Counseling involves discussing emotional problems with employees to help them cope and improve performance. It defines counseling as a discussion between a manager and employee to help the employee deal with an emotional issue. Counseling aims to provide advice, clarity of thought, build confidence, release tension, and help with orientation. The counseling process involves three phases - initiating to build rapport, exploring the problem to understand root causes, and creating an action plan to address issues and implement strategies to improve performance. Counseling is needed due to various emotional, interpersonal, workload, family, and health issues employees may face.