Workplace Coaching: Context, Process, and Content - ILM Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of workplace coaching, focusing on good practices within the Adult and Child Therapy Center (ACTC) in Saudi Arabia. The report begins by defining workplace coaching and exploring its context, including its purpose and the benefits it offers to both employees and organizations. It then delves into the roles and responsibilities of an effective workplace coach, highlighting key characteristics and behaviors such as impartiality, confidence, and active listening. The report also examines the coaching process, covering tools, techniques, and the management of coaching sessions, as well as the importance of maintaining records. Furthermore, it addresses ethical considerations, including confidentiality and contracting, and identifies common barriers to coaching and strategies to overcome them. The report concludes with a summary of key findings and recommendations for improving workplace coaching practices.

Workplace Coaching

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction...........................................................................................................................1
2.0 Understanding the context for effective workplace coaching...................................................1
2.1 Definition of workplace coaching.........................................................................................1
2.2 Roles and responsibilities of an effective workplace coach..................................................2
2.3 Behavior and characteristics of an effective workplace coach..............................................3
2.4 How coaches should contract and manage confidentiality to coach ethically.......................4
3.0 Process and content of effective workplace coaching...............................................................5
3.1 Management of coaching process..........................................................................................5
3.2 Range of tools used in workplace coaching..........................................................................6
3.3 Maintenance of basic records of coaching activity................................................................7
3.4 Barriers to coaching in the workplace and strategies............................................................8
4.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10

1.0 Introduction
Workplace coaching is a holistic approach to individual work, personal needs, corporate
values and career development which are made to attain goals against key performance
indicators (Leonard-Cross, 2010; Bozer and Jones, 2018). Furthermore, it is an employee growth
tool that helps in improving the skill set of the employees to meet the current and future
expectations. In this context, the current report is based on the assessment of good practice in
workplace coaching in the Adult and Child Therapy Center, Saudi Arabia. For this purpose, the
report has been bifurcated into two parts such as context and process of constructive workplace
coaching in the company. In this regard, the roles and attributes of an effectual coach have been
explained. Furthermore, the tools and techniques used for workplace coaching have been
assessed. At the end, barriers of coaching and preferred strategies have also been evaluated.
2.0 The context for effective workplace coaching
2.1 Concept of workplace coaching
According to Jones, Woods and Guillaume (2016), workplace coaching is similar but
quite different from mentoring wherein the management focuses on the improvement in the
individual performance of the employees against job expectations. Moreover, coaching at the
workplace is directly associated with one-on-one guidance to learn from mistakes and encourage
the employees to take a potential role for development. Furthermore, Ladegård (2011) asserted
that coaching at the workplace supports an employee to improve their day-to-day performance
along with the development of skillset and knowledge for further career development.
 Purpose - Earlier the workplace learning was just used to achieve the organizational
goals by developing the performance of workers one-by-one basis. The firms were keen
towards to increase the productivity of both company and human resources, reduce the
stress level on a personal level, enhance the ratio of self-commitment etc. (Clutterbuck,
2011). Later on, the purpose of workplace coaching has completely changed and set a
direction towards the development of future-focused leaders on an individual level
(Jones, Woods and Guillaume, 2016). Likewise, in the contemporary era, the purpose of
workplace coaching has changed and emphasizes the performance of an individual
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worker to reduce the gap in existing capabilities and required skills for the current job
role (Whitmore, 2010). Similarly, Adult and Child Therapy Center (ACTC) in Saudi
Arabia offers workplace training to doctors to personally treat special child cases like
Autism, therapy for teenagers and adults to provide counseling to remove the depression,
anxiety, any type of phobia etc. (Adult and Child Therapy, 2017). Apart from this, the
main purpose of the personal mentoring of an employee is to focus on the building of
self-awareness in an employee through recognizing blind spots as well as strengthens
gaps to move forward. In the above context, the key features of one-on-one coaching are
carried out to improve individual performance and supports to attain specific goals in a
particular direction for the action. Furthermore, personal coaching at working place leads
to build open relations between coach and coachee in case of the supportive and
encouraging coach is being there for the person. For example, ACTC company's
workplace coaching is comprising of special attributes like it is dedicated to provide
support and maintain strong relations with staff on an individual basis. Additionally, it
assists to facilitate support and professional therapy to teenagers who face the issues in
relationships, drug difficulties, exams and family pressure etc. (Adult and Child Therapy,
2017). Therefore, it indicates that workplace coaching is supportive for the companies to
build passionate, skilled and future-oriented personnel for dual development as an
organization and employee.
2.2 Roles and responsibilities of an effectual coach
Workplace coaching aims to improve the individual’s ability to deal with change and
develop the skills to work independently (Clutterbuck, 2011). In this context, it is beneficial for
both the organization and individuals because it clears the specific roles of the employees in the
context of the firm's goal. As per this, the coach at the workplace is responsible to assist the
coachee in setting long-term developmental goals which help to bring improvements in both
contexts such as individual and the company. Likewise, the main role of a coach in ACTC
company is to provide special training facilities to nursing staff to give better satisfaction to adult
patients (Adult and Child Therapy, 2017). Furthermore, the effective workplace coach has a
quality to be prepared for every sitting with complete data, ideas, exemplar and be set for the
conversations with individuals. Moreover, a coach is the person who gives corrections without
displeasure or irritation because it leads to over development of organization and worker
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(Ellinger, Beattie and Hamlin, 2010). For example, the workplace coach of ACTC firm possesses
additional characteristics because the coach is concern regarding the issues of the employee and
provide enough time to train the staff for a solid session. Thus, it shows that the coach possesses
specific features to lead the employees otherwise it might provide the wrong direction to people
to achieve the goals.
The workplace coach has three major responsibilities such as to keep the focus on
defining goals, facilitates coachee’s thinking over the goals and deliver effective feedback with
the help of questioning and active listening to employees. In this context, as an individual, the
coachee is responsible to participate in the process of training and mentoring to look at the
achievement of goals (Vella, Oades and Crowe, 2011). Furthermore, to decide actions that are
needed to be taken for the purpose and accordingly provide timely revert to the coach through
reports during the entire coaching process. For instance, ACTC company assigns the distinctive
roles and responsibilities to the coach wherein an effective coach is liable to provide training to
doctors for child counseling to learn about the child issues and get assessment regarding the
treatment of those children. In this context, Gilbert et al. (2010) asserted that an effective coach
is essential in the organization to meet the needs of the employees and the firm and supports to
go in a successive direction for goal achievement. Furthermore, an effective coach has an
extensive role to build a positive working environment and emphasize the needs of an individual
in the organization. Apart from this, the most effective role of a workplace coach is to offer
suggestions to build on the views expressed by learners. Hence, it shows that an effective coach
is surrounded by all significant roles and responsibilities to manage and mentor the individual.
2.3 Behavior and features of an organizational coach
A productive workplace instructor has an enthusiastic and positive attitude in nature
wherein the person always emphasizes on coaching the staff to peak performance. Hence, the
coach is not only responsible to correct the mistakes, assessing blame and identify the fault.
Furthermore, it builds a positive and attitudinal behavior in the coach wherein the respective
trainer elicits the learner’s ideas and provide solutions without imposing own (Stewart and
Owens, 2011). Moreover, an effective coach has a characteristic to help the learner priorities
learning needs. Apart from this, it is the main feature of an effective coach to provide a complete
framework for programmed of coaching to the coachee to derive desired outcomes. For this sake,
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the coach of ACTC can facilitate close mentoring with staff and prepares accurate notes of
coaching so that any mistake can not take place in the organization because of special care of the
child (Bozer, Sarros and Santora, 2013). Further, the basic characteristic of a good coach is that
the knowledge of limits of own abilities and experience which restricts the coach to go beyond
the limits. It reveals that an effective workplace coach possesses an attitudinal behavior and close
mentoring ability and provoke self to cross the boundaries during offering coaching to the
employees.
According to Horn et al. (2011), impartiality and effective feedback to an individual is a
significant characteristic and behavioral continent of an effective coach at the workplace. In this
regard, a workplace mentor has a quality to bring out the answers from the coachee applying
questioning refection approach instead of giving suggestions to an individual. On the other hand,
a skilled coach’s behavior is comprising of two distinctive characteristics such as confidence and
attentive as per the changing situations. In this regard, a confident coach can lead the team
members with the best guidance and allow the person to proceed with certainty from the initial
level. It helps to direct coaching sessions successively. Likewise, ACTC’s coach comprises of
different characteristics and behavioral techniques like communication behavior approach to deal
with the individual staff. For this purpose, the company offers Educational Setting Training
Packages (ESTP) to family and professional player to improve the involvement of coaches at the
workplace (Adult and Child Therapy, 2017). Hence, it notifies that impartiality and confidence
are the basic and significant qualities of a good trainer to manage a distinctive individual at
work.
2.4 Contract and control confidentiality to coach ethically
Brennan and Wildflower (2010) stated that coaches work in several specializations
including corporate, personal, business etc. to help their clients and coaches. In this context,
ethical coaching is played an important role in guiding individually. Likewise, ethical guidelines
by coaches strictly adhere which reflects that the coach has taken full responsibility and followed
the professionalism to direct. In this regard, EMCC, ICF and IAC each association have their
own set of ethical guidelines in coaching for the members which cover key areas of competence,
context, confidential, integrity and professionalism (International association Coaching, 2011).
Likewise, an ethical coach contract with the employee and effectively manage confidentiality at
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workplace coaching through clear communication at the start of every coaching. Additionally, it
focuses on the involvement of an inclusive process to bring the corporation together and work
collectively (Lee et al., 2013). Apart from this, to manage confidentiality in the coaching
contracts, the coach is liable to recognize the value of clarifying the roles, expectations, agendas
and results from the coaching contract.
In the above context, a coach can recognize the expectations of the organization which
are being demanded from the coaching and what the coach can deliver to the employee during
the entire process is helps to maintain ethical coaching at the workplace (Lee et al., 2011).
Accordingly, an act of confidentiality is followed by both the company and coach wherein the
employees are encouraged to share the progress of coaching with HR and other major company
leaders. However, in the contracting stage, the coach deal with an issue of confidentiality
wherein the trainer has professional code as a boundary which cannot be violated during the
contract assignment. In this regard, for the sake of coaching confidentiality, the coach and the
organization have to follow the global code of ethics like appropriate terminologies, professional
actions, outstanding exercise, endorsers to the international morality etc. (Walsh, 2014). As per
the code of ethics and principles, both parties such as organization and coach are responsible to
abide by this code and explain all the aspects before start working. However, in case of
breaching the code of ethics and principles during the coaching process either by organization or
coach then strict action can be taken against the faulty party.
3.0 Procedure and content of workplace coaching
3.1 Management of the coaching process
` Workplace coaching lends a hand to develop a mutual connection between staff members
and the supervisor (Lee et al., 2013). Here, as a coach, the supervisor has not limited remedial
coaching in the firm. In this regard, the workplace coaching comprises of a systematic procedure
including the establishment of coaching goals, delivering the services and revert feedback from
the coachee through questionnaire and reflection regarding the day-to-day session. At this point,
a simple coaching model has been used by the organization and an effective coach to manage the
entire mentoring process as follows-
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A GROW (Goal, reality, options, way forward) model has been used to manage the entire
coaching process at the workplace by a skilled coach. In this context, the coach of ACTC
company firstly decides the specific goals to provide coaching to nursing staff, special doctors,
surgeons, child therapist etc. Here, it has been found that the team of clinical psychologists offers
a range of approaches to therapy like CBT, integrative psychotherapy, focused therapy and all
these are considered as a goal to derive effectiveness in these services. Likewise, the coach will
ask the worker about the reality and current status of the company’s services. Here, the coachee
states the information about ACTC’s services such as treatment of special cases like teenage
counseling, autism, phobia, anxiety, fear, adult dyslexia, educational therapy etc. Accordingly,
the coach performs the training actions and do the required changes in the learning practices to
meet the current expectations. After that, the coach of ACTC emphasizes the exploration of the
alternatives to deal with the current situation and try to remove the constraint which might affect
the output of the coaching. At this point, the coach of ACTC company includes another method
like a multi-model approach, solution-focused theory, change theory as per the current issues to
meet the goal as effectiveness in the services. At the end, after searching the options, the coach is
responsible to apply a significant tool as provide training as per the need and use the alternative
options if it is needed. Accordingly, the coach can manage the entire workplace coaching process
systematically and the trainer is allowed to change the approach if the initial plan is not working.
3.2 Range of tools used in workplace coaching
The coach uses diversified diagnostic tools and techniques for organizing effective
coaching at the workplace. In this context, appraisal and performance data which is a 360-degree
feedback tool that is often used to inform coaching assignments briefly. The reason behind the
application of this tool is to get feedback on the performance and behavior from all levels in the
organization (Nowack and Mashihi, 2012). Likewise, ACTC uses a 360-degree feedback
approach during the entire coaching process wherein the coach takes revert from the individual
and accordingly performs the changes in the criteria for the goal attainment. On the other hand,
team diagnosis and performance data are some of the effective approaches to support effective
coaching at the workplace (Soni et al., 2011). This tool helps measure the performance of the
coachee that supports skills development in the entire team by assessing on an individual basis.
Similarly, ACTC also uses the diagnostic of performance data to coach the individual employee
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in the health and care center which helps to grow the importance of collaboration, knowledge
sharing, effective communication on drawbacks as well as positive points etc.
The learning preferences are applied to enhance the coaching and athletic performance
within the organization (Grant and Dorgo, 2014). In this manner, learning preferences play an
important role in skill enhancement of people on a personal basis and everyone learns
differently. In this context, Dunn (2009) mentioned that every individual can learn regarding
corporate attitude; however, each individual learns differently. Likewise, the coach of ACTC
uses the visual learning preferences for the doctors and nursing staff to train as per the current
complex diseased environment. For example, charts, diagrams of the treatment of the specific
diseases, posters to show the results of the operation etc. so that learning capability might be a
boost in the staff members.
3.3 Management of records of coaching activity
Kretlow and Bartholomew (2010) stated that conversations between coach and coachee is
maintained and kept on tract through record-keeping process in coaching which they had during
the entire session. Furthermore, the maintenance of records shows the proof regarding goals
which they had set and application of actions that are implemented for the achievement of
organizational as well as individual purpose. For instance, ACTC company also concern about
record keeping of the workplace coaching activity so that suitable actions can be taken for the
current and future requirements. Another significance of coaching record maintenance is to
increase regularity between meetings. Moreover, the major reason behind record keeping is to
provide right to gather of key factual data for the attainment of the purposes of departmental
audits where coaching is facilitated within an organizational context (Toledano O'Farrill, 2010).
Apart from this, the records of workplace learning can be related to guidelines of the training
program, duration of the coaching, listing out the approaches used for learning, professional
guidelines for the capability development etc. Furthermore, the records can be comprised of roles
of a constructive advisor and timely assessment of the program for further development and most
important is the application of ethical norm and confidentiality codes to be mentioned in the
coaching records for future considerations. In this context, ACTC firm includes the content in a
record like past case studies of treatment, application of new interventions in child care, current
capabilities of the doctors and skill gap analysis approach etc.
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3.4 Problems and approaches to coaching in the workplace
The coach faces several issues in offering to coach to the employee on an individual basis
in the workplace. In this context, MacLennan (2017) mentioned that the organizational culture is
one of the significant barriers for workplace coaching because the company is surrounded by a
specific cultural environment. However, the employees come from diversified cultural bases
which create issues in learning new aspects for the development. For this purpose, the coach can
apply the integrated approach to collaborate with different cultured employees and accordingly
facilitates the learning program. Likewise, the coach of ACTC might face the problem in
offering to coach to the diversified cultured staff wherein the coach has to focus more keenly on
the learning of the employees. In this context, it creates the issues of non-match of trainer and
learners wherein the coachee does not get the accurate meaning of the learning topics.
Further, an absence of knowledge of the importance of coaching is a barrier to coaching
and mentoring the employees. Here, in the workplace coaching, the ACTC coach faces the
barrier relating to lack of talents and experience within the organization because the field of adult
and child therapy center is very broad. Additionally, it needs extra attention and updated
knowledge for the settlement of diseases. For this sake, the anticipated barrier conversation
strategy is used to resolve the bottlenecks of relevant experience and knowledge. On the other
hand, the ACTC company calls the external coaches and mentors to provide effective training to
the staff which demands the higher cost of the organization. In this regard, the organization can
use the internal coaches’ approach who can provide relevant training to the employees on a
personal basis that might incur a low cost for the organization.
4.0 Conclusion
As per the report, it can be concluded that workplace coaching has changed the scenario
of the organizations because it helps to improve the learning capabilities of individuals. Further,
it has been summarized that an effective workplace coach has an attribute to be innovative,
attentive and communicative towards the coachee to offer effective learning. Furthermore, it can
be concluded that a good coach possesses a positive attitudinal behavior wherein the coach not
impose allegations on the learner. At the end, it has been summarized that coaches manage the
confidentiality in the workplace coaching contracts wherein the mentor is responsible to clarify
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the agendas and results of the coaching. However, it has been found that coach and organization
face the barriers in workplace coaching relating to experience, cost, cultural differences etc. and
accordingly effective strategies are used to minimize the effects of issues.
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