Coaching – a powerful learning tool
Coaching is a personalised development strategy that pairs beginners with subject matter experts – in other words, coaches. It is a powerful relationship for people making important changes in their lives as it unlocks each individual’s potential to maximise their own performance. The aim is to enhance the client or coachee’s life experience and performance in different areas while promoting self-directed learning, personal growth, and goal achievement. Coaching is about listening, suggesting, and working together on a plan that provides accountability and a tailored direction.
Coaching Vs other forms of learning
Overall, coaching is focused on individual development and helping people achieve specific goals, while other forms of learning, such as training and mentoring, are focused on teaching or offering advice to groups or individuals.
Let’s take a closer look at training as an example. Training is typically aimed at enhancing a specific skill with the goal of improvement. It is usually conducted for a group, and its primary objective is to achieve knowledge transfer at a larger scale. Moreover, as it is more of a didactic approach, it will only cover the theoretical knowledge individuals may encounter.
For instance, training new employees could involve teaching them the businesses organisational processes, while coaching them would involve helping them improve those systems or increase their efficiency. Or, you could train employees on the necessary steps to take in case of a problem or inform them about the people they should contact. However, following procedures may not always be easy or clear-cut, so coaching can aid employees in navigating the problem-solving process independently. Training sets the stage, while coaching fine-tunes the performance.
The most effective learning strategies leverage both methods. Coaching is a post-training follow up strategy that converts knowledge into skill and fills the gaps left by training. It helps troubleshoot and overcome nuanced variables that arise during the application of learned skills.
How coaching promotes a learning culture
Coaching plays a vital role in promoting a learning culture in organisations. By encouraging continuous learning and development, fostering a growth mindset, building self-awareness and reflection, and providing individualised and personalised learning opportunities, coaching helps individuals and organisations thrive in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing world.
For example, coaching empowers decision-making and problem-solving. Through regular coaching sessions, individuals gain a deeper understanding of their own strengths, weaknesses, and patterns of behaviour. Therefore, this can enhance employees’ self-reliance and their ability to be proactive; which in turn leads to them being more likely to make independent decisions and seek solutions to problems or overcome obstacles themselves.
The benefits of fostering a learning culture
Research conducted by LinkedIn in 2018 concluded that the most effective method for achieving job satisfaction is to increase the amount of time devoted to learning. Opportunity for growth and development was the most important factor in workplace happiness for employees in the 2018 survey, second to “the nature of the work itself”. The research further indicated that Individuals who prioritised continuous learning tended to be more content and confident in their professional lives. Therefore, businesses that cultivate an environment of learning and provide opportunities for employee development are setting themselves up for sustained success with a team of committed and proficient workers.
In addition, companies that foster a culture of learning through coaching tend to be more adaptable to change, experience lower rates of employee turnover, and enjoy higher levels of employee satisfaction. This is especially crucial in the current economic climate where businesses face challenges in attracting and retaining top talent.
Coaching at UNLOQ
Coaching at UNLOQ is a journey that can lead to profound self-discovery. Our approach can help you discover new ways to connect with yourself, using models and tools that develop fresh perspectives to shift your thinking and apply it practically in your leadership. Our method involves a blend of verbal conversations and written reflections shared on a secure, GDPR-protected platform, ensuring total confidentiality. UNLOQ’s coaching fosters new thinking patterns that aim to keep you on your toes, so your brain is always engaged, and habits that re-energise you.
Continue to professionalize and optimize
In addition to the continued development of our UNLOQ Campus coaching platform, we also accelerated the ISO 27001 certification process. This process had already started in 2019 and was aimed at improving our internal processes and increasing the security of customer information. Especially at a time when more and more work is done online and remotely, it is a challenge to ensure maximum confidentiality of information. Obtaining the ISO certificate is not easy; as an organization you have to comply with no less than 166 standards. Thanks to a great team effort, we are happy to share the good news that we have now successfully passed the audit! This makes us one of the few (international) L&D organizations with an ISO-27001 certification.
