Anyone in HR? Know anything about Coaching? Please tell!

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I've done some searches and come up with a load of nause to wade through so I wondered if someone here might be able to help. I'd like to be able to say something complimentary about coaching to someone, what can I say? "I've heard xyz company are having good results with it" that kind of thing. So can anyone tell me, in a nutshell, what is coaching? How does it differ from having a business mentor or doesn't it? Know of any cos who use it? I know it's a long shot but TIA to anyone who can answer.

I'm not in HR but my firm is quite into coaching at the moment. I don't have any personal experience of it but have heard various things about it from those who are more involved.

Oh great Pic, you don't have to tell me anything confidential or about your co but any info would be useful. I gather it takes the place of training for senior employees and is usually adminstrered by a trustred HR person to provide feedback to managers. So sort of like therapy for business? Is that all correct (skimmed a couple of articles after I posted)Thanks batters!

Oh don't worry anyone, I've got the gist of it from my googling. It's about HR justifying themselves largely, har de har.

Oh ok, it's about 'facilitated learning' apparently and is "a systematic process based on a firm relationship. It is essentially about developing a relationship through conversation. At the heart of a successful coaching relationship lies questioning,listening and objective feedback. Some people describe the conversation as a purposeful dialogue"

Oh right, as opposed to a purposeless dialogue?

What's been happening in my firm is that a group of people of a relatively senior level (ie manager and above) have been trained by I think people from the firm, but who have been trained themselves by external people.

There are about 15 people involved in doing the coaching. They have had 10 days of training where they spent the initial few days learning about the process and themselves (quite touchy-feely I think) and then about how to coach others.

The idea seems to be that it is not necessarily business related, although it could be. Any subject (ie personal or professional) could be covered in a session and it is up to the person being coached (the coachee?) who determines what is talked about.

It is important for the coacher to not put their personal feelings into what happens at the sessions; this is why the group being trained had a few days at the beginning to find out about themselves, so they could make sure that they don't feel the need to explore that when they are coaching (or something like that).

It is being done on a trial basis in my firm, in one office, and is completely voluntary. I don't think here it would be taking the place of training (as our field of work requires continual training in not so soft areas) and I also think that what happens in sessions is kept confidential.

The idea seems to be that external factors can affect your performance at work and that my considering the whole picture, people are likely to enjoy work more and therefore be more productive for the company.I'm not sure how well it has been working in my firm (especially as I have moved offices recently). I think the idea will be to extend it across the whole firm in time.

There has been some division between the people who are coaching and the people wh are being coached - generally on the touchy feely aspects of coaching. Not having actually experienced it myself, I can't comment, but it seems that some people are closing their minds to it before they have tried it, IYKWIM.

Hope that helps a bit; if you want to know any more, please feel free to CAT me and I will tell you anything else I can think of .

Gone on a bit there .

Thank you very much, PC, that's really helpful and I can ask "are you using coaching to manage purely business scenarios or does it cover the rest of an employee's life? Because I know the approach varies from company to company." Sorted! Thanks.

Goodness, don't apologise, it's great and I'm v grateful! Thanks.

Good luck for round about now. (I know you won't get this but dh has been working from home today and considers that more important than my mumsnetting )

don't you hate the term 'Human Resources'

www - I was in Hr until I had dd - and was a qualified coach - dd ios sdcreaming dfor food will come back when sher is in bed and read and post properly if it weill help you

Thank you Prufrock (dh is wrong, obv!), eugenious and bellie, thanks! I have a 3rd int for next week!

a third??!!

that's just not fair.

www, I used to do very specific business based coaching rather than the 'life' type coaching although obviously they can overlap.

I used to focus on 360 coaching whereby the individual the individuals boss, direct reports, peers and others that they closely work with fill out a questionnaire about the behaviours and attributes that the indivual displays. This works best when it is based around the business goals or vison.

In this way the coaching sessions can then be structured around the way that the individual percieves themselves and how they come across to others and you focus on where the largest gaps are.

The coaching session is really about getting the indivual to recognise the issues themselves and coming up with the solutions themselves. Of course my job was easy with the enlightened ones, but much more interesting with the individuals that have very different perceptions to that of those around them.

Probably gone on far too long but feel free to CAT me if you want any more detail - but if no use feel free to ignore

Also - good luck for the interview next week - must be promising to have a 3rd??

Bellie, thank you! The question she asked was "how would you feel about being interviewed by your 2 direct reports?" to which I answered "I love the concept of 360 coaching...blah de blah"
I'll let you know how I do, thanks for the good wishes, thanks too Senora!

A third one! Blimey, they do drag these out don't they? Good luck.

www - have you had the interview yet? If yes how did it go - if not good luck!!