Counselling hotline offers stressed employees a sympathetic ear after work for $200 per hour

STRESSED out? Overwhelmed? Hate your boss? A new national telephone hotline will listen to your work complaints - for almost $4 a minute.

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STRESSED-OUT workers harassed by a torrent of emails, messages, phone calls and smartphone notifications are being offered a sympathetic ear at the end of the work day, but when they get the bill they may be even more stressed out.

The new counselling service, called Talk2Me, launched in Australia this week and will charge its users $211 an hour to talk to a “debriefing counsellor” who promises to “just listen” to their work complaints.

The national hotline, billed as an alternative to a traditional chinwag after work, will operate between 4pm and 8pm AEST, and will cost $3.52 per minute, charged to a credit card or added to the user’s phone bill.

Talk2Me founder and psychotherapist Deborah Sanasi said she expected executives to use the service, phoning from the office or on the drive home from work to air their grievances.

“These days it’s getting increasingly difficult for people to separate work and home,” Ms Sanasi said.

“The invention of smartphones and email and messages doesn’t help, necessarily. Because we can access our smartphones at any time, what I’ve noticed as a therapist and counsellor is when people walk in the front door they can take it out on their family if they’re stressed.”

Can you feel the stress?

Ms Sanasi said the service’s 30 counsellors had skills in “reflective listening, emphatic responding” and “debriefing,” and would be more useful than friends in de-stressing as they would not interrupt with their own tales.

But Ms Sanasi admitted the one-way chats would come at a higher cost than expected of a typical mental health consultation.

“It’s maybe slightly more but people won’t be on the phone for as long as they would with a professional mental health worker,” she said. “I don’t think people will be on the phone for an hour, debriefing.”

She said she expected 15 to 20-minute calls ($70.40) to become the norm, though “some people might find 30 minutes ($105.60) is better.”

Alternatives include Lifeline’s free crisis support line (13 11 14), and sexual assault and family violence counselling service 1800Respect.

While venting workplace stress may be costly, research indicates Australians are finding it harder to disconnect from their employment now technology allows around-the-lock connectivity.

A Ranstad Workmonitor report surveying more than 400 Aussie employees found 35 per cent could not “resist” reading work email “continuously” while on holidays, and 22 per cent said their employers expected them to be available around the clock even while on leave.

Telsyte also reported that Australia has more than 16 million smartphone users, the average household uses nearly eight internet-connected devices, and more than third of all homes download 100GB monthly.

Originally published as Counselling hotline offers stressed employees a sympathetic ear after work for $200 per hour