselling appears to be a story of widely differing pressures ranging from social, political, economic, institutional/organizational, individual, practitioner and client sources. Coles

(2003) explains that some of these pressures may have been conscious or unconscious; but whatever they are, these pressures have brought workplace counselling to where it is in present times. This research studied the development of workplace counselling in three countries to show the reasons for establishing it and how it has imparted the workforce in terms of job commitment, productivity and retention. It also discussed workplace counselling in Nigeria and what lessons could be learnt from other countries in gaining the job commitment, increasing productivity and retaining right calibre employee while attempting to include workplace counselling in schools‘ curriculum.

2.2.1 America

According to Aluede, Eachern and Kenny (2005), counselling in America started as a process in the early 1900s when Clifford Beers emphasized the need to treat mental illness. The concept emerged from scattered attempts during the

62 last forty years to establish alcoholism rehabilitation programs in some industries. These programs were essentially alcohol-only treatment programs in the major industries. Over the years, their development broadened to include employees whose work efficiency had been reduced by other personal problems. The history of workplace counselling in America is marked by specific events. Forrest (1983) referenced by Coles (2003) gives a brief, evolutionary history indicating some major events that have affected the use and/or growth of workplace counselling in the United States of America:

1911 – In 1911, Frederich Taylor published ―Principles of scientific management‖. The major theme of this book was on the relationship between workers and their employers and the nature of work and workers. This book was greatly read in the business world and emphasized the use of workers as though they were machines. It therefore introduced new ways of thinking by employers who saw the need to change the mode of work and improve employer/employee relationships.

1940s- The DuPont Corporation efforts became the first systematic U.S. corporate entity to face litigation for producing gun powder and taking the health of workers into consideration. By 1980 when DuPont bought over

Conoco and went into Oil & Gas, employee welfare became a strategic action.

1960s - For the first time, a serious slippage in the rate of productivity per hour was observed in American industrial workers. This showed that workers

63 were being treated unfairly and were becoming less loyal to their organizations thereby performing less effectively. There were those who became drunks and absenteeism was rife.

1971 - The National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) was created under Public Law 91-616. This marked the first heavy infusion of federal funds into occupational alcoholism programs and increased activities to support employees.

1972 - NIAAA provided three year grants to states and territories to employ state occupational alcohol programs among public and private employers.

1974 - For the second time there was a decline in productivity per hour in

American industry. During the early 1970s, manual workers who earned their living by job skills became outnumbered for the first time in any society by knowledge workers whose work depended on mental skills rather than physical skills and whose productivity was directly related to formal education. This historic shift in the nature of work made the adoption of Theory ―Y‖ or Theory

―Z‖ management a necessity because knowledgeable workers seemed not to produce well under the old directive Theory X model. Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organizational behaviour, organizational communication and organizational development. Theory X states that some

64 people have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever. These people need to be controlled and coerced by their managers to achieve production. Theory Y states that some people see work as natural and will be self-directing if they are committed to the objectives. The manager's role with these people is to help them achieve their potential. America attempted to apply these theories to people management.

1973 – 1974 - J. Wrich wrote and published the monograph titled, ‗The

Employee Assistance Program‘ for the Hazelton Foundation, Centre City,

Minnesota. This model called the Broad Brush Approach, advocated a volunteer self-referral component and service to a wider range of employee problems beyond alcoholism. The book brought about further assistance to employees with other problems than alcoholism.

1973 - 1974- NIAAA officials recommended dropping the words alcohol and alcoholism out of the then existing occupational alcohol treatment program titles. They suggested employee counselling or employee assistance service as titles. It was generally accepted.

1975 - The first national program on employee alcoholism in higher education was held at the University of Missouri. Four subsequent yearly programs were held to discuss adaptation of employee assistance programs to college and university environments. This was another widely accepted action and was effective in both private and public sectors.

1976 - The employee assistance programs model became the dominant model in business, industry and government with government funding most of it.

1977 - An estimated 2,500 employee assistance programs came into existence throughout America.

1981 - Over 5,000 employee assistance programs became operational in the

U.S and employees became more interested in work. The early employee assistance programs were sold to management on the basis of the cost effectiveness of treating the most prevalent problem - alcohol abuse. Lowered productivity and performance were the issues of interest to the leadership and programs that positively addressed these issues were acceptable. The operational process, once the program was in place, was that the employee whose work efficiency was affected negatively by alcohol was confronted by his supervisor and advised to accept help or risk being fired (Roman, 1980).

1990s to date – Employee assistance programmes otherwise known as work place counselling have become a household name with almost every organization employing more than 20 people ensuring that the facility is available to employees. Many of the programs put into operation in the 1970s and 1980s were really humane and broad in focus but by the 90s, they had become more focused and targeted. Coles (2003) quoting Forrest (1983) observes the following statements that seem to reflect the basis upon which many employee assistance programmes were operating in the early 1980s:

 a trained employee is a valuable asset to be protected, if possible.

 it is more cost effective to rehabilitate a competent employee with problems

than to hire and train another.

 employee assistance programs can have a preventive and remedial focus,

both of which are good for the employer, the family and the employee.

 employees‘ personal problems are private unless they cause the employees‘

job performance to decline and to deteriorate.

 employee assistance programs give the employer more flexibility in dealing

with problems that used to be ignored or covered up.

 productivity is related to workers‘ feelings of well-being. Efforts to improve

worker well being should improve productivity.

 employee assistance programs are both humane and cost effective.

Most employee assistance programs today offer a variety of services for the employee in relation to everything from marital problems to financial management. A further development in the recent years has been the widespread adoption of employee assistance programs in hospitals, government units and educational institutions. Many colleges, small business, public schools and hospitals in the United States of America did adapt to and adopted the employee workplace assistance programme and workplace counselling thrives in America today.

2.2.2 United Kingdom

Counselling in the workplace has been a gradual evolution in the United

Kingdom where it is less well documented, usually only taking up a couple of pages in the literature than in America (Feitham, 1993; Carroll, 1996; Carroll and Walton, 1997). The history of counselling in the workplace can be traced to some of the textile mills in West Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Lancashire where individual capitalists financed the building of whole self-contained work communities including homes, mills, schools, chapels and parks. One of the schools was named Institute for the Formation of Character (Coles, 2003). By the 20th Century, some organizations in the United Kingdom introduced social welfarism; a system designed to keep the workforce and to reduce the need for unionization. The main influence was Elton Mayo, who suggested companies should have their own psychiatric clinics to help workers with their ‗disruptive and abnormal thinking‘. According to Coles (2003), Elton helped to produce the

Hawthorne studies which found that work groups not Management, regulated productivity by defining performance standards and by using group pressure to prevent decrease or downward adjustments of their rates. By listening to and observing the employees at work (workplace counselling), productivity increased. In the mid 1950s, according to Coles (2003), government in the UK began funding groups which today have come to be known as Employee

Assistance Professional Association (EAPA). In June 1913, the Welfare Worker‘s

Association (WWA) was formed and this represented about 60 welfare workers in British industries, including 4 workers at the Boots Company. The WWA later became the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM).

According to Coles (2003), the history of welfare provision (what today has become workplace counselling) in Britain cannot be complete without mentioning the impact of the following organizations:

The Boots Company: This company employed Clara Heath, a part-time worker as a welfare officer in 1891 and provided her with a bicycle in 1893 so that she could visit and talk to women employees who were ill or in situations of hardship. In addition, the company owner, Jesse Boots took care of the male employees and the mangers while his wife, Florence took care of the female employees by providing them tea and other conveniences. In addition, Eleanor

Kelly joined in 1911 and introduced the Salvation Army while working with

Agatha Harrison and Miss Kerr, as well as a physical education teacher, Miss

Holmes. The decision to provide workplace counselling was encouraged by the suicides of two employees that happened in the Boots Company in the early

1980s. Currently, the Boots Company offers workplace counselling service to its

100,000 employees including retired staff.

The Post Office: The post office has a history of welfare provision for about

200,000 employees which runs parallel to the development of welfare services in Britain. After the Second World War, as the government developed schemes

69 and services for the working and non-working population, organizations did not have to provide as much care for the employees and their families as they had done previously and the role of welfare officers in the workplace changed to more of advice on how to define and manage stress. All of these factors contributed to the innovation of the counselling service in the Post Office.

Northampton Shire Police Force: This organization developed a staff counselling service immediately after a fire incident in Bradford in 1984.

Through the medical officer and the Police Federation, they offered support mainly to police pensioners and to relatives of officers who died on duty. They also introduced peer counselling and a separate employee assistance programme, both of which have been replaced by an internal system that provided a holistic approach to employee care and was managed by Elizabeth

Grayson, a nurse who joined the welfare team in 1988, in the Occupational

Health Safety and Welfare Department. Recognizing the counselling needs of the workforce, she quickly recruited more trained counsellors to cope with the workload. Today, the service is provided a budget and is effectively run on brief therapeutic interventions (up to six counselling sessions). Currently, the

Northampton Shire force is adopting a defusing and debriefing policy and practice to help employees cope with a variety of critical incidents. There are also internal force trainers who use a defusing programme with a number of

70 officers to help other employees to deal with the trauma and crises that may occur in their daily duties.

British Airways (BA): In 1983 the BA Human Resources Director, Nick

George became aware of a lack of support for the cabin crew when two of the crew members committed suicide. He put machinery into place and in 1985, invited Gerard Egan, a trainer, to train a core group of counsellors for about seven years to cater for employees. There followed a period of economic recession within the organization and the management of the counselling service changed so that three cabin crew jointly managed the service for a period of time. Later, a stewardess became manager of the service and two cabin crew members were seconded to her. The service is now called CrewCare and has its main focus on the provision of effective and immediate crisis counselling sessions to any of the 15,000 cabin crew members who also have access to counselling, advice and information from independent counselling services if they wish to use this rather than CrewCare.

Apart from the companies, a few individuals stand out as major contributors to the success of workplace counselling in the United Kingdom:

Michael Reddy who studied Psychology in the United States for six years and experienced a wide range of therapeutic settings and practices including drop-in centres, student counselling, marriage counselling, physical rehabilitation, alcohol and drug clinics and an intern year in an acute psychiatric unit.

Alongside these applications of therapy he explored a variety of other techniques such as bioenergetics, psychodrama, transactional analysis, gestalt and encounter groups. He finally settled for Transactional Analysis (TA).

Presently, Reddy handles employees with whom organizations do not know how to work, as he can relate to the contextual workplace and hierarchy issues to do this which has a lot of impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations.

Gerard Egan studied Clinical Psychology for his masters degree and is popular for the ‗Three Stage Model‘ he introduced in his major work The Skilled Helper

(2002) and for his application of his theories to the tasks of management. Some of his other works such as Adding Value (1993) is an extension of the Three

Stage Model into a systematic model for developing management and leadership in organizations. Egan sees the organization as a living, breathing conscious and unconscious entity.

Michael Carroll was a student of the Egan programme at Loyola University,

Chicago and obtained his masters degree in Counselling Psychology. He wrote and delivered his first diploma in counselling at work. Carroll has written two important texts on workplace counselling, developing organizational roles for counsellors and taking counselling supervision into the workplace. Carroll‘s publications cover a variety of counselling and organizational issues, such as

The Handbook of Counselling in Organizations (Carroll and Walton 1997) and

Workplace Counselling (Carroll, 1996). Since leaving Roehampton where he used to work, Carroll has continued to specialize in management and organizational consultancy, and has been involved in an executive mentoring programme for Premier Prisons. Carroll, Reddy and Egan are regarded as the grandfathers of contemporary workplace counselling in the UK (Coles, 2003).

Noreen Tehrani: Tehrani was actively involved in the work of the Police efforts to rehabilitate suffering employees. Tehrani wrote several papers amongst which is Preventing Stress in 1997. Tehrani (1997) posits that the legal and moral obligation an organization has towards its employees is three- fold: First, there is the duty of care that is defined in the legal structures of employment law in Britain. Second, organizational mission and values can be translated to mean that an organization believes it can help reduce mental health problems in the workforce by providing a workplace that does not contribute to employee mental health problems, through clarity about job role and counselling services for employees. Third, individual effectiveness (a concept that makes a philosophical/socio-political assumption) is a particular activity that an organization can provide, mainly focused on helping the individual employee maximize his efficiency and thus help the organization maximize its efficiency. Tehrani (1997) developed First Line Counselling which had a very clearly defined set of objectives, values and structures. There was a limit of four sessions per employee including solution-focused method of

73 working. The evolution of employee support into first line counselling followed a general social trend towards the need for psychological help for employees from professionals at work. However, by 1997 Tehrani had developed a strong role in the Post Office and realized that regarding the changing needs of the organization for support in the psychosocial area of employee well-being, there had to be a change in the emphasis of the welfare service from one which had its main focus on social issues to one which also embraced psychological aspects of employee well-being.

In addition to the corporate and individual contributions, British Association for

Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the Employee Assistance

Professional Association UK (EAPA UK) are the driving forces behind the consistent growth and professionalism of workplace counselling in the United

Kingdom in this century.

2.2.3 Malaysia

Although slow, counselling in Malaysia has come a long way. Counselling in

Malaysia began with churches, school guidance in the 1960s and then social work centres or non-governmental organizations in the early eighties and has now achieved recognition as a profession in the workplace, schools and community settings (Tham, 1998). The ever increasing problems of drugs, alcoholism, broken relationships, families and other social ills prompted the

Malaysian government to give serious attention to the lack of professional counselling centres for the public at large. Ching (2010) reports that in the

1970s, the Malaysian Social Welfare Ministry began sending many of its officers abroad to be trained as counsellors to meet the gigantic need for counselling. by the late 80s, government set up more counselling centres in the public sector to help its workers deal with problems. By the early 90s, a few private sector firms began to introduce professional industrial counselling to its employees as they realized that counselling may prove to be effective in not only reducing social problems, but also improving employee productivity that can run into millions of dollars in cost savings. Some assumptions guided the implementation of workplace counselling at the early stages.

The major assumptions The major assumptions underlying the early workplace employee counselling and assistance programs in Malaysia are as follows:

 unless job performance is impaired, a person‘s life or problem is his own.

 most problems, regardless of their nature, eventually manifest themselves in

poor job Performance.

 it is the role of supervisors to measure and evaluate job performance. Thus

they can identify deteriorating job performance without having to diagnose

the nature of the underlying problems (Abdullah, 1993).

It is worthy of note that values have great influence on the way Malaysians think, behave and relate with people and perform daily tasks because values drive businesses. An organization‘s values, what it stands for and what its people believe in are crucial to its competitive success. In Malaysia there are three main ethnic groups being the Malays, the Chinese, and the Indians.

According to Abdullah (1993), the common values of the three ethnic groups are in the ―we‖ orientation, face, modesty and harmony which affect the way counselling is applied in the country. Abdullah (1993) has made the following findings on the culture and values of the Malaysian workforce:

 Value of non-assertiveness: Malaysians are seen to be extremely

dedicated to do a good job. Generally, Malaysians are eager to please others

and may find it difficult to say no. Subordinates will not argue with the

bosses for it will be seen as a loss of face for the boss. For the same reason,

a subordinate would pretend to understand the instruction given to him by

his seniors otherwise he would be seen as stupid. They are also reluctant to

check back if there is a problem and have a tendency not to bring the

problem to the attention of the boss. They are often reluctant to ask for help

when they do not understand. They are loyal to authority and tend to act

with deference and obedience towards their elders; theirs is a value of

loyalty, respect for authority. An authoritarian style of management is still

predominant. They go along with the paternal attitude that often develops

between employer and employee. This subservient behaviour may affect

counselling relationships adversely as the client may just accept the

counsellor‘s ideas and proffer none of his own.

 Value of collectivism: Malaysians work extremely well in a team

environment as they have a strong sense of belonging. The spirit of

collectivism is more important than that of individualism and this is often

translated in the willingness to give priority to group interests ahead of

individual concerns. The ―we‖ orientation, teamwork and cooperation comes

first. Satisfaction at work comes from having opportunities to receive

appropriate respect from colleagues and maintain harmonious, predictable

and enjoyable friendships with subordinates and peers. Hence rather than

accept individual counselling, the Malaysian would prefer to do work first.

 Value of harmony: Malaysians prefer compromise to confrontation, and

often seek consensus and harmony in business dealings. The perspective of

superior and subordinates are less likely to be in conflict. Every attempt is

made to preserve self esteem or face. Open public criticism and

outspokenness are to be avoided at all costs because they undermine

harmonious relationships. Tolerance and understanding count more than

legalistic and rationalistic arguments which are based on objectivity. This

value is dangerous for counselling as the counsellor may need to apply

emotion rather than professionalism.

 Value of preserving face: Malaysians are less forthcoming in expressing

views and opinions and are uncomfortable in critically evaluating peers and

subordinates. Giving negative feedback can be awkward and difficult as

indirectness is more the norm than directness in day to day behaviour.

Criticisms, when given, can be taken seriously and may lead to loss of face.

Situations like these can be difficult for professional counselling as the client

might take offence at the counsellor‘s remarks.

 Value of respect for hierarchy: Social formalities are extremely important

as one‘s social status in the community deserves respect. There is a strong

preference for a relationship-based orientation or a person-oriented

approach rather than a task-oriented approach in performing tasks.

Developing trust and partnership understanding are far more important than

the contractual obligation of getting the job done. This means that respect

could be more important than the results in a counselling relationship at

work.

 Value of third party and preserving face: There is a tendency to deal

with ambiguities and uncertainties by using the indirect approach of a third

party. This way, politeness and direct relationships are maintained even

when the counsellor has to request third party presence in a relationship.

The aforementioned characteristics of Malaysian employees are found to be some of the commonly observed behaviours demonstrated at the workplace.

Torrington and Tan (1994) therefore conclude that these factors are taken into consideration in the implementation of an employee counselling program as they determine the success or failure of the employee counselling program. The government and private sector continue to invest in workplace counselling for the benefit of employees.

2.2.4 Nigeria According to Adeyinka, Ayeni and Popoola (2007), 30 of the 49 least developed countries are in Africa, Nigeria being one of them. Telecommunications networks in Africa were among the least developed in the world and accounted for 2% of the world‘s main lines. At independence in 1960, with a population of roughly 40 million people, Nigeria had only about 18,724 phone lines. Now there is a proliferation of different companies with fourteen network providers currently operating in Nigeria with over two million employees in their call centres. The same problems faced by workers and call centre staff all over the world apply to these in Nigeria. However, the question remains whether the employers are taking steps to take care of their employees and what strategies are being adopted. Some of the welfare packages available to employees of the call centre in Nigeria include medicals, pension, transportation and telephone lines. To date, it is difficult to have a clear definition of regular training and development or mental supports (counselling) in these call centres.

The history of workplace counselling cannot be traced without mentioning how counselling came to Nigeria. Aluede, Eachern and Kenny (2005) trace counselling in Nigeria to the origin of humans and he calls it traditional counselling which he says was based on the principles of ‗to guide, to direct on a course and to enlighten or to assist‘. Professional counselling practice has existed as career counselling in Nigeria since 1959 (Ubangha and Olusakin,

1996). The process of having counselling institutionalised in Nigerian school system began with the efforts of a group of catholic nuns that organized a career workshop at St Theresa‗s College Oke-Ado, Ibadan in 1959. It is reported in the guidance literature in Nigeria that this effort and several others thereafter culminated in the establishment of the Nigerian Career Council which has now metamorphosed into the Counselling Association of Nigeria (Ubangha and Olusakin, 1996). According to Aluede (2000), following the civil war in

Nigeria between July 29, 1967 and January 15, 1970, there was the dire need to rehabilitate the war victims especially the displaced school children. This was also instrumental to the institutionalization of counselling programmes in schools. In addition, secondary school students who were being exposed to a new form of educational policy (6-3-3-4) faced a lot of difficulties, particularly at the period of transition from junior secondary school level; and the transition between secondary schools and the labour markets was also another force that

80 led to the emergence of guidance and counselling as an educational service in the national policy on education.

Unfortunately beyond the schools and retired people, counselling in Nigeria has not been carried far. There is little or no literature for workplace counselling in

Nigeria. What is known is that in 2006 and 2007, Zain (now Airtel) contracted

Unilag Consult to implement counselling for their call centre staff. Counselling psychologists from the Department of Educational Foundations carried out the brief sessions once or twice a week for the period. Records of this work are kept closed and not revealed. To date, no literature has been produced on this.

In addition MTN started developing strategies for counselling customer care staff of the company in 2010. This plan is yet to be implemented. Nigeria therefore has a lot to learn from other countries in introducing workplace counselling. It is important to note that the students who are counseled in schools are the same ones who come to the workplace to face the challenge of organizational politics and policies and are barely able to survive it all. There is therefore need to document counselling activities in Nigeria‘s workplace for the future.

2.3 Workplace Counselling and Employee Commitment

It is not exactly established whether workplace counselling has a direct relationship with employee commitment. However, from the perspective of

Agba, Nkpoyen and Ushie (2010), counselling during career development plan has a positive impact on employee commitment. Agba, Nkpoyen and Ushie

(2010) state that when an organization takes on career development of the individual, such activity is called career guidance, which comprises three steps of forecasting, planning and counselling. The employee becomes more committed when he/she can easily see his/her growth path and understands the interest of the company in his/her development during the counselling session as postulated by Herzberg (1959). The process also has a positive effect on the organization because the more committed employees become, the more successful the organization. Research (McLeod, 2001; Carroll, 1996) have also found that workplace counselling increases employee morale and as a result, commitment.

Researchers have described commitment as being complex and without a stable meaning: (Coopey and Hartley, 1991 – as pluralist and Guest, 1992 – as elusive). This means commitment can be explained based on a researcher‘s point of view or the circumstance of the discussion. Other studies (Allen and

Meyer 1990; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990) define employee commitment as a means of explaining the relationship between the employee and the employer such that it could be called organizational commitment. Recent research (Meyer and Allen 1997; Adebayo 2006) has found that one of the factors that could lead to a healthy organizational climate, increased morality and productivity is

82 employee commitment. According to Ogba (2007), employee commitment is the extent to which an employee is psychologically connected to his organization, sustained by a continued desire to remain employed and expressed as emotional feeling, bond, involvement and consideration of alternatives, sacrifices and costs due to internal and external influences.

Douglas (2003) posits that some of such influences include variables like good remuneration package and dignity or the respect attached to the job. From the above definitions, employee commitment is a state of mind that can be developed by the individual for particular reasons that would achieve the right attitude to work. However commitment should not be seen from only the employee‘s perspective but a function of both personal characteristics and internal organizational factors. This position is confirmed by Gallie and White

(1993) finding that counselling in the workplace releases employees‘ personal characteristics which could be external factors including beliefs and sense of success which ultimately results in organizational loyalty (commitment). Internal organizational factors include:

 opportunities for personal development

 the extent to which employees feel their skills are utilized

 access to training

 the extent to which the organization is seen as a caring employer

 the existence of teamwork as a form of supervision

While some organizations, especially in the UK believe that employee commitment could be achieved through workplace counselling and continue to employ the services of external Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) professionals, Cannon, McKenzie and Sims (2003) claim that most researchers (Orme, 2003; Mothersole, 2001; Magnus, 1995 and Labour

Research Department, 1994) have advanced three reasons why workplace counselling is not effective. First, most organizations may be committed on paper but may not be so in practice and they would assign their experienced staff and managers who are not trained/professional counsellors to implement counselling. It means therefore that the counselling will also not have positive effect on the counselees because the ‗counsellors‘ have to do it part time therefore little time, commitment and concentration would usually be given to the act of counselling. Secondly, there is fear of management interfering and knowing about subjects discussed and in turn, victimizing the employee. Thirdly, they believe that workplace counselling is unpredictable because some counsellors have an orientation towards handling counselling at work as purely clinical, for mental health or for alcoholism while in reality, individuals have different needs which might affect them at work.

In most cases, employees in such organizations are reluctant to go for counselling and/or pretend to be committed to the organization to avoid both victimization and stigmatization. These postulations are therefore reasons to

84 critically look at the effectiveness of workplace counselling in achieving commitment. Inspite of these arguments, research consistently shows improvement of presenteeism/commitment-related problems from EAPs. For example, a study of almost 60,000 EAP cases found that employee absenteeism was reduced from an average of 2.37 days of unscheduled absences within a 30-day period before using the EAP to only 0.91 days after completing the sessions. This shows that employees involved in the sessions became more committed to coming to work than before (Selvik, Stephenson,

Plaza and Sugden, 2004).

Armstrong (1999) posits that in today‘s business world, no organization can maintain the competitive edge unless the employees are involved in and committed to corporate objectives. They would therefore work as effective team members who think like entrepreneurs and are capable of proving their worth. In the same way, employees want to be part of a successful organization which provides a good income and the opportunity for development and secure employment. Commitment is a broad concept which tends to withstand transitory aspects of an employee‘s job. It is possible to be dissatisfied with a particular part of a job, for example salary while retaining a reasonably high level of commitment to the organization as a whole. It is therefore important for organizations to formulate strategies that

85 would create commitment hence Armstrong (1999) asserts in reference to

Employee Engagement:

…is difficult to deny that it is desirable for management to have defined strategic goals and values. And it is equally desirable from management‘s point of view for employees to behave in a way that support those strategies and values. Creating commitment includes communication, education, training and initiatives to increase involvement and ownership and the development of performance and reward management systems‖. (1999: 133 – 134).

What this means is a need for creating organizational values that would interest the employees enough to develop organizational citizenship behaviour. Adeyinka, Ayeni and Popoola (2007) conclude that an effective organization will ensure that its employees are highly committed to their jobs by providing an enabling environment that will enhance employees‘ organizational commitment. The appointment of good workers is thus critical but of even greater significance is the organization‘s ability to create a committed workforce.

However, research (Newstrom and Davis 1993; Ivancevich, Konopaske, and

Matteson, 2007) are not clear about the effects of workplace counselling on job commitment because most employees do not trust or believe that the organization they work for can understand and solve their problems as time, effort and resources required on the part of the organization are a constraint.

They believe that the organization may interfere with their counselling experience because it is financially responsible and this would affect how effective the experience would be. Workers in contemporary society therefore often express a strong desire to pursue what they believe is more than just a job. They want a variety of things from their jobs other than their basic salaries and fringe benefits; their loyalty to the organization depends upon the degree to which their employer satisfies these wants (Agba,

Nkpoyen and Ushie, 2010). The employees expect employers to demonstrate their commitment in terms of pleasant working conditions, access to training and development, provision of a safe working environment, self worth and a balance between work and employee commitment outside the work place.

For example while Salami and Omole (2005) have found the Nigerian worker to be committed, Alarape and Akinlabi (2000) posit that the organizations need to show more commitment to the plight of the workers. This will bring about job satisfaction which is a prerequisite for commitment.

Watson (1998) studied a group of 129 employees using counselling intervention. The study spanned four sessions carried out two times a week.

The result shows that there was an increase of overall job satisfaction (F =

16.04; P < .01) which contributed to over 48% of the variance showing that counselling has a positive impact on employee commitment. Job commitment is therefore an attribute that requires more strategic efforts from the

87 organizations if they are to get their employees to be loyal. According to

Ogba (2006), there are three levels of employee behaviours essential for organizational effectiveness:

 entering and remaining with the organization

 carrying out specific role requirements

 engaging in innovative and spontaneous activity that goes beyond role

prescriptions

Available research (Adeyemo, 2000; Adeyemo and Aremu, 1999; Dornstein and Matalon, 1998) show that several factors affect employee commitment including age (experience/length of service), education (course of study e.g. professional courses like Medicine and Engineering), interesting work, employment alternatives, gender, attitude of colleagues towards the organization, attitude of family and friends and organizational dependency which constitute 65% of the variance in organizational commitment.

Moreover, Gbadamosi (2003) has found that income (remuneration) influences employee expression of commitment to the organization especially in Nigeria. What this implies is that Nigerian workers would rather get better pay than anything else for their commitment. This may be due to high cost of living and poverty levels in the country. However, Dipboye, Smith and Howell

(1994) feel that the highly committed worker takes his or her work seriously and that allegiance of the highly committed worker resides with the

88 organization, not the job or work or income. These show that employees are loyal to their organization if they get what can satisfy them as the Social

Exchange theory postulates. The attachment of an individual to an organization involves three dimensions of commitment which include: affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment

(Meyer, Becker and Vandenberghe, 1991; Dunham, Grube and Castaneda,

1994).

Affective commitment refers to the employee‘s emotional attachment to the organization which makes him want to identify and be involved with the organization. The antecedent of affective commitment generally falls in to four categories: personal characteristics, structural characteristics

(organizational), job-related characteristics and work experience all of which have some impact on employee commitment. Meyer and Allen (1997) conclude that an employee with the affective commitment orientation commits to the organization because he wants to.

Continuance commitment refers to the employee‘s awareness of the cost associated with leaving the organization and losing membership of that organization. The potential cost of leaving an organization include economic loses; for example, pension and other benefit accruals, the threat of wasting the time and effort spent acquiring non-transferable skills, giving up

89 seniority-based privileges or having to uproot family and disrupt personal relationships (Meyer and Allen, 1997). Apart from the costs of leaving, continuance commitment also develops due to lack of alternative employment opportunities, especially in Nigeria where the labour market is saturated (ILO, 2012). An employee whose primary links to the organization is based on continuance commitment remains because he needs to (Meyer and Allen, 1997).

Normative commitment refers to employee commitment because he is obliged to. Meyer and Allen (1997) posit that employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with an organization

The employee remains with the organization because of personal values or to repay the company‘s goodness to him; for example, for excellent employee welfare like school fees, loans, costs associated with job training or even head hunting fees. Employee commitment can therefore be summed up according to Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch and Topolnytsky (2002) in Figure 7.

EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT

Affective Continuance Normative

Desire Cost Obligation

Reason Reason Reason Identity Relevance Investment Internalization of Norms Shared Values Lack of Alternatives Psychological Contract Personal Investment Benefit & Reciprocity/Norm

EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOUR

Figure 7: The Meaning of Employee Commitment Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch and Topolnytsky (2002: 220)

Organizational commitment is an important variable which can be used to determine the effectiveness of an organization. It is necessary for organizations to develop employees with organizational citizenship behaviour so that employee commitment can be achieved. The following activities are requisite to achieving citizenship behaviour according to Hunter and Thatcher

(2007):

 redesigning staff job conditions such that tasks become more

challenging, interesting, intrinsically motivating and instilling a perception

of higher status

 meeting employee expectations through deliberate choices to engage

them in activities that will have worthwhile outcomes; for example, team

building and charitable activities

 raising benefits accrued by linking compensation to performance so as to

induce greater efforts to productivity as staff will be highly expectant

 creating personal values by organizing activities that will enhance each

employee‘s attachment to a worthwhile contribution

 raising personal norms and values by making employees create rules and

guiding principles

 organizing coaching and training sessions that would make employees

define their purpose in relation to job description, skills and knowledge

 introducing and managing counselling sessions for employees requiring it

to ensure a feeling of worthwhileness

In order to achieve organizational commitment, employers may need to support their employees through workplace counselling to value involvement in the organization. Research (Carroll, 1996; McLeod, 2001) have found that workplace counselling increases employee morale and as a result, commitment. Managers‘ support in referring troubled employees to the counsellors/EAP is a critical element for success. Researchers (Boone, 1995;

Hiatt, Hargrave and Palmertree, 1999; Hargrave, Hiatt, Dannenbaum and

Shaffer, 2007) have found that when managers and supervisors refer employees to counsellors and their challenges are resolved appropriately, the employees became more focused and committed to work. The more the employees value being part of the organization, the more likely they are to produce effective work. Thus it is possible to imply that a committed employee will be productive.

2.4 Workplace Counselling and Employee Productivity

The effect of workplace counselling on the job productivity of employees is mostly positive. Productivity is a performance measure encompassing both efficiency and effectiveness (Hellriegel, Slocum and Woodman, 1998). Many businesses today define productivity as hours worked but Carson, Ranzijn,

Winefield and Marsden (2000) posits that productivity is the result of work (a ratio of a measure of output to a measure of some or all of the resources used to produce this output) usually expressed in terms of the mission of the organization; so that it is possible to produce more with the same amount of effort. In call centres in Nigeria, productivity is measured as average handling time divided by number of calls by schedule adherence. Measuring the impact of workplace counselling on the organizational or job productivity can be challenging. Recently a standardized measuring tool called Health and

Productivity Questionnaire (HPQ - Kessler, Barber, Beck, Berglund, Cleary and

McKenas, 2003; Kessler, Ames, Hymel, Loeppke, McKenas and Richling,

2004) was developed to assess employee work productivity. The HPQ measures the impact of chronic illness on productivity using measures of presenteeism and absenteeism (Rothermel, Slavit and Finch, 2008; Jacobson,

2009). With norms from more than 200,000 employees worldwide, the HPQ is considered a reliable and valid measure for use in the workplace (Kessler,

Barber, Beck, Berglund, Cleary and McKenas, 2003; Kessler, Ames, Hymel,

Loeppke, McKenas and Richling, 2004).

Productivity requires that manpower development and training are made available to the workers so that they can take pride in their contributions to the success of the organization which in turn will achieve efficient and effective employee performance (Anao, 1993; Akinyele, 2007). This is why

94 organizations may often require the services of educationists and counsellors to support their employees. Ahmad and Subha (2009) reveal that when employees do not experience support from the organization, they become stressed. They studied a group of telecommunications employees aged between 26 and 35 years of age who articulated that their organization did not care about employees therefore the employees were stressed and often sick which reduced performance. The respondents said they did not like to work for that organization. The researchers conclude that this kind of stress is due to feeling like a misfit in the organization, not being given a chance in decision making and not having any control on the work environment. This can bring about Presenteeism which means that the workers are physically present at their workstations but they experience reduced productivity due to factors like health problems and dissatisfaction. Support could be given in different ways ranging from education to counselling. For example, Deloitte and Touché, an accounting consulting firm in America has effectively increased productivity, reduced attrition and saved a lot of money through the internal career counselling and mentoring programme set up in 2002

(Gordon, 2006). The program called Deloitte Career Connections helps employees to develop their skills in job areas other than their own. It also assists employees to consider other jobs where their knowledge, skills and experience can be utilised and which could help them achieve career

95 progression. Thirteen full time career coaches employed by the firm provide one-on-one counselling to about 3,500 partners and employees (Gordon

2006). The program has retained at least 650 employees since 2002 and these employees have become more productive since being assigned to confidential career coaches (Gordon, 2006).

In the same way, research (Hiatt, Hargrave and Palmertree, 1999; Harris,

Adams, Hill, Morgan and Soliz, 2002) has established that counselling employees at work reduced the impact of emotive problems on productivity thereby reducing absenteeism. The research also showed that the number of depression cases dropped and as a result there was improvement in human relations, work quality and performance. It is important therefore, to know who the productive workers are. According to Carson, Ranzijn, Winefield and

Marsden (2000), productive workers are those who comply with the following conditions to ensure effectiveness.

 join and stay as long as needed in the employing organization. This is

the need for low labour turnover.

 ensure availability when their services are needed. This is the need for

time punctuality, low absenteeism and infrequent mass work stoppage.

 fulfill their presence at work by actually performing their specific tasks

and duties at the same workplace.

 co-operate with fellow workers.

Masi, Hensley and Jacobson (2000) administered counselling for a group of customer service employees in 15 organizations and their findings show an increase in employee capability to handle stress at work by 42% and a 44% increase in dealing with personal challenges. In addition, productivity increased by

33% and relationships with colleagues and superior officers improved by 26%.

Research (Phillips, 2004; Attridge, 2003) has shown that EAP Counselling client satisfaction is generally around 95% and measured improvements in employee absenteeism and productivity. There is also a positive impact on workers compensation costs (Kirk, 2006; McLeod and McLeod, 2010). Hargrave and Hiatt

(2004) posit that EAP counselling intervention has a positive impact on job productivity resulting in 34% increase in performance. Results from Flanagan and

Ots (2011) study carried out on clients satisfaction in private and public sectors across Australia on the impact of employee assistance programme in the workplace showed an average of 86% improvement in regard to emotional wellbeing, followed by an average of 50% improvement in work morale and motivation and a 45% improvement in work-life management, then improvement averages of 24-27% in regard to physical health, work relationships and work productivity. The result is summed up in Table 1.

Table 1: EAP Clients Satisfaction Rating Flanagan and Ots (2011)

All clients

Personal Domain Percent Pre EAP Post EAP Mean Difference Improvement

Emotional Wellbeing 36.7 68.5 31.7 86.40%

Physical Health 57.7 72 14.3 24.80%

Work – life Management 48.4 70.1 21.7 44.80%

Work Domain Percent Pre EAP Post EAP Mean Difference Improvement

Work productivity 60.5 74.9 14.5 24.00%

Morale & productivity 46.3 69.2 22.9 49.50%

Work Relationships 57.9 73.7 15.8 27.30%

Notes: N= 1,015; Difference is statically significant ( p < .01); measurements were self reported rating on a scale from 0% to 100%

According to Nwachukwu (2007), the productivity of an employee is seen as the relationship between units of labour inputs and units of output. Productivity includes three major elements (a) output (b) resources committed and (c) time such that a productivity curve is achieved effectively as shown in Figure 8:

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Nwachukwu (2007) posits that productivity is not a judgment of how hard or tedious people work but how efficient they are. Hence when employees' basic needs are not being met, meaningful improvements may become difficult to make in the organization. This agrees with Maslow‘s needs hierarchy that if needs are satisfied, humans can be friendly and disciplined. Counselling is one way to support and meet employees‘ needs as shown in the findings of Attridge and Amaral (2002) that productivity/work performance improved based on the following counselling services which were provided during the research: individual psychological counselling 56%, counselling by phone 55%, legal or financial counselling 36%. These results imply that counselling is effective by whatever means available to the researcher. Tehrani (1997) posits that the legal and moral obligation an organization has towards its employees is three-fold.

First, there is the duty of care that is defined in the legal structures of employment law. Second, organizational mission and values can be translated to mean that an organization believes it can help reduce mental health problems in the workforce by providing a workplace that does not contribute to employee mental health problems through clarity of job roles and counselling services for employees. Third, individual effectiveness (a concept that makes a philosophical/socio-political assumption) is a particular activity that an organization can provide. It should mainly be focused on helping the individual

100 employee maximize his efficiency and thus help the organization maximize its efficiency.

Selvik and Bingaman (1998) also posit that EAP interventions led to an improved productivity due to better physical and psychological health, better human relations and fewer absences. An EAP for the American Government affairs on health matters, conducted a study on EAP outcomes which included nearly sixty thousand clients. Selvik, Stephenson, Plaza and Sudgen (2004) establish that the participants were evaluated on workplace performance and overall functioning.

Data were collected over a period of 3 years using a standardized procedure that included counsellor-assessed measures and validated self-report instruments.

The results show that employees who said they had difficulty performing their work dropped from 15% to 5% in all cases of those using the provided counselling service (Selvik, Stephenson, Plaza and Sugden 2004). Lethargy and absenteeism were also significantly reduced as a result of the program. Prior to the use of the EAP, clients reported an average of 2.37 days of unscheduled absences in the previous months. However, after finishing the EAP sessions, the average dropped to .91 days (Selvik, Stephenson, Plaza and Sugden, 2004). In addition, 50% of cases had improved productivity at work (Harlow, 2006) while

57% of cases had improvement in ability to work productively after use of the

EAP (Attridge, 2003); number of absenteeism days reduced from 8.0 to 3.4 days after EAP use (Baker, 2007) and 46% of all types of cases had improved work

101 productivity (Amaral, 2008). These show that when organizations take care of the basic needs of employees, it could lead to improved productivity/performance, safety and employee satisfaction.

2.5 Workplace Counselling and Employee Retention

The effect of workplace counselling on employee retention is reported in Trieber

(2005) as 70% successful in removing personal and interpersonal problems and increasing interest in work and willingness to remain on the job. In Swailes‘

(2004) research, the results show that an employee‘s intention to remain employed with a particular organization is a function of job limitations and the employee‘s years of sacrifice which refers to number of years spent working in the organization. Research (Ambrose, 1996; Kreisman, 2002) shows that for over a decade now, companies have been faced with the challenge of attracting, hiring and more importantly, retaining people with the skills necessary to do the work of the companies. Reichheld (2001) posits that the words 'attrition' and

'retention' are profoundly significant in the context of corporate and professional institutions. Attrition is the separation of employees from an organization, due to resignation and/or retirement. Retention may be defined as the process whereby the optimum security of job or employment is guaranteed without any condition or infringement attached to it. One of the reasons workers wish to quit their employment is attributable to job satisfaction. If the job satisfaction is low, it will reduce the individual‘s work commitment and increase the intention to withdraw

102

(Cohen and Golan, 2007). According to Firth, Mellor, Moore and Loquet (2004),

Some workers manifest the intention to leave through presenteeism or increased absenteeism while some actually just quit (Park and Kim, 2009). Thus, it is vital for employers to take care of their employees so that they can ensure succession, sustainability and the survival of the organization. Robinson and

Baron (2007) have established that employee turnover has a direct correlation with job satisfaction and organizational commitment; the length of service in a job could be used to estimate the levels of job commitment of workers. The assumption is that the less satisfied who are usually the less committed workers, tend to resign while the more satisfied ones tend to remain on a job. The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention has been acknowledged and/or refuted by different researchers. For example, Adeyemo and Afolabi (2007) have found a negative correlation between employee job satisfaction and intention to quit. However, Ojedokun, (2008) reports that the higher the level of employee motivation, the better the job satisfaction and as a result, the less the employees think of leaving their job.

Similarly, Purani and Sahadev (2007) developed and used a job satisfaction multi-faceted construct as predictor variable and examined its impact on intention to leave among the sales personnel in India. They have found that employees with long stay at workplace had higher level of job satisfaction and would not want to leave. The longer an employee remains with an organisation,

103 the more they are able to understand organisational philosophies and strategy.

They are able to get better aligned to organisational goals and hence the organization can achieve higher levels of retention. According to Silbert (2005), well skilled and talented workers may easily find good jobs and positions in other workplaces however, the effective way for retaining these talented employees could be to enhance friendly and close working environment through counselling to enable them see the value placed on them and the gains of working for the organization. Further research (Cayley, Lain, Preece and Scheuchl, 2005;

Trieber, 2005; Babcock, 2009) reveal that employees who wanted to leave their jobs before counselling often had a change of mind. In Babcock (2009), 64% of participants who had plans to leave at the time of the study decided to stay on their jobs by the end of the counselling sessions. This result shows that EAP use brings about reduced absenteeism and presenteeism as well as fewer turnovers

(increased retention). Freyermuth (2007) therefore recommended that organizations need to introduce EAPs or develop their supervisors in counselling to support the employees for the purposes of retaining best hands.

According to Olowu and Adamolekun (2005), it has become more essential to secure and manage competent human resource as the most valuable resource of any organization. This need arises because of the critical prerogative for efficient and effective delivery of goods and services by organizations whether in the public or private sector. Therefore, for an organization to realize its

104 goals, the need to recruit and more importantly, retain its best employees is critical. This means that every organization needs to develop strategies for retention. Employee retention strategies according to Gberevbie (2010) refer to the means, plans or set of decision-making behaviours put in place by forward looking organizations to retain their competent workforce for optimal performance. Appropriate employee retention strategies such as appropriate rewards (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin, 1992; Heneman and Judge, 2003), performance pay (Griffeth and Hom, 2001), employee training and career development (Okoh, 1998), creation of social community in the workplace that enhances social ties such as encouraging employee marriages and siblings employment (Ayagi, 2001), job security and high level of wage rate and organization‘s image (Taplin, Winterton and Winterton, 2003), participative decision making and information sharing (Riordan, Vandenberg and

Richardson, 2005) and workplace counselling (Carroll, 1996) serve as catalyst in retaining employees for organizational success.

As an organizational strategy for employee retention, there is a greater level of complexity in managing workplace counselling. Firstly, most employees are worried about confidentiality especially when it involves an employee assistance programme (EAP) sourced by the organization. According to Carroll

(1996) employees would usually be afraid of attending sessions or revealing much about their challenges due to the fear of being stigmatized or being

105 asked to leave the employment. Instead, they resign their jobs at the slightest provocation. Secondly, Coles (2003) argues that some of the counsellors implement a lot of coaching instead of the actual counselling. The confusion between confidentiality and content of counselling results in employee attrition and organizational loss. Counsellors therefore need to be careful to manage information, content and structure of the sessions while organizations are best advised to develop proper choices while planning strategies for employee retention. Firth-Cozens and Hardy (1992) posits that 28% of problems identified by clients were work related. Of these, 62% referred to difficulties in relationships at work while 18% of employees are affected by personal problems on the job which can decrease their productivity and intention to stay by 25%. The research however, reveals that counselling contributed to significant improvements on most attitude-to-work factors such as opportunity for control, skill use, job demand, clarity, feeling valued, interpersonal contact, competence, work spill-over, adequacy of pay, job satisfaction and as a result, increased employee interest to continue working for the company. In the majority of studies (Stein, 2000; McLeod, 2001; Beck, 2001; Clarke, 2001;

Parker and Wright, 2001) that have examined retention, counselling interventions have been found to reduce sickness absence rates in clients by

25-50%.

Monga and Srivastava (2008) define employee retention as a systematic effort

106 by employers to create and foster an environment that encourages current employees to remain employed by having policies and practices in place that address their diverse needs. In one of their surveys, 90% of those firms surveyed said it is more difficult to retain talented individuals than it was several years before. They conclude that losing a middle manager in most organizations, translates to a loss of up to five times his salary and in fact, that attrition levels in most telecommunications companies are as high as 40% which if translated to the loss can be damaging for the organizations. The research further lists the significance of retention as follows:

 high turnover often leaves customers and employees in the lurch;

retention will cushion the impart

 replacing employees always costs money. The cost of replacing an

employee is estimated to be up to twice the individual‘s annual salary or

higher for some positions, such as middle management. This does not

include the cost of lost knowledge.

 recruiting employees consumes a great deal of time and effort, much of it

futile as the interviewees may sometimes not meet the employer‘s

standards.

 bringing new employees to understand and begin to involve in and deliver

work to organizational standards takes even more time. This includes time

to train, develop and acculturate amongst others.

107

Subsequently, Monga and Srivastava (2008) submit that to retain employees and keep satisfaction high, organizations need to implement the three Rs of employee retention: Respect, Recognition and Rewards so that they can achieve increased productivity, reduced absenteeism and create a more pleasant work environment for improved profits. Respect is esteem, special regard or particular consideration given to people. Recognition is defined as special notice or attention and the act of perceiving clearly. Many problems with retention and morale occur because management is not paying attention to people‘s needs and reactions. The Social Exchange theory posits that employees work better and remain working for the organization if the relationship is mutually beneficial. Rewards are the extra perks offered beyond the basics of respect and recognition that make it worth people‘s while to work hard and produce more. This means that when employees think that an organization has a caring philosophy, they are likely to want to remain with that organization.

Monga and Srivastava (2008) conclude that a retention-rich organization culture is required to attract, engage and build lasting loyalty among today's most skilled and talented employees. Such talented and skilled employees are called contributors; those who make positive changes by Kreisman (2002). Quoting

Dibble (1997), Kreisman (2002) says employee contributors are found everywhere in the organization especially in frontline operations and call

108 centres. Employee retention levels depend in part on the people who are hired, why they are hired and how they are managed. The research further posits that an organization may not know the actual number of employees it would want to retain but a working assumption is that employee population follows a normal distribution. Therefore, the following outline is proposed by Dibble (1997):

 three percent (3%) are critical to the success of the organization. Everything

should be done to keep them

 thirteen percent (13%) are very important. A lot should be done to keep

them

 sixty eight percent (68%) are considered valuable and the organization

should put strategies in place to accommodate them

 thirteen percent (13%) of an organization‘s population probably need to

improve their skills and performance or leave

 three percent (3%) at any time are quite a draw back and should probably

be in a process leading to their termination of employment

Kreisman (2002) concludes therefore that retention strategies should be targeted at ninety seven percent (97%) of the employee population as shown in the normal curve in Figure 9:

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1997. 1997.

Source: Kreisman (2002) Source:(2002) Kreisman

: Normal Curve showing Retention Strategies (Dibble, Retention Curve showing Normal : 9

Figure Figure

Given this profile, retention will work best if the company's values are very clear, supportive of employee aspirations and implemented to provide both rewards and scope within the means of the business. Based on his findings therefore,

110

Gberevbie (2010) recommends employee-retention strategies for organizations such as employee engagement forums, humane treatment of employees and integrity. These types of care could be translated into action through workplace counselling which Gordon (2006) has found to help retain best caliber employees and Bishop (1998) establishes has increased the level of retention and loyalty among employees studied.

2.6 Demographic Factors Affecting Employee Commitment, Productivity and Retention in the Telecommunications Industry

Telecom is one of the fastest growing industries in Nigeria so the most important way to keep pace with evolving competition is to work on the most important determinants of employee commitment and retention with the overall intention of increasing productivity. The Factors that affect or influence the three constructs in any organization may be categorized as job, culture and personal

(internal and external) factors (Sutherland and Jordaan, 2004). These factors may be further simplified to include personality traits, career aspirations and job satisfaction and colleagues as shown in Figure 10:

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Job Culture Personal External

Match with Economic climate – Challenging, Management personal and how readily other interesting perceived as family jobs are available meaningful work competent commitments

Meet expectations in Supportive Geographic Completion from terms of salary management style location other industries conditions

Meets Post employment Offers training to Confidence in own expectations in experiences (god upgrade skills in the marketable skills terms of co- and bad) work place and experience workers Community view of Provides Offers career industry, business, recognition and Age (fit with development job rewards for good workforce) opportunities work

Good work can be Gives a sense of Health (impacts

identified and security about the on and from the

recognized company job)

Status of the position Company values (more for match with management and personal values senior roles)

Long service leave

and the

superannuation

benefits

Figure 10: Factors Affecting retention Source: Sutherland and Jordaan, 2004

In addition to the factors mentioned above are gender, age, professionalism/course of study, qualification and organizational tenure

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(length of service) and their perceived impact on commitment, productivity and retention.

2.6.1 Gender

There have been mixed results on the relationship between gender and organizational commitment in previous studies (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Aven,

Parker and McEvoy, 1993). These results suggest that gender may affect employees' perceptions of organizational commitment. For instance, Mathieu and

Zajac‘s (1990) meta analysis of commitment and productivity shows that the confidence interval around the mean correlation between organizational commitment and performance included zero. Thus, they conclude that in most instances, gender and commitment have relatively little direct influence on performance. Most of the studies on organizational commitment and productivity show no significant differences between male and female. For example, in a meta-analysis work, Aven, Parker and McEvoy (1993) reveal that gender and commitment and performance are unrelated. Similarly, Marsden, Kalleberg and

Cook (1993) establish that men and women experience similar levels of organizational commitment. In addition, in a study of 436 male and female employees in a telecommunications company in Kuwait, Al-Ajmi (2006) establishes that organizational commitment is not affected by gender but Xiong and Francesco (2004) indicate that except for position, other demographic variables including gender have no main affects on organizational commitment.

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Gaillie (1993) also find in their research in the UK that only one third of employees exhibit high involvement in their jobs usually called Task Commitment but that there is no gender difference in their commitment level.

In contrast, Ajaja (2004) and Facer and Wadsworth (2008) survey results show that work-family conflicts can cause strain and affect productivity of female employees in the same way as lack of motivation can bring about employee unwillingness to perform optimally at work. Ciarrochi, Chan and Bajgar (2001);

Akinboye (2003); Ajaja (2004) and Akinyele (2007) all note that women might experience more role conflict as a result of simultaneity of their multiple roles which include motherhood and work-life balance. They therefore concluded that gender affects productivity. Moreover, in a 2010 Transformation of Secondary

School Systems and Academic Careers (TOSCA) (in most countries it is secondary school leavers who work in call centres) inventory report on call centres around the world, it is stated that most call centre workers are women with more men in management positions. Women are particularly prevalent in certain sectors such as telemarketing and customer service while there are higher proportions of men in centres offering technical support or technical helpdesk function. This report finds a widespread conviction that women are culturally and genetically equipped to conduct interviews, sell and deal with customers given their better relational skills and the patience required for the job but these facts do not affect the commitment or productivity level of men or

114 women. Service quality or productivity in call centres as described by Jack,

Bedics and McCary (2006) is based on inputs which refer to human relations and individual psychological perspective; delivery which is top management perspective and performance outcome which is about service marketing perspective. The conclusion for Jack, Bedics and McCary (2006) is that gender is not a factor that influences productivity. Adeyemi and Ositoye (2010) have also found that there is no significant difference between male and female job productivity especially when the same motivational techniques and communication patterns are applied. In addition, Yahaya (1999) establishes from his investigation of productivity levels of male and female staff of the Federal

Civil Service of Nigeria that gender and behaviour patterns have no significant influence on job performance. High levels of service by the organization depend on ways it is able to leverage labour, technology, capacity and demand management. The four resources must be balanced to ensure that customers‘ expectations of high service in terms of service quality, convenience, speed, accuracy and value are met (Adeyemi and Ositoye, 2010).

The growing attention paid to employee retention in Call Centres has identified these workplaces as often associated with low morale and high employee turnover amongst men and women (Taylor and Bain, 1999). However, Taylor and Bain (1999) have not qualified the gender with a higher propensity for attrition but Boles, Ross and Johnson (1995) had found that gender showed no

115 significant relationship with propensity to leave. Contrary to this finding, Lyness and Judiesch (2001) posit that female workers (especially managers) have lower turnover rates than their male counterparts. These imply that the relationship of gender with retention may yet be unclear.

2.6.2 Course of Study and Qualification

Taylor and Bain (1999) define the concept of call centres with three essential elements. First, the call centre is a dedicated operation with employees focused entirely on the customer service function. Second, those employees are using telephones and computers simultaneously. Third, the calls are processed and controlled by an automatic distribution system. This definition can be applied to a call centre where relatively low skilled and low paid service workers respond to customer requests within a tightly controlled, heavily monitored and time- restricted system. In contrast, the definition can also apply to a call centre where highly skilled, highly paid and knowledgeable workers respond to calls from business customers about online service arrangements. Despite the differences, both these types of call centres are fundamentally characterised by the integration of telephone and computer technologies and the people who work there have varied skills and qualifications. The processes, technology and people with the skills, training and motivation all exist to serve this relationship.

However, problems arise when a skilled staff decides to leave because he feels

116 underpaid or undervalued or as a matter of fact, over qualified to work in a call centre.

According to Baker (2002), a typical call centre employee is a person aged between 19 and 35 years who sees the call centre as a good starting point to prepare for careers outside. The challenges become apparent when a graduate or a professional does not see opportunity for growth in the call centre in spite of having changed careers to work there. Most employees feel they are worth more than they are actually paid while some feel over qualified for the job they do based on their course of study. Where they are not able to use their full potential or feel they are not valued, they are likely to leave. In Nigerian call centres, most of the employees are professionals from two broad categories of the Sciences,

Humanities, Management and Law amongst others. These professionals become less committed and productive when they compare themselves to their counterparts in other departments and organizations (Adeyemo, 2000).

According to Adeyemo (2000) there is a positive correlation between education and organizational commitment. Therefore, the more educated the Nigerian call centre agent is, the more problem of low commitment, productivity and high attrition in the centres. In a study of commitment among Pakistani teachers,

Aamir and Sohail (2006) find that level of education is not a significant predictor of organizational commitment. Other authors (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Ogba,

2007) point out that those employees with higher levels of education show less

117 commitment to their organization, are less productive and are ready to leave the organization at any given opportunity.

In a Knowledge Management (KM) impact challenge survey for DCC Satellite &

Networks Limited USA, the main concern of management was high staff turnover. The survey reports that highly skilled employees that have been well trained by the company always leave and this has continued to affect the quality and time of projects completion. The assessment reveals a knowledge gap between employer expectation and employee expectation especially with the professionals which resulted in poor productivity. Professionals feel comfortable with a company that offers a working environment that allows continuous learning where they are free to update their skills and learn new things all the time while keeping in touch with their professional colleagues through communities of practice. Therefore more often than not, the highly educated employees maintain a high level of attrition.

Following the Human Capital theorists, Olaniyan and Okemakinde (2008) state that formal education is highly instrumental and even necessary to improve the production capacity of a population. The assumption is that the more educated a person is, the higher his performance at work. Although, exactly how education is translates into enhanced productivity has not yet been established, some researchers (Tsang, Rumberger and Levin, 1991; Rosenzweig, 1995; Hellerstein,

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David and Troske, 1999) have argued that educated workers are more adaptive to technical change, for example, the use of computers and technical equipments for work. They insist that education has a positive impact on output of work and that education improves workers‘ access to information and their ability to decode and understand new information which in turn makes them more productive. Higher education may also lead to more specialized skills with more limited markets and higher requirements for mobility. Thus the aggregate effects of rising education levels among workers are highly uncertain and may be quite sensitive to the rate of innovation and structural conditions in particular industries (Prskawetz, Bloom and Lutz, 2008). What these point to is a need for employees to get more education to enable them become more productive. It is however not clear how their education can make employees achieve higher levels of performance.

2.6.3 Organizational Tenure

The relationship between commitment and organizational tenure has had positive results from different researches but may be linked to employees‘ satisfaction with their job and commitment to their organization. For example,

Barlett (2001) in his study of health care workers‘ commitment to their jobs has established that organizational tenure (length of service) has a significant but negative relationship with commitment. This suggests that longer serving

119 employees may not necessarily be committed enough to stay on in the organization. Guest‘s (2000) research reveals that higher commitment is found to be associated with increasing age and longer tenure especially among employees who have served more than five years for their employers. In addition, Mottaz (2005) says that experience (organizational tenure) is a powerful determinant of commitment and that committed employees have a tendency to remain in their organization. Mathieu and Zajac (1990) suggest that the older employees become, the less alternative employment options are available to them.

As a result, older employees may view their current employment more favourably and stay on. From their study of 38 samples that included 12,290 subjects they find an overall mean weighted correlation of 0.17 (P ≤ .01) hence organizational tenure correlates positively with organizational commitment.

Mathieu and Zajac (1990) therefore posit that people who have stayed longer have a tendency to be more committed and value their job more than newer employees. In addition, experienced employees may be more committed because they have a stronger investment and greater history with their organization. This may increase retention but not necessarily productivity for such organization. Gregersen (1993) also studied a group of 290 non- management employees including medical and non-medical personnel (clerks, nurses, secretaries, radiologists and cardiopulmonary specialists) using a

120 modified version of the Meyer‘s (1997) Organizational Commitment

Questionnaire. The population for this sample was 90% female and 10% male.

The study finds a positive correlation between organizational tenure in the organization and organizational commitment; there was a statistically significant difference (p # .01) in the mean organizational commitment score for medical professionals with less than two years of service and for medical professionals with more than eight years of service. This result indicates that newer and longer serving employees have a tendency towards being more committed and stable than those who have stayed a few years. Kushman (1992) in the study of urban elementary and middle school teachers also finds a positive correlation

(r = .17, p ≤ .05) between the number of years in teaching and organizational commitment, but the correlation was not significant at the .01 or the .05 alpha level which makes it unclear whether tenure has a positive impact on commitment.

Ilmakunnas, Maliranta and Vainiomäki (1999) in a study of workers‘ performance in Finland, have shown that experience has a moderate correlation with productivity and that job duration improves job performance for up to 3.8 years and thereafter, cognitive declines can decrease performance on the job.

The longer the experience, the higher the chance of the employees being matched to their jobs and therefore the greater the productivity level as the workers already know what to do. Although the demand for different types of

121 skills may not be uniform, the longer the tenure, the lower the turnover rate which in turn is advantageous for an organization since it means that the workers have been optimally matched to their jobs (Prskawetz, Bloom and Lutz,

2008). Ramlall (2003) carried out a research of a customer service company in

India. The regression analysis shows that amongst other factors, average tenure in position or organization (length of service) and positions held in the organization (experience) are the most significant factors influencing an employee‘s decision whether to seek employment at another organization or not.

In Oshagbemi‘s (2000) study of teachers‘ job satisfaction, the results indicate that employee age is not significantly associated with overall job satisfaction level, but that tenure (length of service) is. There is also significant relationship between tenure and facets of satisfaction (job, pay and fringe benefits) which in turn influences retention. Mishra (2005) referencing Buchanan (1974) and

Patchen (1990) suggests that loyalty and intention to stay are influenced by what has happened to employees during their tenure in the organization, particularly how pleasant or unpleasant employees have found such experiences. These experiences are viewed as a major socializing force and hence an important influence over the extent to which employees feel emotionally involved and attached to the organization which is typically seen as the source of these experiences. The pleasant experiences are the reasons for

122 the long stay in the organization. Mishra (2005) also posits that there are four distinguishable kinds of experiences that can be expected to separately influence employee commitment, productivity and willingness to stay in the employ of the organization:

 the attitudes of individuals towards the informal groups in the organization to

which they belong

 the felt dependability and reliability shown by the organization towards

individual employee

 the perceptions of individuals of their general importance in the organization

 the extent to which individuals feel their expectations have been met by the

organization since they joined it

Employers therefore need to put strategies in place that would condition the

employees to meet these criteria so that they can achieve higher levels of

retention.

2.6.4 Age

The relationship between age and productivity is not very clear. It may not be easy to establish the relationship for a variety of reasons; first productivity is a complex phenomenon; in addition the age-productivity profile changes over time. Moreover it is potentially endogenous and finally individual profiles are not easily aggregated (Garibaldi, Oliveira and Van, 2010). That a person is

123 adjudged productive may depend on the extent to which age-induced changes in work experience, physical strength and cognitive abilities are relevant for work performance. Accumulated experience benefits employee performance throughout the working life. However, physical strength and health are reduced as workers grow older. In line with this, Barth, William and Philip (1993) posit that although older workers are more reliable and have better skills than younger workers, they have higher health care costs and lower flexibility in accepting new assignments. Barth, William and Philip (1993) therefore conclude that older employees may be less suitable for training and therefore are often times less productive in terms of number of work. They are however, better in terms of quality of work produced. Hellerstein, Neumark and Troske (1999) in a study of American workers, find a productivity decrease from the mid-50s onward. Another recent study by Aubert, Caroli and Roger (2004) of the French worker finds that productivity increases up to age 44 but it is not clear what happens in subsequent years.

Skirbekk (2003) argues that job performance decreases after age 50, in particular for jobs where problem solving, learning and speed are important and less so for jobs where experience and verbal abilities are important. Lallemand and Ryckx (2009) investigate the effects of the workforce age structure on the productivity of large Belgian firms in two subsequent cross-sections. They find

124 that a higher population of young workers within an organization is favourable to productivity while a higher population of older workers is harmful.

Employee age could be said to be positively correlated with commitment. For example, Shin and Reyes (1991) study of organizational commitment of school administrators in 162 public and private schools reveals a positive correlation (r

= .09) between organizational commitment and age. In the same way, Meyer and Allen (1993) obtain a positive mean correlation of .36 (P < .05) between age and affective organizational commitment. Two groups were included in this study. Respondents in one group (n = 123) were university library employees.

Respondents in the other group (n = 168) included hospital employees yielding a moderate positive correlation in age and commitment. The researchers therefore conclude that analyses of new or senior level (by age) employees generally showed a stronger curvilinear relationship than tenure of employees.

In a previous meta-analysis by Mathieu and Zajac (1990) involving 41 samples, there was a positive mean correlation of 20 (p = .01) from a total of 10,335 subjects. These studies show that age has a consistent although moderate correlation with organizational commitment. In addition, Dunham (1994) suggests older employees may be more committed because they have a stronger investment and greater history with their organization.

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Although most studies (Barth, William and Philip, 1993; Skirbekk, 2003;

Lallemand and Ryckx, 2009) find that when age increases productivity decreases, there are also some studies that find no such effect. For instance, in a study of commitment among Pakistani teachers, Aamir and Sohail (2006) find that age is not a significant predictor of organizational commitment. Also

Hellerstein, David and Troske (1999) in one of the studies find that prime-age workers are as productive as younger workers. For prime-age and older workers, productivity and earnings rise at the same rate over the life cycle.

Moreover, from the results of Center for Retirement Research survey, 56% of employers report that older professionals and managers are more productive than their younger counterparts (Munnell, Steven and Mauricio, 2006). Only 6% of employers reported that older white-collar workers were less productive than younger ones, while 39% said that they were equally productive. According to

Garibaldi, Oliveira and Van (2010) older employees are generally considered to be more consistent, cautious, and conscientious and have fewer accidents and they are less likely to quit, thus reducing hiring costs but this does not explain the lowered performance.

One disadvantage of having a high population of older employees is that they are less mobile and more resistant to change. This means that structural changes and flexibility of ideas will be slowed down and as a result, matching people and jobs becomes more difficult. Moreover, since productivity at the

126 individual level not only depends on experience but also on skills acquired before entering the labour market, an older workforce implies a more outdated human capital level of formal and general education. This may hinder productivity especially in times of rapid technological change (Prskawetz, Bloom and Lutz, 2008).

2.7 Studies on Gestalt Therapy in the Workplace

The Gestalt Therapy was developed by Fritz Perls, Laura Perls and Paul

Goodman to counsel clients to achieve the all round total person to align with reality. The therapy allows for the counsellor to address clients' polarities in their presentation of themselves. Fritz Perls (1969) posits that an individual needs to be guided to see his totality as a person in himself and his environment. A person is a whole being, an organism but is also first and foremost an experiencing being. Gestalt is a German word which means ‗shape or form‘ (English equivalent ‗whole‘) - a physical, biological, psychological or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts. Gestalt is both a Humanistic and Cognitive therapy and is in practice today by the Gestalt

Group of therapist both in the United Kingdom and America. According to

Yontef (1993), the basic principles of Gestalt therapy include:

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 focus on process (what is happening) rather than on content (what is being

discussed)

 focus on the person‘s experience in the here and now.

 focus on all of nature as a unified whole. The whole is different from the

sum of its parts.

 phenomenological: the phenomenological perspective asserts that all reality

is subjectively interpreted. Objective reality is non-existent.

 gestalt (Figure-Ground) Formation: Describes how the individual organizes

the environment from moment to moment. Gestalt Theory recognizes that

background and forefront change fluidly. The client‘s conflicts are relegated

to the background and are brought to the forefront through therapy. The

dominant needs of an individual at any given moment influence this process.

 holism: refers to the idea that individuals are growth-oriented, self-

regulating and only understandable within the context of their environment.

 boundaries: Disturbances at the boundaries; experiences that are blocked

create isolation.

 creative Adjustment: Achieving a balance between individual needs and the

environment reflects creative adjustment.

 maturity: Good gestalt describes a perceptual field organized with clarity and

good form.

 view of human nature is rooted in existential philosophy.

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Gestalt is assimilative and is about creative adaptation with the goal for the clients to have increased awareness of what they do, how they do it and how they can change or accept themselves or their circumstances. Corey (2009) has found that during the course of therapy, the client gradually assumes ownership of his own experiences, developing skills that would help him within his capacity to try new patterns of being and behaviour. According to Corey

(2009), the objective of the counselling therapy is to enhance the person's awareness of the now. The counsellor must therefore be able to enter into the person's now and react to it by sharing his or her observations and experience of the present to help re-establish the conditions under which the individual can best use their own problem solving abilities. Keijsers, Scraap and Hoogduin

(2000) referencing Greenwald (1975) calls the counsellor an observer, not a mind reader. Gestalt is also an existentialist form of therapy as it is a short term

(6 sessions) kind of therapy. When used as a short-term model, existential intervention (Gestalt) includes the following characteristics that make it different from the longer-term approach:

 rapid assessment

 identification of a limited number of problems for work

 client and practitioner agreement on time limitations

 clearly defined problems and goals

 an intervention agreement

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 focused interventions

 a session-to-session monitoring of progress (Zionts, Zionts and Simpson,

2002).

The therapy achieves its uniqueness from its effective use in the workplace to encourage integration and inclusion hence the relationship between client and counsellor is seen as a joint venture (Woollant, 2007). The counsellor helps the processes occur simultaneously on three system levels: the intrapersonal level, the interpersonal level and the systems level. These refer to how the person or group reacts to the self, others and the environment. This relationship is expressed in Eric Berne‘s (1964) work on Transactional Analysis which is an integrative approach of psychoanalysis, humanism and cognition as Parent,

Adult and Child relationship. Woollant (2007) posits that Gestalt Therapy can free a person from stress including disappointment, anger and emotional torture and this agrees with Perls‘ (1969) position that when freed of the self- torture game, man has a greater sense of awareness. Perls always emphasized how rather than why which is reflected in his Gestalt prayer:

I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations And you are not in this world to live up to mine.

You are you and I am I, And if by chance we find each other, it‘s beautiful.

If not, it can‘t be helped. (Perls, 1969)

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Research (Feder and Frew, 1992; Greenberg, 2002; Corey, 2009) has found

Gestalt therapy to be an effective, positive and humanistic therapy. It helps clients to become responsible for their own experiences and to experiment with new ways of behaving and thinking; fully experiencing key moments and emotions in life. According to Nevis (1992), although much of the work with

Gestalt therapy has been applied and directed towards understanding and helping the individual, it has also been applied to groups and workplaces for team building and sensitivity training in order to explore ways of aiding individuals to perceive themselves more clearly and to make better contact with others. The Cycle of Experience is a means of examining both internal and external reality, emphasizing the need to come full circle from the state of rest, sensation to a state of activity which entails satisfaction in order to fully integrate experience. Clarkson and Mackewm (1993); Zinker (1994); Polster and Polster (1999); and Naranjo (2000) describe the process of Gestalt group therapy in the six steps of therapy called the Gestalt Cycle of Experience described diagrammatically in Figure 11:

131

and

Clarkson Clarkson

Experience Source: Source: Experience

; Polster and Polster (1999) & Naranjo (2000) Naranjo & (1999) Polster and Polster ;

: The Gestalt Group Cycle of of Cycle Group Gestalt The :

1 (1993); Zinker (1994) Zinker (1993);

1 Figure Mackewm

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An explanation of each stage of the cycle is given below:

2.7.1 Cycle of Sensation and Awareness

The sensation stage claims the attention while awareness develops to anxiety or excitement. Sensation occurs when the participants experience something happening that disturbs their steady state. This is when according to Clarkson and Mackewm (1993), the individuals/team members begin to identify why they are involved in the counselling session entering into a heightened state of continued exhilaration so that they can remain in touch with their flow of awareness.

2.7.2 Cycle of Mobilization

This is the state of continued excitement and problem analysis; what has the clients‘ attention and how they prepare to act on it. Mobilization of energy occurs when significant aspects of experience have permeated awareness and when awareness has been sustained. In counselling, the clients are encouraged to move focus away from their emotional states to the state of creating and discussing the problem, using role play so that they can make options for action (Greenberg, 2002). Research has found Gestalt dialogues to be effective in producing conflict resolution (Elliott and Elliott, 2000) and in assisting in the formulation of decisions (Greenberg, 2002). This session reiterates the Social Exchange and Intrinsic Motivation theories which allow

133 clients realize what they could gain in exchange for their commitment to the organization.

2.7.3 Cycle of Action

Action leads to contact with a new boundary, creating the conditions for change. Action is concerned with implementing the appropriate decision to satisfy the primary emergent need by organizing perceptual, emotional and behavioural activities and is initiated through plans and change directives. In counselling, the clients are encouraged to role play and learn new skills for decision making. Some of the decision making tools include Brain-Storming

(McFadzean, 1997), Force Field Analysis (Kurt Lewin, 1964) and Six Thinking

Hats (De Buno, 1985).

2.7.4 Cycle of Contact

Contact is active participation with the issues identified in order to unite the desired goal defined at start with what is possible. The meaning derived from man‘s experiences is generated through contact. By this session the clients will have gone through three levels of awareness: intrapersonal, interpersonal and system. During counselling clients are guided to adjust their individual needs to those of others and the organizations they work for by creating vision statements and making decisions and adjustments (Clarkson and Mackewm,

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1993). Successful contact is followed by satisfaction, withdrawal and assimilation.

2.7.5 Cycle of Satisfaction

This Satisfaction stage refers to a sense of achievement; ‗I‘ve done it‘. It could be a happy or sad emotion depending on the nature of the achievement and departure from the activities. According to Clarkson and Mackewm (1993), the counsellor would guide the clients to summarize their experiences during the treatment period – enjoyment, integration and accomplishment. The clients have to recognize and accept when something is good enough and learn to define what is a good enough relationship, a good enough self-image, and a good enough life (Clarkson and Mackewm, 1993).

2.7.6 Cycle of Completion and Withdrawal

This is the stage when separation from the counselling relationship is encouraged. The clients have learned new skills and the counsellor would reiterate such experiences for retention. Closure, according to Feder and Frew

(1992) re-structures experience and a return to a state of rest.

Though psychologists previously did not demonstrate exhaustive empirical research on the benefits of Gestalt therapy, recent studies (Yontef, 1993;

Corey, 2009) have advanced that it has a beneficial impact with those who exhibit personality disorders, psychosomatic problems and substance

135 addictions. Gestalt ideas and concepts should thus be embraced and researched by more practitioners, psychologists and counsellors because of its many positive contributions to the field of psychology.

2.8 The Place of Workplace Counselling in the Curriculum of Nigerian Universities

Many graduates of Guidance and Counselling in Nigeria find themselves working in organizational settings outside the schools. They may get jobs as consultants, office administrators and/or human resources or training personnel. As they move from school setting and training, working with individual students to working within organizational context, they face difficulties and need to relearn and/or unlearn some things to be able to survive organizational behaviour and politics. According to Orlans (1992), being a counsellor is not in itself sufficient for workplace counselling. The counsellor in the workplace needs to get good grounding in organizational behaviour, models and methods for implementing employee counselling program, what legislation guide the practice, stress and its management and the ethics, values and culture of the organization. Only a trained workplace counsellor can achieve these.

Counselling in the schools is a different experience. According to Feller (1996), quality comprehensive school counselling programs promote self knowledge,

136 exploration, career planning and self-efficacy skill attainment. School counsellors play key roles in motivating students to learn to be flexible and mobile as well as to gain the academic, occupational and career development competencies needed for successful transition to adulthood. Omoegun (2004) outlines the need for proper curriculum setting and the content of such curriculum in Nigerian schools which will enable the government to ensure positive career development for young people preparing for the world of work.

According to Omoegun (2004), poorly handled counselling for young people would result in adults with misplaced priorities and workplace challenges. For example, in a 1993 National Career Development Association survey, 72% of working adults interviewed indicated they would seek greater exploratory opportunities if they were able to start their career all over. Also in a 1999 survey conducted by the Gallup Organization (National Career Development

Association) in 2000, 69% of working adults reported that if they were to choose their careers again they would get more information about available options than they had previously. The examples above show that experience in school counselling and preparing people for successful careers may not suffice for performance in organizational settings. Summerfield and Van (1995) posits that employing counsellors with neither experience of business in general nor of organizational culture nor style, is dangerous both to the organization and the

137 would-be clients. This research therefore proposes a specialized training for

Workplace Counsellors in Nigerian universities as in other countries.

Available literature (Carroll, 1996; Carroll and Holloway, 1997; Summerfield and

Van, 1995) show that in Europe and America, workplace counsellors receive specialized training to enable them carry out the all-important work of effecting positive change in the individuals and the organizations they work for. For instance, by 1996 in Britain there were four programs specifically geared to workplace counselling: TDA Diploma in Counselling at Work; Roehampton

Institute Diploma in Counselling in Organizations; Birmingham University

Diploma in Counselling at Work and Bristol University Diploma in Counselling at

Work (Carroll, 1996). While professional bodies like the Chartered Institute of

Personnel Development (CIPD), UK offer short courses, today there are schools in Europe offering first degree, masters and even Ph.D in Workplace

Counselling in London, Toronto and Australia to name a few.

The counselling profession is becoming highly diversified. Many national associations across the globe are responding in that regard. Specialized sub- divisions within the general counselling field are exemplified in the affiliates that are beginning to emerge. Aluede (2000) has found that in the US, there are about 17 sub-divisions in the counselling profession, as exemplified in the affiliates of American Counselling Association (ACA). In the US, the Council for

138 the Accreditation of Counselling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) is the body that is vested with the responsibility of accrediting various counselling programmes in most US universities (and now being extended to Canadian universities) despite the presence of other accrediting body for most educational programmes.

In Nigeria, the Counselling Association of Nigeria (CASSON) is the regulating body for the practise. However, counsellor education programmes in Nigerian universities are becoming too generalized and less specialized even though counselling is a very wide area (Aluede, 2005). There is therefore a need to have students specialize in different areas of counselling like in Britain and

America where there are specialist Mental Health counsellors, Grief counsellors,

Rehabilitation Counsellors and Workplace counsellors or Employee Assistance practitioners. Europe and America (as Nigeria should be) are concerned to develop a proper code of business ethics for workplace counsellors. Carroll

(1996) analyzes ethical issues that may affect how workplace counselling programmes are run:

 confidentiality and the extent to which it should be maintained

 incompatibility between organizational aims and counselling aims

 the loyalty of the counsellor: how can the counsellor serve the interest of

the employee when the organization funds the program

 managing different roles with the same client

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All of the above are concerns that ought to be dealt with in the schools to prepare the student for the world of work as professional workplace counsellors. Carroll (1994) insists that content of the course should cover theories, history, comparisons of different countries and negotiation skills for counsellors, assessment strategies and tools, reporting, communication and presentation skills amongst all the other skills taught in general counselling courses. This will ensure that the student graduates as a specialist. The curriculum should include how to organize seminars, workshops and team building sessions as well as supervision and how to base these on the special needs of any organization the student practitioner goes to work for so that he/she can impart on organizational commitment, productivity and retention.

The overall aim of developing a curriculum in schools is to offer a sufficiently safe, supportive yet challenging learning environment that will enable participants to develop and demonstrate those personal qualities and professional skills deemed necessary for competent and reflective practitioners.

The ideas outlined above in this paper should provide a framework for action to develop a planned curriculum for workplace counselling education in Nigerian universities.

2.9 Summary of Literature Review

This research work is necessitated by the need to gain the commitment of call centre employees in Nigerian Telecommunications Industry so as to improve

140 productivity and increase retention. Reviewed Literature shows that not much work has been done in the area of employee counselling in Nigeria and this may account for the perceived low productivity, lack of commitment and high attrition of the call centre employees in Nigeria.

Reviewed literature indicates that the telecommunications industry in Nigeria has had an epileptic growth but with the new Management of NCC, has come to stay. How the workers are managed to deliver effectively is the reason for this research. This study reviewed relevant literature on commitment, productivity and retention and the possible effect of workplace counselling on these elements. Subsequently, the literature revealed that employees have different kinds of commitment based on their reasons for being loyal to the organization

– affective, continuance and normative commitment. Studied literature agrees with Maslow‘s (1943) Theory of Human Motivation and Emerson‘s (1976) Social

Exchange theory that employees are committed and productive and would remain in their organization if they can satisfy different needs and find personal positive gains. The literature also complements Adair‘s (1973) Functional

Approach model that a person is complete if he can meet the individual, task and team needs; this aligns with the theory of Gestalt Therapy that people become more educated as they advance and understand themselves. Most of the reviewed literature concur that productive employees are contributors who are fully engaged and are satisfied with their organizations which shows that

141 productivity and retention are a function of commitment. The literature also suggests that organizations need to develop strategies including workplace counselling to identify and manage an efficient percentage of their workforce for retention. The reviewed literature is in agreement that course of study and length of service do not have significant impact but there are conflicting views on whether gender has significant influence on commitment, productivity and retention.

The literature suggests that although the history, role and practice are tedious, workplace counselling may have far reaching benefits for employers and the employed in increasing commitment, productivity and retention as currently happening in America, United Kingdom and more recently, Malaysia.

Governments of these countries as well as schools have also been involved in institutionalizing workplace counselling. However, there are differing views on the need for expertise and professionalism in the practice of workplace counselling. Since the study also indicates a dearth of literature on the practice and impact of workplace counselling in Nigeria, there is need for schools to specially train their students in the art and for organizations employing call centre staff to look into the usefulness and application of workplace counselling for the retention of their best hands and increase commitment and productivity.

This study therefore set out to examine the effects of workplace counselling on call centre employees in Nigeria‘s telecommunications industry.

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CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

This section focused on the research design, area of study, population, sample and sampling technique, research instruments, procedure for data collection, treatment procedure and method of data analysis.

3.1 The Study Area

The study was carried out in the premises of three companies - MTN, Globacom and Visafone with their head offices situated in Victoria Island, Lagos Nigeria. At the first instance, the companies were listed by age of their operations in Nigeria and by business type. By simple random sampling using hat and draw method,

MTN and Globacom were selected from the GSM group while Visafone and

Multilinks were selected in the CDMA type. However, Multilinks was dropped because the owners sold out the business and disengaged all call centre staff in its employ. MTN is a South African company operating in Nigeria since 2003. It operates on international policies and has pedigree. Globacom commenced operations in Nigeria since 2004 and is 100% Nigerian owned. Both MTN and

Globacom are players in the GSM market. Visafone commenced operations in

Nigeria since 2007. It is solely owned by Nigerians and a player in the Code

Division Multiple Access (CDMA) market. These background therefore created

143 room for the observation of how both the pioneers and the new, local and international operators manage and impact on their employees in the call centres.

3.2 Research Design

The research designs used for this study were the descriptive survey and quasi- experimental pre-test post-test control group design. The descriptive survey enabled the researcher to acquire background information and baseline data for qualifying respondents for treatment. Nwadinigwe (2002) explains that quasi- experimental design is one that does not allow for full control of extraneous variables and does not permit the random assignment of participants to defined groups in a natural setting. The researcher therefore adopted quasi- experimentation to obtain results.

Dependent Variables: Commitment, Productivity and Retention

Independent Variables:

Experimental condition: (Workplace Counselling utilizing Gestalt Therapy and Treatment Expectancy Control Group)

Gender (male and female)

Age (grouped into: 20 – 29yrs, 30 – 39yrs and 40 – 49yrs)

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Organizational Tenure (below 1 year, 1 - 3 years and above 3 years)

Qualification (HND, 1st Degree, Master degree)

Course of study (Science & Technology, Humanities & Management)

3.3 Population

The target population for this study comprised all the call centre staff in Nigeria‘s

Telecommunications Industry; specifically, all the call centre agents in MTN employing 3000; Globacom employing 1950 and Visafone employing 960 totaling

5910 call centre employees as at the time of data collection.

3.4 Sample and Sampling Procedure Using stratified sampling technique and the recommended sample size for a given population size of 5910, level of confidence of 95.0% and margin of error of 0.05 (The research advisors, 2006) a total of 361 male and female call centre staff were drawn proportionally from the three companies in the ratio of 3:2:1 for MTN (181 – with 131 being in the Apapa and 50 in Ojota), Globacom (120) and Visafone (60) respectively. Further to this, the 361 respondents were tested using three standardized instruments and those who scored less than 12 in any two of the commitment scales, less than 18 in presenteeism scale and less than

60 in job satisfaction scale and met other selection criteria constituted the final sample of 101. The respondents comprising both male and female employees

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were between 20 and 49 years of age and had worked between 5 months and 7

years. The least educational qualification was found to be Higher National

Diploma (HND) while the highest was Masters degree from different courses of

study especially Science & Technology and Humanities & Management.

The details of respondents according to gender (male, female), age (20 – 29yrs,

30 – 39yrs, 40 – 49yrs), course of study (Science & Technology, Humanities &

Management), qualification (HND, 1st Degree, Masters) and organizational

tenure (worked below 1 year, worked between 1 and 3 years, worked above 3

years) from each firm are presented in Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Table 2: Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Gender and Age (N = 101)

Organization Sample Total Male Female

20 – 29 yrs 30 – 39 yrs 40 – 49 yrs 20 – 29 yrs 30 – 39 yrs 40 – 49 yrs

Globacom 4 3 1 7 3 0 18

MTN Apapa 15 7 1 14 10 1 48

MTN Ojota 8 4 0 8 5 0 25

Visafone 1 2 0 6 1 0 10

Total 28 16 2 35 19 1 101

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Table 3: Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Gender and Organizational Tenure (N = 101) Organization Sample Total Male Female

< 1 yr 1 - 3 yrs > 3 yrs < 1 year 1 - 3 yrs > 3 yrs

Globacom 2 4 2 2 5 3 18

MTN Apapa 6 12 5 7 12 6 48

MTN Ojota 3 7 2 4 6 3 25

Visafone 1 1 1 1 2 4 10

Total 12 24 10 14 25 16 101

Table 4: Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Gender and Educational Qualification (N = 101)

Organization Sample Total Male Female

HND 1st Degree Masters HND 1st Degree Masters

Globacom 2 4 2 4 3 3 18

MTN Apapa 8 10 5 6 11 8 48

MTN Ojota 7 4 3 5 3 3 25

Visafone 1 1 1 2 4 1 10

Total 18 19 11 17 21 15 101

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Table 5: Spread of Participants by Stratification according to Organization, Gender and Course of Study (N = 101) Organization Sample Total Male Female Hum/Mgt Sci/Tech Hum/Mgt Sci/Tech

Globacom 3 5 6 4 18

MTN Apapa 15 8 14 11 48

MTN Ojota 7 7 7 4 25

Visafone 2 1 5 2 10

Total 27 21 22 21 101

The call centre staff usually work shifts of six hours in the morning and

afternoon and twelve hours of night duty as follows: three days of morning or

afternoon duty, one night shift and three days off duty. There is also an option

of four days of morning or afternoon duty, one night shift and two days off duty.

To ensure they were accurately scheduled and that no one left the treatment

group, the respondents were selected with the assistance of the call centre

managers and supervisors who provided a list of all the call centre employees

with their biodata and schedules from where the researcher selected

respondents by stratification.

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3.5 Instrumentation

Two sets of instruments were used to collect data for this study.

The first set consisted of three standardized instruments used to obtain baseline

data that qualified respondents for participation in the therapy

a. Organizational Commitment Scale (OCS) by Meyer and Allen (1997)

b. Presenteeism Scale by Koopman, Pelletier, Murray, Sharda, Berger, Turpin,

Hackleman, Gibson, Holmes and Berdel (2002)

c. Job Satisfaction Scale by Purani and Sahadev (2007)

The second set of instruments consisted of a battery of three researcher

developed instruments that tested commitment, productivity and retention and

were used to obtain pre and post test scores for this study:

d. Employee Commitment Assessment Questionnaire (ECAQ)

e. Employee Productivity Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ)

f. Retention Check Index (RCI)

a. Organizational Commitment Scale was developed by Meyer and Allen

(1997). The scale consists of eighteen items requesting respondents to state the

extent or level to which they are loyal or committed to their jobs and like their

organizations. The instrument measures three aspects of Commitment including

Normative, Affective and Continuance commitment. There are six items for each

of the types of commitment on a 5-point Likert scale. The reliability (alphas) of

149 the OCS are reported as 0.79 for affective, 0.69 for continuance and 0.65 for normative (Cohen, 1996). Examples of items from the OCS include: (a) affective commitment – I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization; (b) continuance commitment – too much of my life would be disrupted if I leave my organization and (c) normative commitment - this organization deserves my loyalty.

There are eighteen items on the OCS. Each item was scored as Strongly agree

= 4, Somewhat agree = 3, Somewhat disagree = 2, Strongly disagree = 1 and

Not sure = 0. Out of the 18 items, 16 are positive statements and are rated by direct scoring. Items 6 and 13 are negative and so are reverse scored. The sum of both the reverse and direct scores was used to rate the respondent.

The maximum possible score on the Organizational Commitment Scale was 72 spread as follows: Affective Commitment = 24, Normative Commitment = 24 and Continuance Commitment = 24. Respondents scoring below 12 in at least two of the three levels were identified as having challenges about being committed to working in the companies. b. Stanford Presenteeism Scale The Stanford Presenteeism Scale measures participants‘ ability to concentrate, perform and produce work despite having health problems. The scale was used to measure employee productivity when they are at work. It was developed by Koopman, Pelletier, Murray, Sharda,

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Berger, Turpin, Hackleman, Gibson, Holmes and Berdel (2002). The Scale

consists of only six items seeking data on the extent to which participants‘

health problems affected their effectiveness at work. The scale has a proven

high degree of validity and reliability alpha of 0.80 for measuring health and

productivity (Turpin, 2004; Koopman, Pelletier, Murray, Sharda, Berger, Turpin,

Hackleman, Gibson, Holmes and Berdel, 2002).

There are only six items on the scale on a 5-point Likert scale. Three of the

statements are positive while three are negative statements. The negative

statements were items 1, 3 and 4. These three negative items were reverse

scored. The scoring was done according to the directions on the manual; this

means the addition of all choices made by the respondent for both positive and

negative items. The maximum possible score on the Presenteeism Scale was 30

while the minimum was 6. Participants scoring below 15 were identified as

those having challenges with being productive in the companies.

c. Job Satisfaction Scale (JSC) was developed by Purani and Sahadev

(2007). The instrument consists of 24 items and was used to determine employees‘ impression of their job and intention to leave or stay in the organization. The researcher found three items relating to workers‘ intention to continue working in their organization and adapted the tool for employee retention. The Scale is a relatively short survey covering 6 facets/factors of job

151 satisfaction: Satisfaction with Supervisor (4 items); satisfaction with job variety

(5 items); satisfaction with Closure (2 items); satisfaction with compensation (5 items); satisfaction with co-workers (4 items) and satisfaction with Management and Human Resources (HR) policies (4 items). The items were rated on a 5-point

Likert scale from 1 ‗Non-committal‘ to 5 ‗Strongly Agree‘ and has a reliability alpha of 0.70 (Sekaran, 2008).

The scoring was done according to the instructions on the manual. All choices made were added to give a total score. There are no reverse scores as all the statements are positive. The maximum possible score on the Job Satisfaction

Scale was 120. Participants scoring below 60 were identified as those having high intention to leave (attrition).

Overall, respondents who scored below the baseline requirement (12 in any 2 of the Commitment levels, 18 in the Presenteeism and 60 in the Job Scale) in all three instruments were selected to participate in the study. The total was 87.

The researcher therefore included respondents who scored below the requirement in at least two out of the three instruments to achieve a fair representation of the population. A total of 101 respondents finally qualified for the experiment as follows: MTN Apapa (Control Group) = 48, MTN Ojota

(treatment Group) = 25, Globacom (treatment Group) = 18 and Visafone

(treatment Group) = 10.

152 d. Employee Commitment Assessment Questionnaire (ECAQ)

The Employee Commitment Assessment Questionnaire (ECAQ), adapted from

Meyer and Allen (1997) Organizational Commitment Scale (OCS) was used to

determine the level of commitment which employees have for the organization

they work. This researcher adapted Meyer‘s OCS to suit the Nigerian

environment and developed a thirty (30) item questionnaire (ECAQ) with 10

items for each of Normative, Affective and Continuance Commitment. Each item

on the ECAQ was scored as Agree Strongly = 5, Agree = 4, Strongly Disagree =

3, Disagree = 2 and Neutral = 1. Some examples of the items in the ECAQ

include: (1) normative commitment - I believe that loyalty to my organization is

a virtue I must practice; (b) affective commitment - I love working for my

organization and (c) continuance commitment - My lifestyle will be disrupted if I

left this organization.

Out of the 30 items on the ECAQ, 6 are negative statements and are reverse

scored. They are items 7, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 30. The total score was obtained by

adding the scores from both the reverse and direct scoring.

e. Employee Productivity Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ)

The Employee Productivity Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ) was developed by

the researcher to determine how productive people are in the organizations in

which they work. The researcher‘s Employee Productivity Assessment

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Questionnaire (EPAQ) consists of thirty (30) items six of which were drawn from

Koopman‘s (2002) Presenteeism Scale. The questionnaire follows the response

format of the Presenteeism Scale but the items were increased from 6 to 30 to

capture other factors like experience, team work, family and emotion (other than

health problem) that may affect how effectively people work. It was also to

make the instrument culture fair and suited to the way people work in Nigeria.

The EPAQ measures participants‘ abilities to concentrate, perform and produce

work despite challenges in the structure and form of working.

There are 30 items on the EPAQ eighteen of which are positive items while the

other twelve, that is 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29 and 30 are negative

statements. The scoring for each item is as follows: 1 = sometimes, 2 = very

rarely, 3 = rarely, 4 = often and 5 = very often while the negative statements

were reverse scored.

f. Retention Check Index (RCI)

The Retention Check Index adapted from Purani and Sahadev (2007) Job

Satisfaction Scale was used to determine employees‘ impression of their job and

intention to leave or stay in the organization. The researcher used Purani‘s Job

Satisfaction Scale because there were elements in the scale that suggested

employees‘ interest to work longer; for example: I am satisfied with the security

my job provides me; I am satisfied with the retirement benefits. To ensure a

154 culture fair instrument and ease of administration, this researcher developed a

35 item instrument to measure retention. An item was included which requested respondents to indicate the extent to which they are likely to leave their organization within the next five years for reasons other than mandatory retirement. Items based on the RCI required respondents to make a choice from a 5-point Likert scale from 1 ‗Neutral‘ to 5 ‗Strongly Agree‘.

There are 35 items on the RCI out of which 9 are negative statements requiring reverse scoring. They are items 7, 13, 14, 20, 23, 24, 27, 29 and 34. The addition of the reverse and direct scores gave a total for each respondent.

Administration of the instruments

To qualify respondents for participation in the main study, a battery of the three standardized scales were administered to the 361 respondents. The researcher and the assistants were on ground to answer questions and clarify the instructions on the instruments.

For the main study, the final sample of 101 participants were given a battery of the three researcher developed questionnaires. The researcher used these instruments to collect pre and post data for the study.

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3.6 Validation of Instruments

The face and content validity of the researcher‘s three instruments were established by expert opinion. Two lecturers in Tests & Measurement, two in

Guidance & Counselling and one in English Language reviewed the items. They checked how well the items covered the domain of interest, the relevance of each questionnaire to the objective of the research, effective use of language, clarity of items and suitability to the target population. Their inputs were incorporated into the instruments and submitted to the supervisors for final scrutiny and approval. The supervisors adjudged the instruments to have face and content validity and suitable for the purpose of the study.

To determine the concurrent validity of the instruments, a pilot study was carried out with 31 call centre employees in Etisalat. The concurrent validity of the three instruments was determined by correlating the scores on the researcher‘s instruments with the standardized ones (Organizational

Commitment Scale, Presenteeism Scale and Job Satisfaction Scale) and the results are summarized in Table 6.

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Table 6: Concurrent Validity of Instruments (N = 31)

Variable Instrument/Scale Mean SD rtt

Meyer' Affective Commitment 19.59 4.38 Affective 0.97

Researcher's Affective Commitment 43.36 5.14

Meyer's Normative Commitment 20.90 3.44 Normative 0.72

Researcher’s Normative Commitment 43.09 5.71 Commitment

Meyer's Continuance Commitment 20.00 5.52 Continuance 0.75

Researcher's Continuance Commitment 44.27 4.06

Meyer 60.00 6.39 Total Commitment 0.81

Researcher 130.72 10.04

Koopman Presenteeism Scale 20.86 4.70 Productivity 0.91

Researcher’s Employee Productivity Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ) 117.91 15.37

Purani’s Job Satisfaction Scale 42.40 7.51 Retention 0.89

Researcher's Retention Check Index 118.72 18.77

Evidence from Table 6 indicates that the instruments have high concurrent validity which ranges from 0.72 for Normative Commitment to 0.97 for Affective

Commitment.

To determine the test-retest reliability of the instruments, the researcher‘s three instruments were administered two times to the same respondents with a time lag

157 of 8 weeks between the first and second administration. The results are presented in Table 7.

Table 7: Test-Retest Reliability Coefficients of the Researcher's Three Instruments (N = 31)

Variable Instrument/Scale No. of Items Test Position Mean SD Rtt

1st 43.36 5.14 Affective 0.91 10 2nd 43.5 5.07

1st 43.09 5.71 Normative 0.73 10 2nd 42.45 6.17 Commitment 1st 44.27 4.06 Continuance 0.71 10 2nd 44.04 5.02

1st 130.72 10.04 Total Commitment 0.72 30 2nd 130.59 12.42

1st 117.9 15.37 Productivity EPAQ 0.63 30 2nd 126.68 13.78

1st 118.72 18.77 Retention RCI 0.87 35 2nd 135.9 29.16

At the first and second administrations of the Employee Commitment

Assessment Questionnaire (ECAQ), the mean and standard deviation scores

were 43.36, 5.14 and 43.50, 5.07 (affective); 43.09, 5.71 and 42.45, 6.17

(normative) and 44.27, 4.06 and 44.04, 5.02 (continuance) respectively with

total commitment mean and standard deviation of 130.72, 10.04 and 130.59,

12.42 respectively. The test-retest reliability coefficient for the commitment

assessment sub scales were 0.91 for affective, 0.73 for normative, 0.71 for

158 continuance with a test re-test reliability coefficient of 0.72 for the entire instrument. For the Employee Productivity Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ) the test-retest reliability coefficient obtained by the researcher was 0.63 with corresponding mean and standard deviation scores of 117.90 and 15.37 for the first administration and 120.68 and 13.78 for the second administration. The

Retention Check Index (RCI) had a test-retest reliability of 0.87 with mean scores of 118.72 and 115.90 for the first and second administrations and corresponding standard deviation scores of 18.77 and 19.16 respectively.

3.7 Recruitment and Training of Research Assistants

The researcher recruited three research assistants from Workforce

Development and Improvement Consulting, Epe Express Way, Lekki, Lagos to personally administer the instruments to the 361 participants that comprised the initial sample for the study. The three assistants are holders of Masters

Degree in Human Resource Management Technology, Psychology and Guidance

& Counselling respectively. Two of them were trained in Diversity Management by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in 2009 and currently implement the Counselling sessions for Harassment and Bullying victims of the company. The third one is the Head of Learning & Development of the organization. The research assistants were trained for one hour in two days on the purpose and nature of the study and the modalities for administering the

159 questionnaire. The team had a practice session with the researcher and was adequately compensated for their contributions at the end of the study.

3.8 Procedure for Data Collection

Treatment Package

This study was carried out in three phases:

Phase 1: Administration of Instruments: Pre-treatment including Qualifying

Assessment and Pre-testing

Phase 2: Therapy

Phase 3: Post-therapy Assessment

3.8.1 Phase 1: Administration of Instruments: Pre-treatment including

Qualifying Assessment and Pre-testing

This phase consisted of two major activities. The first was the administration of the screening test on 361 call centre employees to select those who qualified for the main experiment. The package for this activity included Meyer and Allen‘s

(1997) Organizational Commitment Scale, Koopman, Pelletier, Murray, Sharda,

Berger, Turpin, Hackleman, Gibson, Holmes and Berdel (2002) Presenteeism

Scale and Purani and Sahadev (2007) Job Satisfaction Scale as discussed in 3.5 –

Instrumentation. Using these instruments, 101 respondents (those who had scored 12 in any 2 of the Commitment levels, 18 in the Presenteeism and 60 in the Job Scale) qualified for inclusion in the second phase of the study.

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The second activity involved the administration of the researcher-designed instruments to obtain pre-test scores of the 101 qualified respondents. The package consisted of Employee Commitment Assessment Questionnaire

(ECQA), Employee Productivity Assessment Questionnaire (EPAQ) and

Retention Check Index (RCI). The activity enabled the researcher to obtain pretest scores on all the three dependent measures for the study. The researcher allowed a period of two weeks for the collection, scoring and collation of data before commencing with the treatment package.

3.8.2 Phase 2: Therapy

Given the nature of the experiment and the peculiarities of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria, random assignment of participants to

Treatment and Control groups was not feasible. This was because the participants were in different companies and could not be brought together in one venue for the six sessions. The researcher therefore used intact groups - all employees in MTN Apapa (Apapa was selected for control because it provided a wider range of selection for control) were assigned to Control while the rest of

MTN Ojota, Globacom and Visafone were assigned to the therapy groups. The researcher was allocated time by the different companies to attend the sessions: MTN Mondays and Thursdays at 10am, Visafone were on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2pm while Globacom assigned only night shifts on Thursdays

161 and Saturdays. The Managers also gave the researcher permission to use the meeting rooms for counselling the respondents and ensured convenient schedule of participants for the period. The treatment used was Gestalt Therapy carried out over a period of six weeks. The treatment package was a manual developed by the researcher which is an adaptation of Zinker‘s (1977) Creative

Process in Gestalt Therapy. During the training, participants were exposed to ninety minutes of counselling per week. The control group did not receive any treatment. However, they were exposed to the same treatment of counselling by Gestalt Therapy after the post test had been administered. This was to enable the control group benefit from the research.

3.8.2.1 Details of Therapy

The objective was to examine if the therapy would help the participants acquire skills in restoring their natural ability to self-regulate and be more committed and productive at work. The success of the therapy should be achieved through the use of discussion and probing techniques that helped the participants discover what goals they really want to cope creatively with during the events of their lives and to have the skills to pursue these good and desirable goals. The flow of the process included all stages of the Gestalt Cycle of Experience:

Sensation/Awareness, Mobilization, Action, Contact, Satisfaction and

Completion/Withdrawal using the manual developed by the researcher.

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Each of the six sessions of the therapy lasted 90 minutes in a room arranged U- shape to encourage eye contact, team movement and for easy management of the groups. The researcher had to carry out the sessions in the meeting rooms assigned by each of the managers in the companies used for the research.

Sometimes, there was need to work night shifts with the participants to ensure that the same employees were involved from start to end of the process.

Considering the length of the treatment (6 weeks) and the nature of the call centre job, the researcher had to ensure commitment on the part of the respondents by motivating them with an induction/orientation programme.

Other interest peaks included assignmentology, presentations, team building games and book gifts/incentives. The books included Spencer Johnson‘s (1998)

Who moved My Cheese, David Koss‘ The 80/20 Individual and David McNally

(1994) Even Eagles Need a Push. The major themes in the books were Change

Management, Visioning, Attitude Choice, Strategizing, Positivity, Self Confidence and Self Management. The 48 respondents from MTN Call Centre in Apapa were not assigned to any of the therapy sessions as they were the Control group. They were later taken through the six sessions of Gestalt Therapy at the end of the research.

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Session 1: Establishing Rapport and Creating Sensation and Awareness The researcher established rapport with the participants through introduction of self to participants while making it fun. Participants were also encouraged to introduce themselves in a fun way. The researcher then took the participants through an induction/orientation explaining the rationale, procedure and benefits of the therapy and assuring them of confidentiality. The induction programme involved games and dice throwing to identify next speakers and promote fun and self concept. The researcher sensitized participants‘ awareness of their need for counselling; guiding them through making ‗I‘ statements to identify their needs first as individuals and then as a group. Examples of such ‗I‘ statements include: ―I am here because I wish to...‖, ―I like being in your midst because…‖ The participants were guided through the following exercise from the manual to help them envision what they experience in the work environment using sensory data, feelings, emotions and reactions from within themselves and the environment without judgment (Clarkson and Mackewm,

1993):

 Why are you here in this meeting?

 What do you want out of this meeting?

 Why do you work?

 What does work mean to you?

Statements like the following cues were given for total awareness:

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 I need to be here to resolve issues …

 I choose not to do this for some reasons …

 I am conscious of the issues around my work environment that put me

under stress …

Session 2: Mobilization

The session reviewed the discussions from session 1 during the first ten minutes.

This was to reiterate learning points. Mobilization is the cycle of problem analysis which according to Elliott and Elliott (2000) allows the client to deal with their conflicts. The participants were guided to analyze the problems identified in the previous session. This is mobilization of energy. Mobilization of energy occurs when significant aspects of experience have permeated awareness and when awareness has been sustained. The following cues selected from the manual guided the participants‘ discussions:

 Where is your energy?

 Define your issues: policies, supervision, promotion & motivation, transfers

& postings – course of study, experience, productivity and commitment

 Why do you want to stay/leave?

 Chart your course (this was given as assignment)

The participants role-played work experiences with supervisors/managers and organizational policies that have adverse effects. Participants were encouraged to discuss emotions and answer questions on whether those challenges were

165 enough reasons to dislike the workplaces and if there were other ways they could profit from the companies. This exercise was to help participants formulate plans for decision making. The participants were given individual assignments to draw a chart representing their route to success in: career, work, life and relationships.

Session 3: Action

The session began with discussions on the take home assignment from session

2. The participants were led to briefly present their charts and received feedback. Session three was the counselling session on decision making. Having drawn their charts, the participants were led to identify similar problems and patterns and were put into groups for decision making. The action cycle is concerned with implementing the appropriate action to satisfy the prime and budding need by organizing perceptual, emotional and behavioural activities and is initiated through plans and change directives. The researcher took the participants through the following activities in groups: Role-play on points raised from their assignments including the charts. The following guided the discussions at this stage:

 When people think of you, what might they say are your most outstanding

characteristics?

 Use those strong points to make decisions.

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 Use decision making skills:

o T – Chart (De Buno, 1985)

o Force Field Analysis (Kurt Lewin, 1964)

o Brainstorming (McFadzean, 1997)

o Six Thinking Hats (White, Red, Black, Yellow, Green, Blue) (De

Buno, 1985).

Details of the decision making tools are described in the researcher-developed manual. The participants were taught to make use of the decision-making tools and to take effective control of their relationships and work life and stop feeling de-motivated because of their position at work. In the course of the therapy, participants showed signs of depression, low self esteem and inability to focus on goals. The researcher therefore gave them book incentives of Spencer‘s Who

Moved My Cheese, David Koss‘ The 80/20 Individual and David McNally‘s Even

Eagles Need a Push. The researcher briefly told participants the stories to reiterate the need for looking at challenges as opportunities, for handling changes in their work situations, for prioritization and self management. Overall, participants were enthusiastic about reading the books at home and discussing.

Session 4: Contact

The first 10 minutes of this session were used to discuss and critique the themes from the books received in session three. Participants were able to highlight

167 learning points and how they would impart their lives. By this session four, the participants were expected to have passed through three levels of awareness: intrapersonal, interpersonal and system having analyzed their problems and learnt tools for dealing with their problems in the first three sessions. The researcher guided participants to adjust their individual needs to those of others and the organizations they work for. Participants were led with statements and questions to look at various aspects of the different problems they had discussed. They also created Vision and Mission statements (Clarkson and

Mackewm, 1993) to help them align with the Vision and Mission of their organizations and adjust to changes in organizational policies and their personal lives and to make positive decisions. The participants made presentations of their findings. Cues that guided the Contact session include the following:

 Take a few minutes to draw up a vision statement for yourself. Does your

vision align with that of your organization?

 Having drawn up your vision, how do you feel?

 What would you gain by presenting your vision to the group?

 Do you think they can help you in anyway?

 Pay attention to the way you are communicating the vision, how

connected are you with those statement as you‘re speaking?

 How whole hearted do you feel with others?

 Are there other options you could come up with to face life and work?

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Session 5: Satisfaction

This session commenced with the researcher listening to and helping the participants to consolidate their feelings and options from the previous session.

This was done to introduce the satisfaction stage of the therapy. The researcher led the participants to summarize their experiences during the period in terms of enjoyment, integration and accomplishment using leading questions to release participants (Clarkson and Mackewm, 1993). Participants showed they recognized and accepted the good points and they had learnt to define what is a good enough relationship, a good enough self-image, and a good enough life that they would begin to apply in the workplace and at home. The following are some of the lead questions for this session:

 Where are you now?

 Who are you now?

 How do you feel now that you have talked about it?

 Is there anything left to say in order to complete the message?

 How do you feel now that you have your plan for success?

 When do you want to start implementing: Personal, Career (work and

professionalism), Family plans?

 Do you require any kind of support in implementing?

 How do you feel about talking to someone concerning your needs

(managers, supervisors, friends or counsellors)?

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Session 6: Completion and Withdrawal

The researcher led participants to understand the need for separation from the counselling relationship as this was the last session. The participants had learned skills and the researcher took time to reiterate the experiences using the following guides amongst others:

 What have you learnt about your organization and yourself?

 Which decision making tool is your favourite?

 How will you use it?

 What have you learned from the presentations that could be useful in the

future?

 How are you going to separate yourself from this counselling experience?

 How ready are you to allow your bosses take up responsibility for what

you cannot change?

 Are you ready to make adjustments and build your career within the

organization now?

3.8.3 Phase 3 – Post Therapy Assessment

At the end of the therapy, the researcher re-administered the Employee

Commitment Assessment Questionnaire (ECQA), Employee Productivity

Assessment Questionnaire (EPQA) and Retention Check Index (RCI) on all the

170 respondents in the therapy and control groups. This was done to ascertain the effects of the training on the participants.

3.8.4 Control Group

The Control Group was the treatment expectancy group. They were not initially exposed to the sessions. As reward, this group was later taken through the six sessions of the same Gestalt Therapy to enable them benefit from the research.

The sessions took place one week after the post tests were concluded.

3.9 Method of Data Analysis

Data collected for the research were analyzed as follows:

Hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 were analyzed using Analysis of Co-Variance – ANCOVA

Hypotheses 4, 5 and 6 were analyzed using Multiple Regression Analysis

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CHAPTER 4

RESULTS, DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

The data collected using the various instruments were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics appropriate for each hypothesis. The entire process of hypothesis testing was done at 0.05 level of significance.

4.1 Test of Hypotheses

Hypothesis one

Hypothesis one stated that there will be no significant gender difference in post- test job commitment of call centre employees with varied years of experience who are in the treatment and control groups.

The descriptive data of the participants is shown in Table 8.

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Table 8: Descriptive Data of the Pre and Post test Scores on Employee Commitment due to Experimental Condition, Gender and Experience (N = 101) Pre-Test Post Test Commitment Commitment Experimental Gender Experience N Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Condition Deviation Deviation Difference

< 1 yr 6 95.17 12.70 136.17 6.08 41.00 1- 3 yrs 10 103.00 15.03 116.10 12.65 13.10 Male > 3 yrs 7 89.57 7.52 121.71 17.52 32.14 Total 23 96.87 13.39 123.04 15.07 26.17 < 1 yr 8 96.38 11.65 135.25 7.23 38.88 Gestalt 1- 3 yrs 14 98.07 12.69 115.79 12.53 17.71 Female Therapy Group > 3 yrs 8 94.00 10.00 106.75 13.08 12.75 Total 30 96.53 11.49 118.57 15.60 22.03 < 1 yr 14 95.86 11.64 135.64 6.52 39.79 1- 3 yrs 24 100.13 13.62 115.92 12.31 15.79 Total > 3 yrs 15 91.93 8.92 113.73 16.64 21.80 Total 53 96.68 12.23 120.51 15.39 23.83 < 1 yr 9 91.78 16.84 106.00 23.75 14.22 1- 3 yrs 9 103.78 8.90 100.56 8.82 -3.22 Male > 3 yrs 5 96.00 7.42 92.40 4.16 -3.60 Total 23 97.39 13.11 100.91 16.24 3.52 < 1 yr 9 91.78 8.97 103.33 14.90 11.56 1- 3 yrs 10 94.80 16.20 93.80 14.18 -1.00 Control Group Female > 3 yrs 6 91.50 14.60 92.17 6.85 0.67 Total 25 92.92 13.12 96.84 13.58 3.92 < 1 yr 18 91.78 13.09 104.67 19.28 12.89 1- 3 yrs 19 99.05 13.70 97.00 12.13 -2.05 Total > 3 yrs 11 93.55 11.58 92.27 5.52 -1.27 Total 48 95.06 13.17 98.79 14.89 3.73 < 1 yr 15 93.13 14.92 118.07 23.86 24.93 1- 3 yrs 19 103.37 12.18 108.74 13.35 5.37 Male > 3 yrs 12 92.25 7.86 109.50 20.04 17.25 Total 46 97.13 13.11 111.98 19.11 14.85 < 1 yr 17 93.94 10.26 118.35 20.09 24.41 1- 3 yrs 24 96.71 14.01 106.63 17.03 9.92 Total Female > 3 yrs 14 92.93 11.72 100.50 12.89 7.57 Total 55 94.89 12.27 108.69 18.22 13.80 < 1 yr 32 93.56 12.45 118.22 21.57 24.66 1- 3 yrs 43 99.65 13.50 107.56 15.37 7.91 Total > 3 yrs 26 92.62 9.94 104.65 16.85 12.04 Total 101 95.91 12.65 110.19 18.61 14.28

The results from Table 8 show that before the therapy, employee commitment

irrespective of the experimental group was low as indicated in the mean score of

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96.87 (Sd = 13.39) for male and 96.53 (Sd = 11.49) for female with a grand mean score of 96.68 (Sd = 12.23) for the Gestalt therapy group compared to the participants in the Control group who obtained a grand mean score of 95.06 (Sd

= 13.17) with male scoring 97.39 (Sd = 13.11) and female scoring 92.92 (Sd =

13.12) on commitment.

After the therapy, post test mean scores reveal a remarkable improvement in

Commitment as the Gestalt therapy group scored a mean of 120.51 (Sd =

15.39) with the male scoring 123.04 (Sd = 15.07) and female 118.57 (Sd =

15.60). This yielded a grand mean difference of 23.83 between the pre and post test scores of the Gestalt Therapy group. Commitment in the Control group improved negligibly from a grand mean of 95.06 (Sd = 13.17) to 98.79 (Sd =

14.89) thus yielding a mean difference of 3.73. The results also show an improvement in commitment on the part of the Gestalt group due to organizational tenure. Commitment for those who had worked less than 1 year improved from 95.86 (Sd = 11.64) to 135.65 (Sd = 6.52); for those who had worked between 1 – 3 years Commitment improved from 100.13 (Sd =13.62) to

115.92 (Sd = 12.31) and for those who had spent more than 3 years, there was an improvement from 91.93 (Sd = 8.92) to 113.73 (Sd = 16.64). In the Control group, Commitment for those who had worked less than 1 year improved from

91.78 (Sd = 13.09) to 104.67 (Sd = 19.28); however, for those who had worked between 1 – 3 years there was a drop in Commitment from 99.05 (Sd =13.70)

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to 97.00 (Sd = 12.13) and for those who had spent more than 3 years, there

was a drop from 93.55 (Sd = 11.58) to 92.27 (Sd = 5.52).

The hypothesis was tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and the result

of the analysis is presented in Table 9.

Table 9: Analysis of Covariance on Level of Employee Commitment due to Experimental Condition, Gender and Organizational Tenure using Pre-test Commitment scores as Covariate Partial Eta Source SS df MS F Sig. Squared Corrected Model 18701.454a 12 1558.45 8.62* 0.00 0.54

Intercept 22249.46 1 22249.46 123.03* 0.00 0.58

Pre test Total Commitment 182.40 1 182.40 1.01 0.32 0.01

Experimental Condition 13565.73 1 13565.73 75.01* 0.00 0.46

Gender 483.25 1 483.25 2.67 0.11 0.03

Organizational Tenure 4698.69 2 2349.34 12.99* 0.00 0.23

Experimental condition X Gender 15.71 1 15.71 0.09 0.77 0.00

Experimental Condition X Organizational Tenure 734.69 2 367.35 2.03 0.14 0.04

Gender X Organizational Tenure 120.42 2 60.21 0.33 0.72 0.01

Experimental Condition X Gender X Organizational Tenure 426.98 2 213.49 1.18 0.31 0.03

Error 15913.97 88 180.84

Corrected Total 34615.43 100

*P < 0.05: F0.05 (1 and 88) = 3.95 F0.05 (2 and 88) = 3.10 F0.05 (12 and 88) = 1.87

Table 9 shows that a calculated F-value of 75.01 resulted as the difference in employee commitment due to experimental condition. This calculated F-value of

75.01 given 1 and 88 degrees of freedom is greater than the critical F-value of 3.95

175 at 0.05 level. For employee commitment due to tenure, the calculated F-value of

12.99 is significant since it is greater than the critical F value of 3.10 given 2 and

88 degrees of freedom at the 0.05 level of significance. Table 9 therefore shows that Gestalt Therapy and organizational tenure had positive influences on

Commitment but all other demographic variables did not. All interaction effects did not also reach statistical significance. To find out which organizational tenure significantly differs in commitment, a post hoc analysis was carried out as shown in

Table 10.

Table 10: Protected t-test Analysis of the Difference in Commitment due to Organizational Tenure Below 1 year 1 to 3 years Above 3 years Organizational Tenure (n = 32) (n = 43) (n = 26) Below 1 year 118.22a 3.60* 3.88*

1 to 3 years 10.66 107.56 0.88

Above 3 years 13.57 2.91 104.65

a. Group means ( X ) are in the diagonal, mean differences are below the diagonal while protected t-values are above the diagonal

From the results in Table 10, call centre employees who had worked for less than 1 year show greater commitment than the employees who had served between 1 and 3 years and those above three years were lowest (t cal = 3.88; t critical =

2.00; df = 56; p < 0.05).

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The following conclusions were drawn based on the results presented in Tables

8, 9 and 10:

1. working with call centre employees using Gestalt Therapy significantly

improved their level of commitment

2. organizational tenure also had a significant effect on commitment of call

centre employees. Overall, commitment was highest among call centre

employees who had worked below 1 year

3. there was no significant difference between male and female Call Centre

employees in their job commitment

4. the interaction effects of experimental condition, gender and tenure on

employee commitment were not statistically significant

Hypothesis two

Hypothesis two stated that Experimental condition and organizational tenure

will not significantly affect post test job productivity of male and female call

centre employees.

The descriptive data of the participants is shown in Table 11.

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Table 11: Descriptive Data of Pre and Post Employee Productivity due to Experimental Condition, Gender and Experience Pre-Test Post-Test Productivity Productivity Experimental Std. Std. Mean Gender Experience N Mean Mean Condition Deviation Deviation Difference < 1 year 6 109.50 15.33 126.17 16.39 16.67 1 - 3 years 10 102.50 15.28 120.40 13.16 17.90 Male > 3 years 7 107.71 5.12 124.14 12.29 16.43 Total 23 105.91 12.88 123.04 13.39 17.13 < 1 year 8 105.88 15.81 128.38 11.13 22.50 Gestalt Therapy 1 - 3 years 14 106.71 11.28 133.50 12.62 26.79 Group Female > 3 years 8 109.88 14.05 131.50 15.41 21.63 Total 30 107.33 12.94 131.60 12.78 24.27 < 1 year 14 107.43 15.11 127.43 13.09 20.00 1 - 3 years 24 104.96 12.96 128.04 14.19 23.08 Total > 3 years 15 108.87 10.54 128.07 14.07 19.20 Total 53 106.72 12.81 127.89 13.61 21.17 < 1 year 9 109.67 10.46 110.67 10.19 1.00 1 - 3 years 9 108.22 11.92 108.89 10.35 0.67 Male > 3 years 5 100.20 7.82 101.40 8.73 1.20 Total 23 107.04 10.80 107.96 10.18 0.91 < 1 year 9 113.56 14.05 117.44 13.94 3.89 1 - 3 years 10 105.70 12.24 109.50 12.54 3.80 Female Control Group > 3 years 6 97.67 11.79 104.33 8.85 6.67 Total 25 106.60 13.76 111.12 12.95 4.52 < 1 year 18 111.61 12.19 114.06 12.35 2.44 1 - 3 years 19 106.89 11.82 109.21 11.24 2.32 Total > 3 years 11 98.82 9.79 103.00 8.49 4.18 Total 48 106.81 12.30 109.60 11.69 2.79 < 1 year 15 109.60 12.11 116.87 14.73 7.27 1 - 3 years 19 105.21 13.73 114.95 13.00 9.74 Male > 3 years 12 104.58 7.18 114.67 15.73 10.08 Total 46 106.48 11.77 115.50 14.02 9.02 < 1 year 17 109.94 14.96 122.59 13.53 12.65 1 - 3 years 24 106.29 11.44 123.50 17.25 17.21 Total Female > 3 years 14 104.64 14.11 119.86 18.78 15.21 Total 55 107.00 13.20 122.29 16.37 15.29 < 1 year 32 109.78 13.48 119.91 14.17 10.13

Total 1 - 3 years 43 105.81 12.36 119.72 15.93 13.91 > 3 years 26 104.62 11.23 117.46 17.30 12.85 Total 101 106.76 12.51 119.20 15.64 12.44

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The descriptive data presented in Table 11 indicate that for the effect of experimental condition, there was a positive change. The post test productivity scores of the call centre employees who received Gestalt Therapy were X =

127.89; Sd = 13.61 as against a mean score of 109.60 and standard deviation of

11.69 for the control group. The pretest mean scores of the two experimental groups were very similar as the treatment group obtained 106.72 (Sd = 12.81) while the control group participants obtained a mean of 106.81 (Sd = 12.30). In terms of gender, the post-test mean productivity scores were 115.50 (Sd = 14.02) for male and 122.29 (Sd = 16.37) for the female call centre employees. A decomposition of the descriptive data according to organizational tenure indicates that call centre employees who had served for less than one year revealed the highest post-test productivity scores ( = 119.91; Sd = 14.17) which were similar to the scores obtained by those between one and three years (mean = 119.72; Sd

= 15.93) while those with work experience of three years and above were lowest with a mean score of 117.46 (Sd = 15.64). However, these mean differences were very negligible ranging from 0.91 to 2.45.

To determine whether significant differences in productivity exist due to experimental conditions, gender and organizational tenure, the hypothesis was tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) statistic as shown in Table 12.

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Table 12: Analysis of Covariance on Level of Employee Productivity due to Experimental Condition, Gender and Organizational Tenure using Pre-test Productivity scores as Covariate

Source S S df M S F Sig. Partial Eta Squared Corrected Model 11646.988a 12 970.58 6.66* 0.00 0.48

Intercept 10097.73 1 10097.73 69.26* 0.00 0.44

Pre-test Productivity 932.56 1 932.56 6.40 0.01 0.07

Experimental Condition 7885.97 1 7885.97 54.09* 0.00 0.38

Gender 693.27 1 693.27 4.76* 0.03 0.05

Organizational Tenure 198.48 2 99.24 0.68 0.51 0.02

Experimental Condition X Gender 83.88 1 83.88 0.58 0.45 0.01

Experimental Condition X Organizational 225.50 2 112.75 0.77 0.46 0.02 Tenure

Gender X Organizational Tenure 22.42 2 11.21 0.08 0.93 0.00

Experimental Condition X Organizational 201.11 2 100.55 0.69 0.50 0.02 Tenure X Gender

Error 12829.05 88 145.78

Corrected Total 24476.04 100

*P < 0.05: F0.05 (1 and 88) = 3.95 F0.05 (2 and 88) = 3.10 F0.05 (12 and 88) = 1.87

Table 12 shows that for the effect of experimental condition on post-test productivity of call centre employees, the calculated F-value of 54.09 was statistically significant as it is greater than the critical F-value of 3.95 given 1 and

88 degrees of freedom at the 0.05 level of significance. As regards the effect of gender on post-treatment productivity, the calculated F-value was 4.76 as against a critical F-value of 3.95 (df = 1/88; P < 0.05). Analysis of the effect of tenure on

180 post-test productivity yielded a calculated F-value of 0.68 which is less than the theoretical F-value of 3.10 given 2 and 88 degrees of freedom at the 0.05 alpha level. All the two-way and three-way interaction terms failed to reach statistical significance. The implication is that only the treatment condition and gender had significant effect on employee productivity. The results summarized in Tables 11 and 12 therefore indicate that:

1. working with call centre employees using Gestalt therapy significantly

improved their level of productivity

2. female call centre employees demonstrated higher levels of productivity than

their male counterparts

3. the effect of organizational tenure was very minimal and not significant in

enhancing the productivity of call centre employees

4. the interaction effects of experimental condition, gender and organizational

tenure were not statistically significant in enhancing the productivity of call

centre employees.

Hypothesis Three

Hypothesis three stated that workplace counselling will not significantly improve

male and female call centre employees‘ retention based on their organizational

tenure.

The descriptive data is shown in Table 13.

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Table 13: Descriptive Data of Pre and Post Test Employee Retention based on Experimental Condition, Gender and Experience (N = 101) Pre-Test Retention Post-Test Retention Experimental Std. Std. Mean Condition Gender Experience N Mean Deviation Mean Deviation Difference

< 1 year 6 108.67 7.23 121.33 9.18 12.67 1 - 3 years 10 107.70 8.47 126.30 11.21 18.60 Male > 3 years 7 108.43 9.38 151.00 16.39 42.57 Total 23 108.17 8.09 132.52 17.44 24.35 < 1 year 8 112.50 9.68 130.13 18.90 17.63 Gestalt Therapy 1 - 3 years 14 109.36 8.16 144.50 16.18 35.14 Female Group > 3 years 8 107.00 4.93 151.13 17.56 44.13 Total 30 109.57 7.91 142.43 18.51 32.87 < 1 year 14 110.86 8.63 126.36 15.66 15.50 1 - 3 years 24 108.67 8.15 136.92 16.76 28.25 Total > 3 years 15 107.67 7.10 151.07 16.41 43.40 Total 53 108.96 7.94 138.13 18.56 29.17 < 1 year 9 103.00 13.70 101.56 17.64 -1.44 1 - 3 years 9 101.89 12.36 104.33 12.37 2.44 Male > 3 years 5 102.00 14.12 103.80 14.11 1.80 Total 23 102.35 12.67 103.13 14.38 0.78 < 1 year 9 103.00 12.62 105.44 12.63 2.44 Control 1 - 3 years 10 103.90 4.07 105.10 5.28 1.20 Female Group > 3 years 6 100.17 8.45 103.50 7.71 3.33 Total 25 102.68 8.74 104.84 8.75 2.16 < 1 year 18 103.00 12.78 103.50 15.02 0.50 1 - 3 years 19 102.95 8.79 104.74 9.06 1.79 Total > 3 years 11 101.00 10.79 103.64 10.46 2.64 Total 48 102.52 10.68 104.02 11.69 1.50 < 1 year 15 105.27 11.58 109.47 17.57 4.20 1 - 3 years 19 104.95 10.62 115.89 16.06 10.95 Male > 3 years 12 105.75 11.47 131.33 28.46 25.58 Total 46 105.26 10.91 117.83 21.69 12.57 < 1 year 17 107.47 12.02 117.06 19.93 9.59

1 - 3 years 24 107.08 7.19 128.08 23.51 21.00 Total Female > 3 years 14 104.07 7.27 130.71 28.06 26.64 Total 55 106.44 8.92 125.35 23.98 18.91

< 1 year 32 106.44 11.68 113.50 18.95 7.06 1 - 3 years 43 106.14 8.82 122.70 21.23 16.56 Total > 3 years 26 104.85 9.28 131.00 27.67 26.15 Total 101 105.90 9.84 121.92 23.16 16.02

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The result in Table 13 indicates that in relation to gender, the female Call Centre employees rated higher on retention than their male counterparts as they scored a post test mean of 125.35 (Sd = 23.93) against the mean of 117.88 (Sd = 21.69) obtained by the male participants. For the experimental condition, the Gestalt therapy group had a post test mean score of 138.13 (Sd = 18.56) in comparison to the control group who obtained a post test mean score of 104.02 (Sd = 11.69).

With regards to the effect of organizational tenure, there was a remarkable improvement in retention with the call centre employees who had served above 3 years scoring the highest post test mean of 131.00 (Sd = 27.67) followed by those who had served between 1 to 3 years scoring a post test mean of 122.70

(Sd = 21.23). Those employees who had stayed below 1 year scored the lowest post test retention mean of 113.50 (Sd = 18.95).

In terms of the interaction of experimental condition, gender and tenure, the results in Table 8 also indicate that of the 12 groups, the female participants in the Gestalt group who had served above 3 years were the highest in the retention scores (mean = 151.13, Sd = 17.56) followed by the male participants with the same years of experience who were also in the Gestalt group with a mean of

151.00 (Sd = 16.39). The lowest post test retention scores were obtained by

Control group male participants who had served for less than 1 year as Call Centre employees with a mean of 101.56 and a standard deviation of 17.64.

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To determine whether a significant difference in retention existed due to the experimental condition, gender and organizational tenure, Analysis of Covariance statistic was utilized to analyze the data. The result of the analysis is presented in Table 14.

Table 14: Analysis of Covariance on Level of Employee Retention due to Experimental Condition, Gender and Organizational Tenure Partial Eta Source S S Df M S F Sig. Squared

Corrected Model 37730.039a 12 3144.17 17.39* 0.00 0.70

Intercept 14198.15 1 14198.15 78.53* 0.00 0.47

Pre-test Retention 1651.00 1 1651.00 9.13 0.00 0.09

Experimental Condition 19891.58 1 19891.58 110.03* 0.00 0.56

Gender 702.04 1 702.04 3.88 0.05 0.04

Organizational Tenure 2896.41 2 1448.21 8.01* 0.00 0.15

Experimental Condition X Gender 381.76 1 381.76 2.11 0.15 0.02

Experimental Condition X Organizational Tenure 2711.41 2 1355.70 7.50* 0.00 0.15

Gender X Organizational Tenure 388.17 2 194.09 1.07 0.35 0.02

Experimental Condition X Gender X Organizational Tenure 470.74 2 235.37 1.30 0.28 0.03

Error 15909.33 88 180.79

Corrected Total 53639.37 100

*P < 0.05: F0.05 (1 and 88) = 3.95 F0.05 (2 and 88) = 3.10 F0.05 (12 and 88) = 1.87

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Table 14 reveals that in terms of experimental condition the calculated F-value of

110.03 is greater than the theoretical F-value of 3.95 given 1 and 88 degrees of freedom at 0.05 level of significance. It is therefore statistically significant. With reference to the effect of gender on post–treatment retention of the Call Centre employees, the calculated F-value of 3.88 is not statistically significant as it is lower than the critical F-value of 3.95 given 1 and 88 degrees of freedom at 0.05 level of significance. With regards to organizational tenure, the post test effect on call centre employees is significant as the obtained F-value of 8.01 is greater than the critical F-value of 3.10 (df = 2/88; P < 0.05). Analysis of the result shows that the interaction between experimental condition and tenure is statistically significant with a calculated F-value of 7.50 as against a theoretical F-value of

3.15 given 2 and 88 degrees of freedom at 0.05 level of significance. All other interaction effects did not reach statistical significance at the 0.05 level.

The results in Table 14 indicate that only the experimental condition and organizational tenure have significant influence on employee retention. A post-hoc was carried out in Table 15 to test which level of experience was strongest.

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Table 15: Protected t-test Analysis of the Difference in Retention due to Organizational Tenure Below 1 year 1 to 3 years Above 3 years Organizational Tenure (n = 32) (n = 43) (n = 26)

Below 1 year 113.50a -3.11* -5.00*

1 to 3 years -9.20 122.70 -2.57*

Above 3 years -17.50 -8.30 131.00

a. Group means ( X ) are in the diagonal, mean differences are below the diagonal while protected t-values are above the diagonal

The result in Table 15 shows that all pair wise comparisons for the retention of

call centre employees are significant. From the results in Table 15, call centre

employees who had worked above 3 years showed higher tendency to stay than

others.

The results from table 13 to 15 therefore indicate that:

1. gestalt therapy improved the retention of call centre employees.

2. male and female call centre employees demonstrated a high level of

intention to stay on their job.

3. organizational tenure was significant in enhancing call centre employees

retention.

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4. the interaction effects of experimental condition and organizational tenure

significantly improved employees‘ intention to stay.

5. the interaction effects of experimental condition with gender and that of

tenure with gender were minimal and therefore did not significantly impact

on retention

Hypothesis four

Hypothesis four stated that Gender, age, organizational tenure, qualification and course of study of call centre employees will not significantly predict their job commitment.

To test hypothesis four, the age, gender, qualification, course of study and organizational tenure (experience) of each call centre employee were entered into a database. Inferential statistics used to analyze the data were bivariate correlation, univariate analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis.

The results of the analyses are presented in Tables 16, 17 and 18.

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Table 16: Means, Standard Deviations and Correlation Matrix between the Predictor Variables and Employee Commitment

Standard Post-Test Course of Organizational Mean Gender Age Qualification Deviation Commitment Study Tenure

Post Commitment 110.19 18.61 1.00 `

Gender 1.54 0.50 -.09 1.00

Age 1.48 0.56 -.08 -.01 1.00

Qualification 4.98 0.75 -.13 -.02 .21* 1.00

Course of Study 1.52 0.50 -.23 -.01 .07 -.11 1.00

Organizational 2.46 1.67 -.28 -.01 .20* .15 .01 1.00 Tenure r critical = 0.19

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Table 16 shows the correlations which were calculated to gain an understanding of the relationship between the dependent (criterion) and the independent

(predictor) variables. From the results in Table 16, it was evident that there is statistically significant correlation between employee commitment and each of organizational tenure (R = -0.28) and course of study (R = -0.23); p < 0.05). The relationship between age and each of educational qualification (R = .21) and organizational tenure (R = .20); p < 0.05 was however positive though statistically significant.

Table 17: Model Summary of Regression Analysis for the Independent Variables Predicting Employee Commitment

Adjusted Std. Error of R R Square R2 Change F Model R Square the Estimate

1 .39a .15 .11 17.57 .15 3.43 a. Predictors: (Constant), Organizational tenure, gender, course of study, qualification, age

The model summary of regression analysis in Table 17 reveals that when gender, age, qualification, course of study and organizational tenure were entered as independent variables, the combination correlated significantly with employee commitment (R = .39) and the model explained approximately 15% variance in

2 employee commitment (R = .15; F = 3.43, p < .05)

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Table 18: Relative Contribution of the Independent Variables in Predicting Employee Commitment Unstandardized Standardized Co linearity Coefficients coefficients Statistics Model B Std. Error Beta T Sig Tolerance VIF

1 (constant) 150.72 14.79 10.19 .00

Gender -3.41 3.51 -.09 -.97 .34 1.00 1.00

Age .60 3.28 .02 .18 .86 .92 1.09

Qualification -3.04 2.44 -.12 -1.25 .22 .93 1.08

Course of Study -9.08 3.53 -.25 -2.57 .01 .98 1.02

Organizational Tenure -2.92 1.08 -.26 -2.71 .01 .95 1.05 a. Dependent variable: post-test total commitment

In Table 18, course of study and organizational tenure were found to be

significantly predictive of employee commitment while gender, age and

educational qualification were not significantly predictive. The respective

standardized beta weights and corresponding t-Values were -.25 and -2.57 for

course of study; and -.26 and -2.71 for organizational tenure.

The conclusion emanating from the results relating to hypothesis four indicate

that of the five independent variables used to predict employee commitment,

only course of study and organizational tenure were significantly predictive

190 while age, gender and educational qualification did not significantly predict employee commitment.

Hypothesis five

Hypothesis five stated that Job productivity of call centre employees will not significantly be predicted by their gender, age, organizational tenure, qualification and/or course of study.

The hypothesis was tested using multiple regression analysis statistics.

The result of the analysis is presented in tables 19 to 21.

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Table 19: Means, Standard Deviations and Correlation Matrix between the Predictor Variables and Employee Productivity

Standard Post-Test Course of Organizational Mean Gender Age Qualification Deviation Productivity Study Tenure

Post Commitment 110.19 18.61 1.00 `

Gender 1.54 0.50 -.09 1.00

Age 1.48 0.56 -.08 -.01 1.00

Qualification 4.98 0.75 -.13 -.02 .21* 1.00

Course of Study 1.52 0.50 -.23 -.01 .07 -.11 1.00

Organizational 2.46 1.67 -.28 -.01 .20* .15 .01 1.00 Tenure r critical = 0.19

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Table 19 shows that of all the five predictor variables entered in the regression equation, only gender significantly correlated (r = .22) with post test productivity of the call centre employee. This inter correlation matrix also indicates that all the predictor variables did not significantly correlate among themselves except between age and each of qualification (r = .21) and organizational tenure (r = .20).

Table 20: Model Summary of Regression Analysis for the Independent Variables Predicting Employee Productivity

R R Square Adjusted Std. Error of R2 Change F R Square the Estimate Model

1 .28a .08 .03 15.39 .08 1.66

a. Predictors: (Constant), Organizational tenure, gender, course of study, qualification, age

The regression model in Table 20 yielded a multiple correlation (R) of .28 between all the predictor variables (organizational tenure, gender, course of study, qualification and age) and the criterion (post training productivity) of the call centre employees. The proportion of variance in post test productivity jointly accounted for by all five predictor variables was 3% (Adjusted R2 = .03) which is not statistically significant given a calculated F-ratio of 1.66.

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Table 21: Relative Contribution of the Independent Variables in Predicting Employee Productivity

Unstandardized Standardized Co linearity Coefficients coefficients Statistics Model B Std. Error Beta T Sig Tolerance VIF

1 (constant) 150.72 14.79 10.19 .00

Gender -3.41 3.51 -.09 -.97 .34 1.00 1.00

Age .60 3.28 .02 .18 .86 .92 1.09

Qualification -3.04 2.44 -.12 -1.25 .22 .93 1.08

Course of Study -9.08 3.53 -.25 -2.57 .01 .98 1.02

Organizational Tenure -2.92 1.08 -.26 -2.71 .01 .95 1.05

a. Dependent variable: post productivity

From the data presented in Tables 19, 20 and 21, Hypothesis five was rejected. It was concluded that the power of gender, tenure, age, qualification and course of study in predicting employee productivity is low as they jointly accounted for only

3% of the variance in employee productivity; thus leaving a whopping 97% of the variance unexplained.

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Hypothesis Six

Hypothesis six stated that Gender, work age, organizational tenure, qualification and course of study of call centre employees will not significantly predict their retention

To test the hypothesis, Multiple Regression Analysis statistic was used.

The result of the analysis is presented in Tables 22 to 24.

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Table 22: Means, Standard Deviations and Correlation Matrix between the Predictor Variables and Employee Retention

Standard Post –Test Course of Organizational Mean Gender Age Qualification Deviation Retention Study Tenure

Post Commitment 110.19 18.61 1.00 `

Gender 1.54 0.50 -.09 1.00

Age 1.48 0.56 -.08 -.01 1.00

Qualification 4.98 0.75 -.13 -.02 .21* 1.00

Course of Study 1.52 0.50 -.23 -.01 .07 -.11 1.00

Organizational 2.46 1.67 -.28 -.01 .20* .15 .01 1.00 Tenure r critical = 0.19

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The inter correlation matrix presented in Table 22 shows that of the five correlations computed between post test retention and each of organizational tenure, gender, age, qualification and course of study, only one was statistically significant at the 5% level. The correlations between post test retention and each of the five predictor variables were .16 for gender, .16 for age, -.01 for qualification and -.06 for course of study all of which were lower than the critical r value of 0.19.

However, the correlation between post test retention and organizational tenure (r

= .28) was statistically significant since it is greater than the critical r of .19.

Table 22 also indicates that the predictor variables did not significantly correlate among themselves except that the correlation between age and each of qualification (r = .21) and organizational tenure (r = .20) were statistically significant at the .05 level with df of 99.

Table 23: Model Summary of Regression Analysis for the Independent Variables Predicting Employee Retention

Adjusted Std. Error of R R Square R Square the Estimate R2 Change F Model

1 .36a .13 .08 22.21 .13 2.73

a. Predictors: (Constant), Organizational tenure, gender, course of study, qualification, age

Table 23 reveals that when all the five predictor variables of organizational tenure, gender, course of study, qualification and age were loaded into the regression

197 equation with employee retention as the criterion variable utilizing the Enter procedure, the model yielded a multiple correlation (R) of .36 thus accounting for about 8% of the variance in employee retention.

Table 24: Relative Contribution of the Independent Variables in Predicting Employee Retention

Unstandardized Standardized Co linearity Coefficients coefficients Statistics Model B Std. Error Beta T Sig Tolerance VIF

1 (constant) 111.15 18.70 5.95 .00

Gender 7.56 4.44 .16 1.70 .09 1.00 1.00

Age 5.40 4.15 .13 1.30 .20 .92 1.09

Qualification -2.47 3.10 -.01 -.80 .43 .93 1.08

Course of Study -3.68 4.47 -.01 -.82 .41 .98 1.02

Organizational 3.66 1.36 .27 2.69 .01 .95 1.05 Tenure a. Dependent variable: post-test retention

From the results in Table 22, 23 and 24, Hypothesis 6 was rejected. It was

concluded that only organizational tenure significantly contributed to the

prediction of employee retention and that all five variables jointly accounted for

only 8% of the explained variance in Call Centre employee retention.

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4.2 Summary of Findings

1. the findings of this study show the therapy significantly improved

participants‘ level of commitment judging from the increase in the overall

mean score of the participants in the Gestalt therapy group. In addition,

new employees demonstrated a tendency towards higher commitment than

those who have served longer. Moreover, male and female participants did

not significantly differ in their post therapy commitment.

2. the findings show a remarkable improvement in productivity due to Gestalt

therapy. It also revealed that female call centre employees tend to be more

productive than their male counterparts. However, call centre employee

post test on productivity was independent of organizational tenure.

3. the findings also revealed that the effect of the therapy on employee

retention was statistically significant. Both male and female employees

demonstrated a high potential for retaining their jobs. The findings also

showed that longer serving employees tend to have a higher retention rate.

This was evident in their scores: employees who had served above three

years scored highest against those who had served below one year and

between one and three years.

4. in terms of Commitment, the findings of this study show that all the five

predictor variables jointly accounted for about 15% of its variance. However,

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only course of study and organizational tenure made significant independent

contributions to this variance.

5. all the five predictors (gender, age, qualification, course of study and

organizational tenure) jointly accounted for only 3% of the variance in

employee productivity.

6. all five predictors (gender, age, qualification, course of study and

organizational tenure) jointly accounted for only 8% of the variance in

retention.

4.3 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

4.3.1 Effects of Workplace Counselling on Employee Commitment

The findings of this study showed that before the therapy, call centre employees who were selected for the program were low on commitment. This condition could be due to the employee‘s perception of the way they are treated and the fact they are not allowed to use their initiatives on the job. There was a significant improvement in commitment after the six weeks of therapy. Participants in the control group did not record any significant improvement in their commitment level apparently because they did not experience the therapy in the first instance.

The results of this research support the findings of Watson, Iwi, Barber, Kimber and Sharman (1998) that Employee Assistance Programmes increase satisfaction and as a result, commitment to work. The results also align with Carroll‘s (1996)

200 and Mcleod‘s (2001) conclusion that Workplace Counselling increases employee morale. High morale was evident in the enthusiasm of the participants at the end of the training as they all wanted to commence implementation of set goals and achieve results.

The findings of this research showed that gender has no significant effect on commitment. During the training, participants were led to discover for themselves how favourable or unfavourable their working conditions were. It was evident at the end that irrespective of their gender, they were determined to become more positive about their jobs and organizations. However, participants acquired new skills for making decisions and dealing with their problems which were lacking at the beginning. This result agrees with the findings of Gallie and White (1993) that

Counselling releases individual personal characteristics and increases the sense of success that results in commitment. The results of this research also support the findings of Boone (1995), Hiatt and Palmertree (1999), Adebayo (2006) and

Hargrave, Hiatt, Dannenbaum and Shaffer (2007) that counselling at work correlates positively with employee commitment. Managers need to ensure that their supervisees attend counselling; if their challenges are resolved appropriately, the employees became more focused and committed to work. It was evident during this study that because the managers of the call centres encouraged them to attend the sessions, the employees were quite enthusiastic.

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On the other hand, the results of this research negate the arguments of Cannon,

McKenzie and Sims (2003) that workplace counselling cannot effectively affect employee attitude and as a result commitment. The researchers argue that workplace counselling is not a strong enough tool for organizations to obtain the loyalty of their employees. The results also clear the doubts of researchers like

Ivancevich, Konopaske, and Matteson (2007) and Newstrom and Davis (1993) whose results were not clear on the impact of workplace counselling on employee commitment. The results of this research however agree with Selvik, Stephenson,

Plaza and Sugden (2004) that Counselling reduces absenteeism by 75% because participants in this research showed their zeal to go to work more often due to the training. It is evident in this study that counselling at work has positive correlation with employee job commitment.

4.3.2 Effects of Workplace Counselling on Employee Productivity

The findings of this research indicate a remarkable improvement in call centre employee work performance after they had received counselling using Gestalt

Therapy. Right from the third session, the employees were already getting higher assessment from the Quality Management Department which monitors their calls.

This was evident in the ratings which the participants brought to later sessions after they were assessed. By the end of the therapy, participants were eager to go back and prove their self worth. This result confirms the findings of Attridge

(2001) when he applied different kinds of counselling services ranging from

202 psychological to individual and telephone counselling. He found that all the services had positive relationships with employee productivity indicating that workplace counselling helps workers to be more performance driven. In Nigeria‘s call centre, employees have no choice but to be productive as they are constantly watched and their calls monitored by their supervisors. The result is that more often than not, some of the staff suffer from presenteeism and sometimes perform below the assigned target resulting in either no promotion or outright termination if the condition persists. This situation explains why productivity scores were high. This kind of monitoring and tight situation brings about disloyalty which this research dealt with.

The research results align with the findings of current research. For example Masi

(2000) concludes that counselling as a support strategy for employees increased productivity by 33%; Harris (2002) established that counselling at work reduces loss of man-hours and Hargrave (1999; 2004) posited that counselling removed the impact of emotive problems on productivity. The results of this study showed that post test employees productivity was independent of organizational tenure and that female employees tend to be more productive even though previous research (Ciarrochi, Chan and Bajgar, 2001; Akinboye, 2003; Ajaja, 2004;

Akinyele, 2007) had posited that multi responsibilities could be a bane to the effectiveness of female employees. That female employees were found to be more productive in this research could be attributed to their natural propensity for

203 multi-tasking. Female children are usually taught at home to cook, sew, clean in addition to performing well at school. Most female therefore grow up to be multi- tasking hence they can handle work, marriage and lifestyle better than their male counterparts.

The results of this research are also clearly reflected in the works of other researchers like Phillips (2004), Gordon (2006), Baker (2007), Amaral (2008) and

Flanagan and Ots (2011) all of whom reported strong correlation between workplace counselling and employee productivity; they all submit that workplace counselling or employee assistance programmes improve employee productivity whether in the private or public sector.

4.3.3 Effects of Workplace Counselling on Employee Retention

On examination of the research data for this study, workplace counselling had significant effect on employee retention. Participants demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm for their work and intention to continue working for their current employers. This finding is contrary to Robinson and Baron‘s (2007) assertion that turnover is based only on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Other researchers who have drawn contrary conclusions to the findings of this research include Okoh (1998), Ayagi (2001); Heneman and Judge (2003) who all identify only one aspect of employee/employee relationship as being the reason for effective retention.

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The results of this research show that with Workplace Counselling, all facets of an employee‘s life will be impacted. For example, the participants were more enthusiastic about their jobs at the end of the sessions because they could see the other benefits accruing to them from other compensation/reward packages in the organization. The training also increased their self worth and ability to apply taught tools to decisions concerning their lives. This result confirms those of earlier findings that counselling at work or Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) is beneficial to all facets of an employee‘s personality. The research supports

McLeod (2001) and Bishop (1998) that counselling brings about a reduction in sickness and absence. Even though Monga and Srivastava (2008) calculate that only a few (3% high performers and 68% average performers) employees need to be retained by employers, it is obvious from the results that they also need to support these few to keep them happy and focused on remaining on their jobs.

Cayley, Lain, Preece, and Scheuchl (2005), Babcock (2009), Silbert (2005) and

Freyermuth (2007) all agree that Workplace Counselling is a necessary support for employees because it removes personal problems and increases employee willingness to remain on the job. During the training and with evidence in the high tempo afterwards, it was obvious that the participants no longer wanted to leave so quickly; they also reduced how often they reported sick and missed work. This is evident in the results of the research that the training positively influenced retention. The results are in agreement with older research (Stein, 2000; Beck,

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2001; Clark, 2001; Parker and Wright, 2001) that workplace counselling reduced sickness absence by 20 to 50%.

4.3.4 Impact of Gender on Employee Commitment, Productivity and

Retention

The results of this research work reveal that gender does not significantly correlate with and therefore it is not a predictor of employee commitment.

Employees are individuals in their own right and have individual patterns of thinking and reacting to situations. There was no gender difference in commitment which means that gender has little or no direct influence on employee commitment. This result is in agreement with older research results from Aven (1993), Marsden (1993), Xiong and Francesco (2004) that although only a third or 20% of employees exhibit high involvement in their job, there is no gender difference in commitment levels. Men and women would usually experience similar levels of organizational commitment especially because organizations do not consider gender when planning compensation and other benefits. Gender therefore has virtually no impact on how employees commit to their work.

The results however show that gender is significantly correlated to employee productivity. During the experiment, female participants demonstrated higher levels of productivity than their male counterparts given the results from their

206 assessment from the Quality Assurance Department. This result negates the findings of older research (Akinyele, 2007; Facer and Wadsworth, 2008; Ajaja,

2004; Akinboye, 2003) that women may not be able to perform optimally at work as they have role conflict managing work and home. However, Jack, Bedics and

McCary (2006) argue contrary to this assertion that productivity is about inputs, delivery and performance output and not about gender. Although other studies have also shown that in terms of behaviour patterns at work, male and female employees exhibit similar levels of productivity especially when the same motivational techniques and remuneration are applied, this research has found that it is possible for women to be more productive than men. This affirmation is based on the assumption that women are prevalent in some job types like customer service, telemarketing or call centre and public relations which projects them as being culturally comfortable to nurture the customer relationship. This may be what makes them appear to be more productive than men.

In this research, gender was not predictive of retention as both male and female employees in the call centres demonstrated high level of intention to stay on their jobs as a result of the training. The finding contradicts Lyness and Judiesch (2001) position that female workers have lower turnover rates than their male counterparts. Lyness and Judiesch (2001) maintain that women would naturally consider several factors like home, family, children‘s school location and convenience in home matters before reaching a decision to change jobs while the

207 men would often look at pay and the need to provide finances for the family therefore it is very easy for them to reach a decision. This research, affirms the positions of Boles, Ross and Johnson (1995) and Taylor and Bain (1999) that there is no obvious definition of the gender type with a higher propensity to leave their current jobs. At the end of the training, both male and female participants showed a high level of enthusiasm for the jobs indicating that gender is not a predictor for managing retention.

4.3.5 Impact of Age on Employee Commitment, Productivity and Retention

The results of this study showed that age does not predict any of employee commitment, productivity or retention as it did not significantly contribute to the variance in any of the three variables. The results agree with previous studies of

Aamir and Sohail (2006) and Hellerstein, David and Troske (1999) that age is not a significant predictor of commitment or retention. In the business of call centre, work is distributed and performance measured in the same way (average handling time divided by number of calls by schedule adherence) irrespective of personality, age or gender. The same wages and motivational tools are used by the organization but productivity and retention depends on the degree to which age- induced changes are significant to what work is done.

The results contradict the findings of previous research (Barth, William and Philip,

1993; Hellerstein, Neumark and Troske, 1999; Skirbekk, 2003; Aubert, Caroli and

Roger, 2004; Lallemand and Ryckx, 2009) that age significantly affects

208 commitment, productivity as well as retention of employees. The authors posit that people are more productive when they are younger and the strength to work begins to decline from age 44 and finally wanes out at 50. When they get older and less productive, there is a tendency towards stronger commitment and reluctance to leave. This is because they have become less marketable or employable and they have affinity with the organization as they have invested all their younger age to working for the organization. They also feel that they have close ties with the organization. This is the reason most older employees want to remain on their jobs.

However, from the findings of this research, older employees are just as productive as their younger counterparts. The result agrees with Munnell, Steven and Mauricio

(2006) report that both older and younger employees are equally productive. The younger employers may have the energy and speed to drive the business but they easily get bored and want to leave. However, the older ones adopt entrepreneurial attitude because of their age and complement the younger employees‘ speed with their own skill and experience to produce good work.

4.3.6 Impact of Course of Study and Qualification on Employee

Commitment, Productivity and Retention

This findings of this result shows that course of study moderately predicts commitment but qualification has no significant effect. This result refutes the findings of such authors as Mathieu (1990), Adeyemo (2000) and Ogba (2007) who have established that qualification has a positive correlation with employee

209 commitment; the higher the educational level or qualification of the individual, the less likely he or she is to remain loyal to the organization and the higher the chances of attrition. If the employer does not meet the growth demands of the highly qualified, there is a strong chance of their leaving. If they remain on the job; they are most likely to be less committed to the company. However, the results agree with Aamir and Sohail (2006) that qualification or level of education does not have any significant influence on how loyal an employee is to the company. People are committed to their organizations if the company provides them with their basic needs and they feel satisfied. In keeping with the Social Exchange theory, an employee gives to the organization if he receives from that organization all the comfort, support, excellent supervision and benefits, opportunities for growth and development to learn new skills.

The study showed that the power of both course of study and qualification could not significantly predict employee productivity. Contrary to this result, Olaniyan and

Okemakinde (2008) posit that the higher the employee‘s qualification, the higher the level of productivity. The assumption is that the higher the educational qualification, the higher the ability to obtain, decode and understand new information. Other earlier findings (Hellerstein, David and Troske, 1999;

Rosenzweig, 1995; Tsang, Rumberger and Levin, 1991) argue that higher qualification enables a worker to adapt to technical change leading to more

210 specialized skills that would help the organization better as the employees become more productive.

The results of this study also showed that both course of study and qualification failed to make any significant impact on employee retention. This result is a contradiction to the findings of Prskawetz, Bloom and Lutz (2008) that oftentimes, highly qualified employees maintain a high level of attrition. People are constantly seeking work environments where they can acquire continuous learning and update their skills while connecting with their professional colleagues. If these things are missing, then commitment, productivity and retention suffer. However, the results of this study show that this may not be the case as it is not the education or course studied that predicts the three variables but there is need for the organizations to provide the right environment for employees to showcase their ability irrespective of course studied or qualification.

4.3.7 Impact of Organizational Tenure on Employee Commitment, Productivity and Retention The results of this study reveal that organizational tenure significantly influenced employee commitment. This result confirms the findings of previous studies on organizational commitment (Mathieu, 1990; Gregerson, 1993; Barlett, 2001;

Mottaz, 2005) that longer serving employees are more committed to their organizations than the less experienced ones. In the same way, newly employed

211 workers who have served between six months and one year tend to be highly committed and speak favourably about their organization. This may be due to excitement of first time work or new environment and the wages. A person is usually enthused with a new and comfortable environment and this could be the reason for high level commitment on the part of the newer employees. Most employees who have served for above five years feel that they cannot find alternative employment and so they view their current employment more favourably and remain there. Longer serving employees have a great history and strong investment with their organization so they tend to value their employment the more and remain committed. However, their commitment may not culminate into high productivity as shown in the results of this research.

The research result shows that organizational tenure does not predict employee productivity. In the call centres, productivity is mandatory and a determinant of continued employment. In addition, the workers know how productivity is measured in their organizations; therefore such workers have no choice than to be productive. This finding however negates the findings of previous research

(Ramlall, 2003; Ilmakunnas, Maliranta and Vainiomäki, 1999; Prskawetz, Bloom and

Lutz, 2008) that length of service positively influences employee productivity.

Experience and job duration improves job performance; therefore experience creates room for employees to be matched with their jobs; they know and understand the job and that makes it easy to perform effectively.

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This research found that organizational tenure is a predictor of employee retention.

It confirms the positions of previous studies (Oshagbemi, 2000; Ramlall, 2003;

Mishra, 2005) that the greater the experience of employees, the higher chance of their willingness to stay on. Such employees have given their best investment in terms of work, devotion, skills and the zeal to start all over in a new job would be non-existent. Although the longer the stay, the higher the chances of them being matched to their jobs, the challenge of matching new technology and adjusting to change is worthy of note. This kind of situation affects the organizations as the experienced workers‘ skills may not be adequate to meet the demands of modernity but the low turnover is advantageous to the company as they would spend less time in interviews and recruitment and save cost of paying wages. In addition to length of service is the perception of what kind of experience the employee has had in the organization. Having stayed so long, if he has had pleasant experiences, other factors like attitude towards the groups, the dependability of the company and the extent to which the individuals feel accepted will ultimately influence his intention to continue to work for the organization.

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CHAPTER 5

IMPLICATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER

RESEARCH, SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The main aim of the study was to establish the effects of workplace counselling on the job commitment, productivity and retention of call centre employees in

Nigeria‘s telecommunications industry. The employees were selected from three telecommunications companies based in Lagos Nigeria including MTN, Globacom and Visafone.

This chapter presents the implications of the results of findings to counsellors, recommendations based on the findings, suggestions for further research and a summary of the work.

5.1 Summary of the Study

This study was undertaken to determine the effects of Workplace Counselling in ensuring the commitment, productivity and retention of employees in the call centre of Nigeria‘s telecommunications industry. The final participants studied were

101 employees selected from three different companies in the industry.

The data for this study was collected using three instruments. Six research hypotheses were formulated and tested statistically with Analysis of Covariance

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(ANCOVA) and Multiple Regression Analysis. All six hypotheses were tested at the

0.05 level of significance.

Workplace Counselling or what is in America, England and Malaysia called

Employee Assistance Programs (EAP), has come a long way since the early 1900s when it began as rehabilitation programme for alcoholic employees. It has now become a tool for addressing a multitude of problems that afflict employees in all areas of their work-life. Common risks and liabilities faced by employers include absenteeism, decreased employee commitment, reduced productivity, presenteeism, and increased employee attrition. The research results suggest that these challenges can be remedied through the implementation of workplace counselling and in turn produce positive outcomes for employers (Return on

Investment).

Five demographic factors that affect employee commitment, productivity and retention were studied including gender, age, course of study, qualification and organizational tenure. The contribution of each of the factors was tested and the results obtained and conclusions drawn.

The results of this study show that workplace counselling is effective in achieving positive employee commitment, productivity and retention. Gender, organizational tenure and education made significant individual and joint contributions to some of the three dependent variables while age and qualification did not influence them.

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5.2 Conclusion

On the basis of the findings of this study, the following conclusions are drawn:

1. Workplace Counselling improved employee commitment levels in the

different organizations

2. Gestalt Therapy increased employee productivity; women showed higher

tendency to productivity

3. Workplace Counselling positively influenced employee retention

4. Course of study and organizational tenure affect the commitment levels

of employees

5. Employee productivity is not impacted by any of gender, age, course of

study, qualification and organizational tenure

6. Employee retention is positively influenced by organizational tenure but

not by any of gender, age, course of study and qualification

5.3 Implications for Counselling Practice

1. the study demystified the multidisciplinary nature of workplace

counselling. As a result, professional counsellors can identify specific fields

and methods by which they can provide counselling services to both small

and large organizations.

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2. Counsellor educators can recognize the dearth of workplace counsellors in

Nigeria and increase the number for trained personnel in this field.

Therefore counsellors wishing to provide services in the workplace will

require further education and certification to ensure they have an edge

over the supervisors and managers who might be asked to perform

counselling in the workplace.

3. counsellor educators can also encourage their students to take

professional certification courses in this specialized field. Therefore the

universities and Counselling Association of Nigeria (CASSON) have a

responsibility to ensure certification and accreditation.

4. professional counsellors in Nigeria could apply the use of Gestalt therapy

as well as several other therapies and interventions that abound in the

practice of workplace counselling.

5. professional counsellors and counsellor educators could adopt the

application of different interventions based on counsellors‘ theoretical

background.

5. 4 Recommendations

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made:

1. organizations should adopt Workplace Counselling as a strategic and

useful tool for managing their employees to achieve commitment

especially in the telecommunications.

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2. managers of labour and employers at all levels should seek the services of

counsellors in their organizations. The counsellors should be employed to

help male workers to improve their productivity and deliver work at par

with their female counterparts.

3. professional counsellors should be employed to influence workers with

different levels of length of service to become interested in serving their

organizations longer so that the organizations in turn can attain high

level retention.

4. employers of call centre workers should consider course of study during

recruitment and counsellors should be employed to support them to gain

commitment.

5. employers and counsellors should recognize individual differences and

self worth of the workers in trying to increase employee productivity

while not emphasizing age, gender, course studied, qualification or

length of service.

6. organizations should consider length of service as a tactic to improving

retention irrespective of gender, age or qualification and course of study.

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5.5 Contributions to Knowledge

1. The study developed and validated a training module for the practice of

Workplace Counselling in the telecommunications industry in Nigeria

2. The study revealed the effectiveness of workplace counselling in

enhancing the commitment, productivity and retention of male and

female call centre employees.

3. This study demonstrated the efficacy of Gestalt therapy as a training tool

for increasing call centre employees‘ job performance, loyalty and

intention to stay on the job

4. The study also revealed the effectiveness of workplace counselling as a

technique for managing intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships

within the workplace for improving employee productivity, commitment

and willingness to remain with their organizations

5.6 Suggestions for Further Research

As a result of the findings originating for this study, the following suggestions for further research are made:

1. workplace Counselling is still a new phenomenon in Nigeria receiving little

or no attention from organizations and schools. Further studies could be

implemented in relation to its introduction, certification and practice in

specific or all industries in Nigeria.

219

2. this study has concentrated on only one industry and specifically one

facet/department of the companies. Further research could be carried out

on other departments of the same or other industries.

3. the study took place in an urban area – Lagos. Workers in the urban

areas may have a different orientation towards the instruments used and

work in general especially as it relates to the types of stressors they face.

It is therefore suggested that further research could be carried out on call

centre agents or workers in the rural areas.

4. the study may be replicated with different patterns of Gestalt therapy (for

example Empty Chair and Dream Work Techniques). Gestalt is not in

common use today but could be explored further as it has proven to be

effective. Other interventions/theories could be attempted.

5. the demographic variables tested were gender, age, qualification, course

of study and organizational tenure. Further studies could be done using

other demographic variables like attitude, intelligence and functional

allegiance.

6. the sample may be increased for similar study so as to broaden the

scope and provide ease of generalization.

220

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APPENDIX A

EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (ECAQ)

The following statements are meant to describe how people feel about the organization they work for. Please mark X in the box that agrees with your choice as follows:

Agree Strongly AS Agree =A Disagree Strongly = DS Disagree = D Neutral = N

Item Options

AS A DS D N PART A: AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT

1 I believe that loyalty to my organization is a virtue I must practice

I feel a strong sense of moral obligation to remain with this 2 organization I was taught to believe in the value of remaining loyal to the 3 organization I work for

4 It is unethical to switch jobs frequently

5 Staying with one company encourages stability

If I got a better offer elsewhere, I would not feel it was right to 6 leave my organization I could just as well be working for a different organization as long 7 as the type of work was similar It is sensible to always take sides with the management of the 8 company I feel that wanting to be a „company man‟ or „company woman‟ is 9 sensible

10 I really care about the fate of this organization

PART B: NORMATIVE COMMITMENT

AS A DS D N

11 I love working for my organization

12 I am content to start and complete my career with this organization

13 I am proud to identify and discuss my organization anywhere I go

I feel like the owner of the company and have a strong sense of 14 belonging

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I am emotionally attached to the company and cannot feel that 15 way about another company

16 I find that my values and the organization's values are very similar Often, I find it difficult to agree with this organization's policies on 17 important matters relating to its employees

18 I consider my job rather unpleasant

19 I do not feel like “a member of the family” in this organization

20 I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to this organization

PART C: CONTINUANCE COMMITMENT

AS A DS D N Leaving this organization will require me making personal 21 sacrifices

22 My lifestyle will be disrupted if I left this organization

It will be hard for me to leave this organization right now even if I 23 wanted to

24 I am afraid of leaving without having an alternative

Another organization may not match the overall benefits I get from 25 this organization There's a lot to be gained by sticking with this organization 26 indefinitely If I had not already put so much of myself into this organization, I 27 would consider working elsewhere It would take very little change in my present circumstances to 28 cause me to leave this organization I would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep 29 working for this organization There's not much to be gained by sticking with this organization 30 indefinitely

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APPENDIX B

EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (EPAQ)

The following questions are meant to describe people‟s level of satisfaction and involvement (productivity) in the organization they work for. Please mark X in the box that agrees with your choice as follows:

Very Often = VO Often = O Rarely = R Very Rarely = VR Sometimes = S

Item Options

VO O R VR S 1 I know what is expected of me in my job and have clear measures for each of my objectives

2 I can clearly explain the business goals of my department to others

3 My colleagues can count on me for support at anytime

4 I have difficulties communicating with my supervisor and team mates

5 All the work I have done is not appreciated

6 I always deliver on my targets and my supervisor and team appreciate me for this

7 In the past month, I have consistently met my target

8 I often daydream at work

9 I arrive early to work and complete all my daily assignment before close of work

10 I have severe headaches by close of work most days

11 I see my work load as reasonable. I do not feel overworked

12 I outrun the time allocated to my work

13 Customers often request my services specially

14 The number of calls I complete in a day usually exceeds target

15 My calls are adjudged qualitative by my supervisors

16 My colleagues are envious of me and I feel alone most times

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17 I am able to balance work with my personal life

18 My work affords me the opportunity to learn new things

19 My work affords me the opportunity to make good use of my initiative, skills and abilities

20 Lately I have been working under my average productivity

21 My customers are not often satisfied with what they derive from my work

22 I am almost always able to meet customers‟ needs

23 I cannot perform as well as I want because I do not have enough time to work with certain issues

24 I meet the target quota and goals assigned to me despite my health problems

25 The mental environment of the call centre distresses me and affects my work

26 I feel energetic to complete my assignments daily despite the stress on my health

27 Everyone in my team concentrate too deeply in performing their tasks

28 Recently I have been working above my average productivity

29 I feel hopeless about completing some calls/tasks due to my health problems

30 I feel that my personal characteristics are not appropriate for performing in my work

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APPENDIX C RETENTION CHECK INDEX (RCI) The following questions are meant to measure people‟s intention to leave or stay in the organization they work for and reasons for this. Please mark X in the box that agrees with your choice as follows: Agree Strongly = AS Agree = A Disagree = D Disagree Strongly = DS Neutral = N Item Options

AS A D DS N

1 I feel my job is secure

2 I plan to be working with my same organization two years from now 3 My organization has and utilizes an established program of employee retention 4 My organization provides an effective program for promotion and/or transfer within departments/functions 5 I believe there are adequate ways for me to develop my career in my organization 6 I have the opportunity to advance here as my organization offers career paths in my job 7 There is really too little chance for promotion on my job

8 People generally advance here as fast as they do at other companies 9 I have opportunities for job promotions

10 In my organization, promotions and career moves are fair and equitable 11 I am aware of the available training and development opportunities in my organization 12 The Management offers real opportunities to improve my skills 13 The training and development plan is selective

14 Training is skewed towards only the work I do so there are no opportunities to learn skills outside my function 15 My supervisor/manager communicates a clear sense of direction 16 My expectations when I joined this organization have been satisfied to date 17 My organization‟s policies develop employees by offering and encouraging them to take on new or additional responsibilities 18 My organization maintains a robust Succession Plan that involves all (including me)

19 The organization maintains open and honest appraisal system

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20 In the past six months, no one has spoken to me about my performance 21 My most recent performance appraisal was an accurate assessment of my job performance 22 My organization assigns a buddy (friend/mentor) who supervises my development 23 Favouritism is a problem in my department

24 My manager allows grapevine to affect the way responsibilities are assigned 25 My organization has an „employer of choice‟ programme that involves employees at all levels 26 My organization has retirement benefits for all employees 27 There are no long term and separation benefits accruing to employees in my organization 28 I am aware of and satisfied with how my pension and health insurance scheme are managed 29 My family cannot benefit from my health insurance scheme 30 My organization offers me Mentoring/Coaching programmes to let me work better 31 Management offers me educational and career support (fees paid or reimbursement) 32 Supervisors have a style that empowers people to take responsibility and authority 33 My work is carried out in a safe environment

34 I do not see a future working with my organization

35 I shall remain with this organization till I retire

In the next 5 years, how likely are you to leave your current employment for reasons other than mandatory retirement? Very Likely … Fairly Likely … Neither Likely nor Unlikely … Fairly Unlikely … Very Unlikely …

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APPENDIX D Organizational Commitment Scale (Allen & Meyer, 1997)

Somewhat agree, strongly agree, strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, not sure

Affective Commitment Scale Items

agree agree

disagree disagree

Not Not sure

Strongly Strongly Strongly

Somewhat Somewhat

1. I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career in this organization.

2. I really feel as if this organization’s problems are my own.

3. I do not feel like ‘part of my family’ at this organization.

4. I do not feel ‘emotionally attached’ to this organization. 5. This organization has a great deal of personal meaning for me. 6. I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to this organization. 7. It would be very hard for me to leave my job at this

organization right now even if I wanted to.

Continuance Commitment Scale Items

disagree disagree

Not Not sure

Strongly Strongly

Somewhat

Strongly Strongly agree Somewhatagree 8. Too much of my life would be disrupted if I leave my organization.

9. Right now, staying with my job at this organization is a matter of necessity as much as desire.

10. I believe I have too few options to consider leaving this organization.

11. One of the few negative consequences of leaving my job at this organization would be the scarcity of available alternative elsewhere.

12. One of the major reasons I continue to work for this organization is that leaving would require considerable personal sacrifice.

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Normative Commitment Scale Items

agree

disagree disagree

Not Not sure

Strongly Strongly

Somewhat Somewhat Strongly Strongly agree 13. I do not feel any obligation to remain with my organization.

14. Even if it were to my advantage, I do not feel it would be right to leave.

15. I would feel guilty if I left this organization now.

16. This organization deserves my loyalty.

17. I would not leave my organization right now because of my sense of obligation to it.

18. I owe a great deal to this organization.

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APPENDIX E

STANFORD PRESENTEEISM SCALE (Koopman, 2002)

Directions: Please describe your work in the past month. These experiences may be affected by many environmental as well as personal factors and may change from time to time. For each of the following statements, please check one of the following responses to show your agreement or disagreement with the statement in describing your work experiences in the past month. Please use the following scale:

1. if you are uncertain about your agreement with the statement

2. if you strongly disagree with the statement

3. if you somewhat disagree with the statement

4. if you somewhat agree with the statement

5. if you strongly agree with the statement

Statement Your work experience in the past month

Because of my (health problem), the stresses of my job 1 2 3 4 5 were much harder to handle

Despite having my (health problem), I was able to finish 1 2 3 4 5 hard tasks in my work

My (health problem) distracted me from taking pleasure in 1 2 3 4 5 my work

I felt hopeless about finishing certain work tasks due to 1 2 3 4 5 my (health problem)

At work, I was able to focus on achieving my goals 1 2 3 4 5 despite my (health problem)

Despite having my (health problem), I felt energetic 1 2 3 4 5 enough to complete all my work

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APPENDIX F

Job Satisfaction Scale Purani and Sahadev (2007)

The JSC is designed to measure the way people feel or are satisfied with their job or place of employment and intention to leave. All answers are appropriate as this is not a test of knowledge. Please answer as accurately and honestly as you can by ticking in the box as follows:

N = Non-committal (1) SD = Strongly Disagree (2) D = Disagree (3) A = Agree (4) SA = Strongly Agree (5)

N SD D A SA S/N ITEM 1 2 3 4 5

Satisfaction with Supervision I am satisfied with the information I receive from my supervisor 1 about my job performance

2 There is enough opportunity in my job to find out how I am doing I receive enough feedback from my supervisor on how well I am 3 doing I receive enough information from my supervisor about my job 4 performance

Satisfaction with Job Variety

1 My job has enough opportunity for independent thought and action

2 I have enough freedom to do what I want in my job

3 I am satisfied with the freedom I have to do what I want on my job

4 I am satisfied with the variety of activities my job offers I am satisfied with the opportunity my job provides me to interact 5 with others

Satisfaction with Closure

My job has enough opportunity to complete the work from starting 1 to end

I am satisfied with the opportunity my job gives me to complete 2 tasks from beginning

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Satisfaction with Compensation

1 Overall I am satisfied with the company's compensation package

2 I am satisfied with the medical benefits.

3 I am satisfied with the holiday (vacation) eligibilities

4 I am satisfied with the security my job provides me

5 I am satisfied with the retirement benefits

Satisfaction with Co-Workers

1 My fellow workers are pleasant

2 My fellow workers are not selfish The people I work with help each other out when someone falls 3 behind or gets in a tight spot

4 The people I work with are very friendly Satisfaction with HR/Management Policies

1 Hospital management has a clear path for staff advancement Physical working conditions are supportive in attaining quality of 2 care

3 Management is extremely fair in personal policies

4 Decisions are made keeping in mind the good of staff

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APENDIX G – ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviation Meaning

GSM Global System for Mobile Communication

CDMA Code Division Multiple Access

MTN Mobile Telephone Network

ITSC International Telephone Switching Centre

NECOM House Nigerian External Communications House

NET Nigerian External Telecommunications

NITEL Nigerian Telecommunications Limited

MTS Mobile Telecommunications Service

NBC National Broadcasting Commission

NCC Nigerian Communications Commission

ILO International Labor Organization

US United States of America

ACA American Counselling Association

Council for the Accreditation of Counselling and CACREP Related Education Program

CASSON Counselling Association of Nigeria

NIAAA National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

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APPENDIX H

APPOINTMENT AS PART TIME RESEARCH ASSISTANT

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APPENDIX I

LETTER OF NTRODUCTION FOR RESEARCH WORK

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