What are coaching champions?
Before we get started, let’s look at what a coaching champion actually is! A workplace (or employee) champion, is someone who’s dedicated to improving a specific area in the organisation. The idea is that they engage, encourage or support others with their area of focus, whether that’s ED&I, L&D, wellbeing or coaching. While Jaluch already offers training for workplace champions on issues as varied as employee engagement and ethics, we believe there is also a role for coaching champions.
More and more organisations are switched on to the fantastic benefits to be had from continuous learning and how support for employees can transform behaviours and thinking, benefitting everyone.
Internal coaches are in a great position to support with this, but there seems to be a blockage with the word ‘coach’ in some places. Take up of coaching is not always as high as you might expect. This is a real shame as coaching is such a great, cost effective means of building competence and confidence.
Does the wariness stem from the fact that in recent years we have become inundated with offers of coaching? Life coaching, fitness coaching, menopause coaching, weight coaching, career coaching etc. And within work, we have exec level coaching, management coaching, team coaching, informal coaching and even ED&I coaching at times for those we might in a different world be disciplining!
Too many coaches with different qualifications, different kinds of experience, very different pricing points, and all offering different things, often with ill defined or unrealistic outcomes. A lot of us have become very wary … it’s easier just to say ‘no’.
My own experiences of coaches over the years has been hugely mixed with some of the highest charging coaches being useless and at times, condescending or arrogant, whilst others are 100% worth their weight in gold. I am a trained coach myself, so I am not anti coach, but I am a fan of the internal coach as a brilliant cost effective way to build skill internally using existing resources.
Why we need coaching champions
If we don’t work to embed learning after our employees or managers have attended training, much of what was learn on a course will soon be forgotten (check out the forgetting curve if you want to see exactly how quickly we forget what we learn). Coaches can help us with this, supporting everyone’s development if we set up and support a coaching programme in such a way that it delivers great value.
This is why we think there is a role for some internal coaching champions who can talk to their colleagues about how coaching can support them and encourage buy in to an internal coaching programme. People who can share great experiences and allay fears or address hesitation.
If you go down this route, please do think about some training for champions. You don’t want them going rogue but equally you want to them to know that you value them and have a clear role for them. Your training should include sessions on boundaries, dealing with difficult questions, effectively signposting and how to push back when someone is asking you to solve their problems.