HR Coaching and Mentoring | Africa & Middle East
HR Coaching and Mentoring – Demystifying Buzzwords for Better Business Practice
Corporate culture has evolved tremendously since the early 1990s, bringing about a paradigm shift in HR strategies. With a growing emphasis on individual empowerment and personal self-actualisation, employee “helping strategies” such as HR coaching and mentoring have assumed an important role in many companies, and are seen as an integral way of managing and developing people, thereby improving and growing the organisation itself.
The exact meaning and impact of each of these generally interrelated corporate practices has been the source of heated debate amongst personnel experts, but their nuances are probably best defined by HR gurus Megginson and Clutterbuck in their 2005 reference work, Techniques for Coaching and Mentoring, as follows:
“Coaching relates primarily to performance improvement (often short-term) in a specific skills area. The goals, or at least the intermediate or sub-goals, are typically set with, or at the suggestion of the coach. While the learner has primary ownership of the goal, the coach has primary ownership of the process. In most cases, coaching involves direct extrinsic feedback (i.e. the coach reports to the coachee what he or she has observed). “
Mentoring is explained as follows: “Mentoring relates primarily to the identification and nurturing of potential for the whole person. It can be a long-term relationship, where the goals may change but are always set by the learner … who owns both the goals and the process. Feedback comes from within the mentee – the mentor helps them to develop insight and understanding through intrinsic observation, that is, becoming more aware of their own experiences.”
Regardless of the subtle distinctions between the two corporate helping behaviours, both HR coaching and mentoring involve working with individuals to help them identify and create their vision, develop achievable short- and long-term goals, and make the wisest decisions and choices, both personally and professionally, to the ultimate benefit of the organisation as a whole.
As a result, coaching and mentoring are becoming standard practice in contemporary businesses around the globe, and Human Resources managers and staff are increasingly required to “wise-up” on these strategies, so as to assume their roles as important agents for positive change in the evolution of their companies.
If you’d like to tap the potential of your staff and business by implementing coaching and mentoring as part of your HR strategy, contact the HR professionals at Emergence Growth.
“Making sense of complexity” is our slogan, and - as a well-established, reputable HR consultancy, specialising in the full spectrum of human capital practices throughout Africa and the Middle East – Emergence Growth is able to design and facilitate a coaching and mentoring programme to suit your unique corporate culture and needs.
Emergence Growth is a HR consultancy specialising in the full spectrum of human capital practices across Africa and the Middle East, and is ideally placed to assist with the full spectrum of HR needs. Contact us to assist you in developing tailored, legally-compliant HR policies and procedures to meet your unique business needs.
