Coaching and Mentoring
It is said that a company that places emphasis on the welfare of its people from the management level down to the staff is one that is likely to succeed in its business endeavors. Productivity and quality work performance of the employees help the company to achieve its goals easily. Given this fact, many companies invest in improving their people through various employee enhancement programs. Coaching and mentoring programs are two of the most commonly employed organizational activities that are primarily geared towards personal and professional development.
These programs are not temporary, although they can be situational. Once the company decides to implement coaching and mentoring programs for the employees, there should be sufficient planning and preparation to design really effective coaching and mentoring sessions. Many considerations and requirements have to be met – creating a coaching and mentoring process, selecting the best tools and techniques, choosing coaching and mentoring styles, guidelines and protocols, selection of coaches and mentors, and eventually developing coaching and mentoring best practices.
Mentoring is a process that highly regards the roles of superiors and managers as mentors in the workplace. Coaching is a process that requires the coaching professionals to facilitate learning and help develop performance of individuals. Coaching is not exclusively for those who have deficiencies in their work performance and skills. It is intended for all employees in the workplace and that includes every level from the executives or the management to the low-level employees. It is important to note that coaching and mentoring are designed to develop and enhance, not merely to correct a weakness or flaw.
The following articles will broadly discuss the various aspects of coaching and mentoring, covering a wide range of concepts. These articles serve as useful knowledge and information tools primarily for companies who seek to develop employee potential and performance, and for coaching professionals who wish to acquire better understanding of both coaching and mentoring programs.
Coaching and mentoring are two important processes that can be applied in different areas such as academic institutions, athletic teams, and in workplace settings. In many companies and organizations, coaching and mentoring are regarded as highly effective techniques in employee development, for both management and staff level. The normal process is that the higher management has the task to conduct coaching and mentoring to the entry level employees or the staff. The main purpose of coaching and mentoring in the workplace is to motivate professionals to bring out the best of their capabilities. Usually people think that those who go through…
December 17, 2010
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Both coaching and mentoring has the same goals: to enable individuals to maximize their full potentials, which can be useful in their various roles and functions held in companies and organizations. Although there are many uses and applications of coaching and mentoring, the steps and procedures conducted by coaches and mentors are just about the same. They act as facilitators in identifying the needs, skills, and motivations of the individuals that can bring about changes in their personal and professional lives. During the session, they also utilize useful techniques of questioning. They assist in establishing goals and ways of monitoring…
December 18, 2010
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Coaching is best conducted if the coach is fully aware and knowledgeable of the theories and practices involved in the process. Aside from that, coaching is most effective if the coach can demonstrate a variety of skills, styles, and techniques suitable to the context in which coaching is conducted. The activity is dynamic and broad. In the workplace, a coach must know the theoretical concepts and must fully embrace their functions before progressing to the application. The Value of Coaching Process Professional coaches follow a set of standards in their coaching activities. This includes utilizing a coaching model, a coaching…
December 19, 2010
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Mentoring is a tool used by various organizations and other entities for the personal development and empowerment of their employees. Mentoring is a powerful process and an effective approach in helping individuals in developing their careers. Mentoring is a partnership between the mentor and the mentee who share similar experiences or who are in the same field of work. Apart from personal development, it is about relationship building. This is basically what distinguishes mentoring from coaching. Successful mentoring is based on a step-by-step process which has the role to build the relationship and conduct the mentoring session effectively. Just as…
December 19, 2010
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Coaching and mentoring are increasingly used mainly for professional development, to indicate a positive change in individuals and to encourage the transfer of knowledge from the coach / mentor to the individual. Organizations and companies find coaching and mentoring highly beneficial for the career growth of their employees so coaching and mentoring has been applied by many entities in their organizational practices. At the workplace, coaching and mentoring is used when the management finds that there are working individuals who need to enhance their potentials to perform better in their jobs and to be more productive. There may be skills…
December 23, 2010
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Coaches and mentors play an essential role in the success of an organization. They are responsible for implementing the coaching and mentoring processes and procedures set by the organization as part of their employee development programs. As such, the bulk of the responsibility relies on how effective they are, in performing their coaching and mentoring functions and how they carry out their roles. Most organizations appoint supervisors and managers to take on the role of a coach. They are often seen as the most capable of conducting the coaching sessions because their skills and knowledge levels are apt for the…
December 23, 2010
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Being a coach or a mentor is not an easy role to perform. These roles are very crucial to an organization and its people. Because of this, when investing in coaching and mentoring programs in the workplace, quality must be observed in terms of the processes, standards, and the people assigned to do coaching. The organization must have high expectations from the designated coaches. These individuals must possess the necessary personal and professional qualities of a good and effective coach. Usually coaches and mentors are part of the management in the organization. Being such, they ought to have the right…
December 24, 2010
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Mentoring has been closely associated with coaching as a highly effective practice in developing individual potential and performance. A coaching program requires a structured and standard implementation of processes and guidelines, and a mentoring program is not different. Yet, mentoring can be either formal or informal. It requires a connection between two individuals – a mentor and a protégé or a mentee. In many companies and other public or private sector entities, mentoring has been known to contribute largely in the professional development and career of individuals. Organizations incorporate formal mentoring sessions because this way productivity from the employee and…
December 24, 2010
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Organizations looking after the needs of their people always find ways and means to address those needs. Coaching and mentoring programs are established to continue developing people and bring out their best. Coaching in the workplace is very important and must be perceived positively by the working individuals. In some cases, employees tend to be apprehensive towards coaching sessions because they feel that due to poor performance at work, they have not met the expectations of the company. This kind of thinking must be eradicated when it comes to coaching. Instead, the coaching program must be seen as an opportunity…
December 25, 2010
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Utilizing a coaching program as a part of organizational practice for employee development requires a systematic and structured approach. Coaching is not just something that may or may not be conducted in a causal method; coaching is not a temporary activity. Once a company decides to embrace a coaching program as part of the system, it must be structured and must be a regular activity. It has to be a fixed implementation to function as a tool for enhancing employee performance and growth. Being a crucial program for employee development, the coaching process must be outlined and coaching best practice…
December 25, 2010
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Coaching and mentoring can be conducted creatively using different coaching and mentoring styles. Yet, this does not mean that the coach or mentor can mess up the processes for both activities. The coaching and mentoring process remains to be structured and procedural. The styles to be used in these programs depend on the coach and mentor. The important thing to consider when adapting a certain style is that it should be suited and easily grasped by the learner. Coaches and mentors must keep in mind that people have various learning styles. Some of them are visual learners and get a good…
December 26, 2010
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The main purpose of investing in a coaching program and holding coaching sessions is to help individuals empower their careers and increase their level of work performance. However the success of an organizational coaching program is dependent on several factors. The effectiveness of the coaching process is an important factor. If coaches are not bound by coaching guidelines and a structured process, they may fail to meet the goals of coaching. The skills and competencies of a coach also influence the success of the coaching program. If the program is well-structured with a set of guidelines and clear processes but…
December 26, 2010
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Coaching becomes an essential program in the workplace when there are issues and inconsistencies in the overall productivity of the company as well as employee relationships. In common situations, coaching will be conducted to any of the following: Coaching inexperienced learners in order to help them develop skills and improve performance . Coaching experienced learners who lack the motivation and willingness to improve work performance There are employees who do not have first-hand experience of the task but have the competence to perform it. Others are task-experienced but lack the necessary skills to perform the task. Yet, there are also…
December 27, 2010
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Coaching programs are not only intended for first-line employees or staff in a company, as a means for enhancing career growth, coaching can also be conducted to the executives or the senior management level employees. This is called executive coaching wherein the leaders of the organization also go through coaching sessions to continually enhance their effectiveness in the workplace. The company usually sponsors the coaching sessions to their executives and management level employees by hiring a professional executive coach. It is important for company executives to take a refresher of their scope of work and take stock of their skills….
December 27, 2010
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Organizational teams work as instruments of success in achieving organizational goals. Teams are created to produce outstanding results that cannot be achieved by individual effort alone. Yet in teams there are challenges brought about by various factors. The quality of team performance can be an issue in reaching those goals. So companies have to take action in building better and more empowered teams. A team-coaching program is an effective means to optimize productivity and relationship between the members of a team. Coaching sessions in the organization may be conducted basically in two approaches – individual and group setting. Since the…
December 27, 2010
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