Coaching in the Workplace
4 May 2023
Jill Minter, AIM’s Head of Marketing and Communications, takes a look at why employees perform better when positively coached, rather than being constantly evaluated.
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Successful coaching Effective coaching is future focussed, releases potential and improves employee and organisational resiliency to change. Many successful organisations (like Hewlett Packard, IBM and others) have recognised that their success depends on managers being able to coach their staff and each other, and have included coaching in their management/leadership development. Successful coaching adds value to employees, who then add value to their organisations by giving their best. Employees want to be happy, productive and innovative, and coaching creates the environment where this can happen. Many employers are now identifying coaching as a critical leadership and management competency and employees are recognising the benefits and are asking more for coaching. |
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What is workplace coaching?
Workplace coaching equips the workforce with the skills, knowledge, and opportunities they need to fully develop the company, and their work. Coaching leverages individual strengths and abilities for maximum performance, especially useful when facing change.
Whilst coaching draws on management skills and competencies, it differs by supporting employee growth, development, and achievement by removing roadblocks to performance and enhancing creativity. Whereas management deals with supervision, evaluation and meeting objectives.
Coaching works hand-in-hand with training; Training is an ‘event’, often with short-term retention, coaching is a process ensuring that the new knowledge imparted, actually becomes learned behaviour.
Top 10 benefits of workplace coaching
Research and experience shows that employees perform better when positively coached, rather than being constantly evaluated.
Effective coaching helps to unlock the potential and performance of employees and:
- improves individual performance
- improves retention: Employees interpret coaching as a sign that they are cared for. They feel valued and necessary in the organisation. Such employees will stay longer in the organisation.
- enables leaders to deal with the unknown
- helps identify and develop high potential employees
- promotes behavioural changes, making it easier for people and projects to progress
- supports diversity by recognising every employee’s uniqueness
- empowers individuals and encourages them to take responsibility
- increases staff engagement
- helps identify both organisational and individual strengths and development opportunities
- helps to motivate and empower individuals to excel
Moving forwards change will be the norm and individual resilience and performance will be crucial to team and organisational success.
Developing great coaches
The best workplace coaches are those who use the coaching process and concepts effectively through understanding and skill development, and who are able to adapt and develop their own coaching style to suite the coachee, the situation and the work environment.
Managers and leaders can develop their competency in coaching by:
- Increasing their awareness of coaching and its benefits
- Educating themselves on coaching concepts and tools
- Identifying their own coaching style and skill level, and learning to identify others’ preferences for being coached
- Practicing coaching using the best coaching tools and their own strengths
- Continuously improving and installing their coaching competency through feedback and on-going coaching.
With the demand for coaching professionals increasing, the coaching professional apprenticeship is a great way to inject an in house coaching solution into your organisation, whilst supporting the development of a new professionals career. AIM Assessment ensures that it's end-point assessment of the qualification tests the apprentices knoweldge, skills and ability in the profession of coaching.
Take a look at our coaching professional page to find out how your organisation can select AIM as it's EPAO of choice for the coaching professional apprenticeship.
