Understanding And Implementing Mentoring And Coaching Assessment Answer

Answer :

Implementing coaching and mentoring 

Introduction

Coaching is determined as the designed and performance-driven to enhance the on-the-job activities or work performance of the professionals. The mentoring refers to mostly development is driven, looking at the current work functions of the professional and undertaking holistic method to career improvement. In reference to such aspects, this report aims to demonstrate an in-depth understanding related to the term mentoring and coaching along with explaining their differences as well as similarities between each other. The purpose of both will be provided in brief and key benefits that mentoring and coaching offer to various stakeholders will be explained. The report will provide a discussion of a different kind of mentoring and coaching that are more likely to be implemented within the organization. Along with this, the role of the line managers within mentoring and coaching will be evaluated. Later, the group of significant recommendation depending on the assessment will be produced. Moreover, the summary of the ways an individual may contribute towards the further improvement of coaching and mentoring within the organization will also be explained in brief. 

Activity 1: An executive briefExplanation of the terms coaching and mentoring, their similarities and differences

Coaching is defined as the form of improvement in which a coach or an experienced individual helps the client or learner to accomplish the particular professionals and personal goals by offering guidance as well as training. Mentoring is defined as the system of the semi-structured support or guidance, where an individual share their skills, experience and knowledge to direct others to develop within respective careers as well as lives (Irby 2018). The similarity between mentoring and coaching lies that both are made by contract or agreement at the initial of the process. The central professional skills of a mentor offering mentoring and a coach offering coaching are common including questioning, listening, explicit objective setting, feedback, action planning as well as building trust (Irby 2018). There are several definitions of both, although several scholars have defined coaching by agreeing that it might be informal and formal. The coaching is unstructured, structured; it determined as an act of offering learning and is mainly result oriented. On the contrary, mentoring to be similar to coaching with having several definitions and differ from coaching on terms that mentoring is fails to be result oriented. Mentoring is of long term nature and thus, it is summarized as the activity of helping to shape beliefs as well as the value of the person positively over the long duration.

Coaching and mentoring purposes as well as key benefits for different stakeholders

Mentoring and coaching are designed for various purposes. Mentoring has the purpose to tap into the current skills, experience and knowledge of highly performing staffs along with transferring those skills to latest or less experienced staff for advancing their career. The central purpose of coaching related to developing the performance of the employee for a specific job and it includes strengthening their present skill and knowledge(Foo and Turner 2019). Mentoring and coaching have been used by the companies for several years to enhance desired behaviour and develop the performance of their potential workforce. In certain organisations mentorship and coaching are completely structured as well as formal that means it has been a division of corporate development and training module. In reference to such aspect, mentorship and coaching have been quite beneficial to several stakeholders within the organisation including staffs, top executives and line managers who are mentored or coached (Foo and Turner 2019). The several advantages that are acquired by the potential stakeholders who are coached are-

• Building resilience
• Improvement of desired attitudes or behaviour amongst several other individuals working in the organisation
• Improvement of decision making
• Having a better job satisfaction level
• The capability to learn taking the right decision or act towards predetermined  and desired goals
• The staff and line managers gain the capability to act more effectively as well as efficiently delivering the mandate

 The several benefits acquired by the stakeholders who are mentored within the organisation are-

• The employees, managers or executive working in different department gains needed encouragement and advice to deliver work productively
• The positive relationship amongst stakeholders are developed
• The level of confidence is increased
• Mentoring also provides professional growth

The advantages that are encountered by mentors and coaches mainly includes improved performance resulting within better qualitative and quantitative results per staffs who are mentored or coached. The organisation is more likely to encounter improvement of desired behaviour and attitudes from the potential stakeholders.

Three different types of coaching and mentoring that can be implemented in organizations

There are several kinds of mentoring and coaching that are established within different organisations. The types of mentoring and coaching mainly established in the organisation are mainly dependent on the type of industry, business objective, size and strategies used (Blackett et al. 2018). The most general kinds of coaching that established in several organisations are-

Skills coaching: This kind of coaching emphasizes over core skills needed by the staff for the purpose to perform a particular task or work (Blackett et al. 2018). The skills are improved through the process of adaptive coaching. The employee might lack efficiency or quickness at work activities, while others might lack effective communication. In such a situation the two of the individual would receive coaching tailor outlined for each person to best suit their coaching requirement.

Career Coaching: The carrier coaching includes shaping an employee’s career path in relation to better qualification, experience to enhance personal capabilities as well as skills (Blackett et al. 2018). In reference to such context, the staffs are coached over the correct career direction to make the right choices and pursue goals by developing their professionalism. 

Performance coaching: Performance coaching is mainly related to the improvement of staff efficiency at workplace or expertise within particular roles to ultimately enhance individual productivity (Blackett et al. 2018). A good instance of performance coaching related to coaching that is encountered between an athlete or player and the sports manager. The manager in such a situation has a role to coach the athlete or player to obtain certain knowledge or expertise, for example, running with better speed levels.

The three different types of mentoring are as follows-

Situational mentoring: It is the kind of mentoring which is undertaken to enhance some skills and it is always discontinuous as well as of short-term. The situation mentoring allows staff to gain mentorship during their failure to perform certain work or absence of any particular skills (Hussey and Campbell-Meier 2017). The respective mentoring type might be outlined for a particular duration therefore, allowing the organisation to execute and plan the program having zero or limited errors. 

Peer mentoring: The staffs who are within similar career level or working on common standards of job progress often volunteer for mentoring their colleagues by supporting them within the areas they are poor (Hussey and Campbell-Meier 2017). Peer mentoring is mainly a two-way procedure in which both mentee and mentor are benefited with the help of each other. 

Natural mentoring: This type of mentorship is sometimes informal and unstructured. The natural mentorship occurs at the time the mentor in the higher position within leadership seeks to help the junior staffs (Hussey and Campbell-Meier 2017). The natural mentoring often occurs during the staffs within the lower designation of the corporate level starts respecting the staffs that are more related to be successful or having wider influence within the organisation.

Evaluation of the role of line managers in coaching and mentoring

The role of the line manager is crucial within the organisation for their main responsibility of mentoring and coaching the potential workforce. The line managers are widely responsible for improving desired knowledge, skills and building staff to be highly effective as well as efficient within their respective line of job roles (Huemann et al. 2019). They are the individual who is mainly involved within more in coaching and less engaged in mentoring. The line managers irrespective of top managers are observed to have more duration at their disposal across staffs at lower levels. With the continuous communication with staffs, the line managers having the support of both external and internal coaches aid within coaching procedure. They help by correcting, mentoring and facilitating staff with feedback along with updating superior management related to the development as well.

At least five factors that need to be considered when implementing coaching and mentoring

There have been several factors which are required to be considered at the time of the establishment of mentoring and coaching process within the organisation. Many of the elements that impact coaching and mentoring stems from corporate culture along with underlining personal problems amongst people undertaking to mentor and coaching between those who are mentored or coached. The most common elements that are considered at the time of establishing coaching and mentoring includes work or tasks, ethical requirements and safety, duration, type of coaching or mentoring (Garvey et al. 2017). Along with this some of the other factors are support needed for mentoring and coaching, evaluation as well as modes of mentoring or coaching amongst others. 

Kinds of work or tasks: It differs from single corporate to another. In prior to the process of establishing mentoring and coaching, it is important that an individual pay more concern to work or tasks for selecting mentoring or coaching with the inclusion of various styles, forms as needed (Joseph 2017). In case the organisation is engaged within service reproduction, the improvement of soft skills effective communication becomes the prime focus. The type of coaching and mentoring style is likely to differ when the work or tasks are mainly operationally based, where more focus is based on the improvement of technical skills.

Ethical requirement and safety: These factors include broader issues such as activities of mentoring, coaching, it’s scope, types of guidelines, contact means, confidentiality and protection (Joseph 2017). Ideally, in the implementation of coaching or mentoring, the factor like ethical requirements and safety are defined in related to external as well as internal needs such as corporate policies, country or regional code of conduct (Joseph 2017). The concerns of confidentiality, for instance, have been the source of allegation or controversy at the time the coaches or mentors leaks sensitive information to the existing employees or friends. When such instance occurs, it impacts the relationship between individuals working in the organisation, although it has also been standard for civil suits. 

Time and kind of coaching or mentoring: The process of mentoring and coaching are often short term, long term, unstructured, structured or informal and formal (Garvey et al. 2017). The time and kinds of coaching or mentoring impacts the establishment of both within the organisation, where they are mainly formal, of long-term basis and structure. Conversely, in case the mentoring and coaching is mainly unstructured, of short duration as well as informal, the corporate would not encounter effective development of employees (Garvey et al. 2017). Similarly, the duration or type of mentorship and coaching impacts the way administration respond towards staffs issues as well as the way the workforce within organisations seek support from the administration.

Support required for coaching and mentoring in an organisation: Within most of the cases, the organisation which undertakes application of the external coaches along with the mentors for factoring them within budgeting such that the organisation could be able to be supported through key resources available in the business. The same case is applied to organisations having internal mentors and coaches. Internal mentoring and coaching plays an important role in the improvement of organisational activities. The importance of internal coaching with mentoring are stated as under:

Team efficiency

Over developing staffs, mentoring and coaching could develop the team's functions with departments and the entire organisation. It helps the organisation in capitalising over resources in hand for maintaining the entire team effectively when the staffs make requites for vacation or sick leave.

Personal growth

It leads to improved efficiency along with the organisation while inviting new talents. Additionally, mentoring and coaching could help in guiding employees to their career path lead to the well-verse of the employee over expectation of company (Gray 2018). It could help in the reduction of frustration over personal level thereby develop job satisfaction of individual offering benefits for the organisation.

Retention

On the organisational level, mentoring and coaching could offer multiple benefits. Mentoring along with coaching could assist in encouraging loyalty or commitment towards the organisation (Bear 2018). Coaching and the mentoring approach assist employees in feeling comfortable with the management and open communication with the development of favourable workplace setting. When the experienced professionals assist in improving career for mentees, the individuals might feel a great sense of commitment and connection to the business.  

Modes of evaluating coaching and mentoring activities in an organisation: The different modes of evaluation of mentoring and coaching within an organisation influences allocation in which few methods for mentoring along with evaluating might be ineffective thereby appropriate evaluation is not affected. Therefore, leading to a breakdown in the entire process of implementation. For maximum organisations, coaching and mentoring tends to go hand-in-hand with the training and the development that means coaching as well as mentoring considers being a key part of managing performance along with for performance appraisal (Schatz-Oppenheimer 2017). Failure in evaluating the employees who are under the mentorship thereby coaching appropriately might lead to process breakdown as it might affect motivation and attitude of the employees.

Activity 2: A set of justified recommendations and support proposal

A set of recommendations based on assessment

In affirmation to the organisation which is in requirement of modification in regard to mentoring and coaching, it becomes critical that corporate improves some areas including appropriate behaviour, attitude development as well as skill needs. The organisation having no recognised approach of coaching or mentoring, there is the utmost requirement to enhance the effective program and robust efficiency of coaching. Along with this, the mentoring would allow corporate to fulfil their staff's growth needs. In detail, coaching would be the art of assisted learning in which an individual is placed under observation, scrutiny and direction as they deliver their job roles or duties with perception to registering required outcome or results. The several recommendations depending on the evaluation of the organisation are further explored with perspective to address present challenges encountered by the corporate. 

Mentoring and coaching within an organizational context is recommended implementing as it helps individual to be more valuable to the company by enhancing their knowledge, skills both personally as well as professionally. The organisation noted to be in need of improving IT or Information technology and customer care expertise. There is a significant need to enhance both the technical and soft skills of the employees. The organisation has failed to have formally recognised mentoring and coaching policy. It is recommended that the organisation effectively outline the robust coaching and mentoring programs. The GROW model is likely to be best suited to the organisation which does not have any prior established coaching for mentoring policies (Paralikar 2018). The respective model is effective to guide on several kinds of mentoring and coaching along with effective establishment as well as the assessment of the procedure. A company always wish potential staffs to excel within their respective work and accomplished outcome that support business growth. It is more likely to happen that not all employees are well-versed with the business environment and are likely to experience inefficiency in their work. The best approach of the teams working in the organisation is recommended through utilisation of GROW model. The implementation of attainable and measurable goals would be favourable to define the specific goals of every individual staff. It would be important to take into account the current position of  individual within the staff life cycle and recognise the elements that are restricting employees to attend their particular goals. The step-by-step plan would be critical on guiding the team members to work towards their respective goals. In other word, GROW model would help organisation to increase work culture and gain talent management.

Nevertheless, few organisations don't possess well-designed systems for mentoring and coaching; therefore, mentoring as well as coaching takes place solely in an informal manner, such companies don't be concern regarding support required. Instead, they used to put much emphasis over other means of developing and empowering their staffs or employees named as the job rotation, seminars as well as the exceptional management. Obtaining privilege of knowledge and expertise of the experienced staffs along with professionals could help in enhancing the speed of the fresher or low experienced staffs. It is recommended that the mentees are supported to learn the adequate skills or experience from the mentor. The mentor would obtain insight from the learner about latest areas for developing issues in the shared field. 

In the organisation, the employees lacking IT and customer care skills means they have inefficient technical as well as soft skills. The GROW model is effective to address the absence of adequate knowledge or skills. In the respective process, the goal would be to involve the transfer of IT and customer care skills into effective expertise to address related concerns. The alternative available for improving the needed knowledge and skills would be through either mentoring or coaching. The probable obstacles might arise such as behavioural or attitude issues with the individual becoming resistant to change. Moreover, the obstruction might arise with the corporate culture clashing with the program as it has not been established before. In reference to such aspects, the organisation leading the establishment of coaching or mentoring programs is recommended to initially outline effective development and training policy for the potential growth of staffs. It is important that the organisation appoint coaches with a probable mixture of external and internal mentors as well as coaching (Fettes et al. 2020). It is recommended to indulge in mentoring, exercising the development program, evaluating the policy and performance measurement. Moreover, it is critical that the corporate involves mentoring, coaching activities at all phases of staff development, for example within recruitment, acquisition, monitoring and utilisation of the workforce (Fettes et al. 2020). The corporate exercising all these approaches is likely to have an effective program that helps towards developing and nurturing the required talent, skills or knowledge at an early phase. Amongst theories guiding coaching with mentoring at each organisation is the GROW model. This model has widely been used in the business environment across the UK and helped companies in undertaking coaching and performance measurements activities effectively. GROW involves 4 key factors such as GOALS, REALITY, OBSTACLES, OPTIONS, and WAY FORWARD. The 5 principles signify various stages where mentoring or coaching could be undertaken in organisations. It helps the organisation in enhancing the skills of employees to motivate them to develop strong relations with clients thereby contribute effectively in gaining objectives successfully.

The reality principle out of the key principle under Grow model describes the recent condition that the client considers being in and lists the issues down which requires of being resolved, ways for being addressed, the probable challenges associated with it and their effectiveness in meeting the goal. The obstacles along with the options describe milestones, stepping stones and challenges, which are required of being covered and multiple options as well that could be applied for resolving the same. The way forward principle is conversion in action plan relying upon the current potential of protégé being coached or being mentored. The specified model offers with blueprint, which assists in guiding towards evaluation, implementation and monitoring of the employees within the mentorship or coaching program.

A summary of how you could contribute to the further development of coaching and mentoring in their organization

It is summarized that for further improvement of mentoring and coaching within the organization by contribution would mainly rely on fostering positive behaviour as well as attitude of acceptance within the corporate. The organizational policy would be mainly dependent on supporting mentoring or coaching process concerned with a policy change that includes the effective approach of acquiring staffs, developing their skills, maintenance and utilization of capabilities. It would be my responsibility to ensure that policy change positively influence organizational culture and lead towards desired behaviour or profitable attitudes for the program. After the policy is placed effectively, the further development by me would be lead through running pilot program within the company with the perception of implementing challenges that arise with the program within the place. It is critical to treat the mentoring and coaching program as an important leadership or training development program (Rathmell et al. 2019). The adequate amount of time would be spent over the design stage to create an effective program possible. The program to be informal or formal would create an objective depending on the goals.  

Moreover, the challenges for further improvement of mentoring and coaching within the organization would be recognized to implement corrective measures. It would allow coaches and mentors to become proactive and deal with concerns prior to it becoming challenges. In the process of running the pilot program, it would be my responsibility to include the program within the corporate plan and adequate budget to effectively lead the process of staff's improvement. The budget needs to be kept aside to implement the program on the basis of measurement of performance, inception and evaluating the outcome.

The organization encountering issue of poor IT and customer care skills amongst workforce or employees in the workplace, the effective mentoring approach would be situational mentoring as well as peer mentoring. The peer mentoring would be completely structured such that the staffs to be considered best in certain customer care skills would mentor other individual poor in those areas, whereas the individual best in IT skills would mentor others lacking that knowledge. The situational mentoring is helpful to encourage, motivate, share lessons and inspire staffs by mentors based on past experiences (Lapointe and Vandenberghe 2017). Some of the other coaching methods that may also be significant for the corporate are career coaching, skills coaching along with several others. The several companies across the UK employ the utilisation of exterior mentors and coaches, whereas certain organisation utilizes either interior mentors or coaches or the combination of both. At the time an organisation makes utilisation of exterior mentors or coaches, the line manager in such has the role to co-operate with management by offering a support system to the external coaches for the smooth coaching process (Huemann et al. 2019). Similarly, when the corporate utilizes internal mentors or coaches, the line managers have prime responsibility for coaching and mentoring the potential staff. The company would be sought to obtain structures within the place which accommodates an effective coaching or mentoring approach. The line manager thus has the role to co-operate and co-ordinate with the superior management including other managers, mentoring and coaching, updating superior management over the complete process. It is more likely to support the organisation in saving money involved in consistent recruitments, or training of the employees.

In reference to the existing situation within the organization, the career coaching, skills coaching, natural mentoring found more reliable to address IT and consumer care skill needs amongst staffs. The career coaching is implemented as the integrative method to empower staffs to become best within the industry along with allowing them to develop their career (Archer and Yates 2017). The skills coaching would be best performed by the external coaches as the corporate lack having such program within place before. The skill coaching differs from other coaching types in terms of that it is tailor outlined for the person in need of coaching. In the process of coaching the person who is coached would be needed to acquire some expertise or knowledge through adaptation. Similar to the skill coaching there are different forms of career coaching that are implemented within the various organisation. Performance coaching would be the kind of coaching, where the individual is coached as per the need to fulfil some performance expectations. Specifically coaching would be focused in helping individuals in resolving problems in boundaries of a trusted or confidential relationship.

I would be leading further development related to mentoring and coaching process that support managers for the identification of weaknesses along with the strengthening of every employee. The ethical requirement with these the approach of seizing or ending coaching or mentoring which are unsuccessful amongst others would be concerned in the factors of safety as well as an ethical requirement. For the purpose to acknowledge several elements, it would also be important for me to explain every factor-dependent in context to the organisational. In my belief, the benefits of mentoring and coaching would allow managers then to help others staffs, ultimately building resilience across the corporate as an overall and helping teams to deliver quality work. When the employees are coached they would acquire the expertise or knowledge by the continuous coaching provided by coaches. It would be the process of helping an individual to learn then telling or teaching them. The potential coaches who would be best suitable to offer coaching would be belonging to the institutions best within the industry as they would facilitate transforming of best, effective practices to the corporate employees. I would promote natural coaching through observation where the junior staffs seek the support of senior staff for the perfection and motivation within their work. In context to the consideration of mentoring and coaching, the organization would be capable to shape productive behaviour, improve desired behaviours, skills with high effectiveness. Hence, the further development of mentoring and coaching within the organization allows it to amplify their productivity level as well as become best amongst others within the sector.

Conclusion

It is concluded that the organisation focusing coaching process around top executive are also investing in coaching across the diverse level of management. Coaching has the purpose to unlock the individual potential to increase their work performance. The main purpose of mentoring is to allow mentees to improve their personal abilities and skills that are accomplished through the improvement of the relationship between mentee and mentor. The different types of mentoring that have been beneficial for the organization to enhance the overall employee productivity are situational, natural and peer mentoring. The different types of coaching are skills coaching, career and performance coaching. The strategic application of mentoring and coaching process within an organization benefits several stakeholders including staffs, line managers as well as top executives.