Coaching – the new HR craze
| Pages | 38-39 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-02-2019-155 |
| Published date | 11 February 2019 |
| Date | 11 February 2019 |
| Author | Samantha Caine |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
Strategic commentary
Coaching –the new HR craze
Samantha Caine
About 50 per cent of all
information taught from a
presentation is forgotten
within an hour. Fast forward seven
days, and that figure rises to 90 per
cent. The idea of simply delivering
information to an employee and
expecting them retain andbenefit
from this information is outdated.The
new craze that resolves this?
Coaching.
Coaching allows for an individualto
learn on the job in an atmosphere that
is much more engaging than a
presentation and will often give an
employee the opportunity to learn for
themselves. With the rightguidance,
coaching can become a muchmore
efficient solution compared to the
mundane approach of traditional
training methods.
But how does coaching differ from
other teaching methods? It is not
uncommon to experience confusion
over seemingly overlapping teaching
methods such as coaching, training
and mentoring. While it is true these
three methods do indeed overlap,
they share the common aim of
improving the performance of the
person or people involved.
Coaching vs training vs mentoring
While training may incorporate
elements of coaching, trainingis
largely a formal process of imparting
information. Coaching is about more
than “telling” people what todo –it is
about encouraging and assisting
them to perform the skill or behaviour
that you want them to learn in a task-
based activity.
Mentoring, on the other hand, is a
relationship-based activity.A
mentoring relationship aimsto
achieve specific goals in areas such
as career development, networking,
approaching specific projectsand
striking the right work-life balance,yet
these goals will only form a small part
of the whole picture.
In most cases, coaching is a formal
relationship where the coachee hasa
specific goal to achieve. Whether
short term, long term or acombination
of both, coaching goals are always
specific. The coach is there to guide
the coachee through a formal
process, often involving the extensive
questions to help the other person to
identify what they need to do so as to
achieve their objective.
Of course, there will always be
instances where a coach needs to
issue instruction, but by and large –
and in contrast to training –coaching
is about leading the coachee to draw
their own conclusions over what to do
and how to do it.
A replacement for training?
In essence, coaching is about helping
someone to help themselves; it is
about getting someone to do
something because they want todo it
and they believe that it is the right
thing to do. Coaching will never
replace training but will continueto
grow in importance as a fundamental
skill needed by managers today.
Samantha Caine is Managing Director
at Business Linked Teams, Sidmouth,
UK.
PAGE 38 jSTRATEGIC HR REVIEW jVOL. 18 NO. 1 2019, pp. 38-39, ©EmeraldPublishing Limited,ISSN 1475-4398 DOI 10.1108/SHR-02-2019-155
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