John McGurk, CIPD adviser, learning, training and development, said: “Coaching is the ultimate engagement intervention for testing times.”
On 9 June, the CIPD held a joint conference with Acas on employee engagement, featuring case studies of firms engaging and motivating their staff through coaching.
A coaching culture can engage staff even through redundancies. Patrick Bermingham, HR director at McLaren, said coaching had meant recent redundancies at the racing team had been handled in an “incredibly positive way” (see “HR in pole position”, People Management, 7 May).
News in Brief
Accreditation goes global
The Society for Coaching Psychology (SCP) has announced the launch of the second stage of its international accreditation/certification system. The first stage was launched in September 2008 to provide a route for qualified psychologists who are also full members of the SCP.
Stage two is a portfolio system, offered to graduate members of the society, allowing them to progress towards becoming a full member by building up a portfolio of coaching psychology learning and competencies. They will then be able to work towards accredited membership status. As part of this route, graduate members will need to provide evidence of a minimum of three years (or pro rata) initial professional development at a graduate level to achieve full member status, the majority of which is to be specifically related to coaching psychology.
SCLD wins coveted Adair contract
Leadership guru John Adair has appointed the School of Coaching and Leadership Development (SCLD), recently set up by Sarah Christie and David Minchin, as the exclusive provider of his accredited leadership development trainer programme.
The SCLD offers two Adair leadership programmes. The interactive Action Centred Leadership (ACL) programme runs over two days, featuring Adair’s “three circles model”, showing three overlapping spheres representing team, task and individual. The course seeks to help new managers experience what a leader has to do and to understand the leader’s role and responsibilities. The three-day, formally assessed accredited trainer programme educates participants to deliver the ACL programme.
Managers-as-coaches come home
The National Housing Federation is underpinning its manager-as-coach framework with a 360-degree feedback programme, rather than coaching skills training.
The federation called in 360-degree feedback specialists Simply360 to help it to incorporate 360-degree feedback into coaching. Its 16 senior managers, including the chief executive, have a responsibility to provide 360-degree feedback and coaching for all their direct reports.
All coaching managers are now required to produce practical action plans for individuals, setting out the tangible business benefits the plan will deliver, and to complete performance-focused coaching workbooks with their reports, based on GROW-style questions adapted for 360-degree feedback.