Workplace Coaching Research Articles

A Tailored De-Implementation Strategy to Reduce Low-Value Home-Based Nursing Care: A Mixed-Methods Feasibility Study.

To facilitate the delivery of appropriate care, the aim was to test if a tailored, multifaceted de-implementation strategy (RENEW) (1) would lead to less low-value nursing care and (2) was acceptable, implementable, cost effective and scalable in the home-based nursing care context. A mixed-methods design. The RENEW strategy with components on education, persuasion, enablement, incentives and training was introduced in seven teams from two organisations in the Netherlands. To estimate the effect size, data were collected at baseline (T0) and follow-up measurement (T1), on the volume of care in both frequency and time in minutes per week and independent samples t-tests were performed. A qualitative evaluation was conducted to understand feasibility aspects, see how the strategy works and identify influencing factors and used document analyses and semi-structured interviews. Deductive coding was used to analyse the results. The time spent on low-value nursing care (mean, minutes per week per client) in seven teams for 210 clients in T1 compared to 222 clients in T0 reduced statistically significant. The difference between T0 and T1 equals 17.94%. The frequency of delivered low-value nursing care (mean per week) reduced but not statistically significant. From the transcripts of eight semi-structured interviews and documents, a list of 79 influencing factors were identified. Practical implementation tools, workplace coaching and sharing experiences within and between teams were considered as the most contributing elements. The results showed that for the seven home-healthcare teams in this study, the RENEW strategy (1) leads to a reduction in low-value care and (2) is-conditional upon minor modifications-acceptable, implementable, cost effective and scalable. Standards for Reporting Implementation Studies (StaRI) guidelines. No Patient or Public Contribution.

Smooth Talking: Generative Versus Scripted Coaching Chatbot Adoption and Efficacy Comparison

Workplace coaching is an essential individual and organizational development intervention, but high costs limit its application. AI coaching chatbots could scale coaching, however, traditional scripted chatbots lacks mainstream adoption due to limited context awareness and robotic responses. Recent advances in large language models and generative AI offer an alternative, however, generative AI is linked to risks and controversies. Should coaching chatbots use generative AI? We compared a scripted, rules-based coaching chatbot (ScriptBot, n = 126) with a generative AI chatbot (GenBot, n = 116) in a randomized controlled trail experiment. We measured technology adoption (UTAUT2), self-determination (autonomy, competence, relatedness) and goal attainment. For all technology adoption and self-determination variables, GenBot outperformed ScriptBot. However, for goal attainment there was no significant difference. Using generative AI in coaching chatbots improves adoption and coaching outcomes, but for highly structured interactions such as goal attainment, scripted conversations (with lower risk) seem to work just as well.

Zooming in on the self in workplace coaching: Self‐regulation and its connection to coaching success

Zooming in on the self in workplace coaching: Self‐regulation and its connection to coaching success

How Collaborative Accountability in Workplace Coaching Impacts Employee Sustained Change

How Collaborative Accountability in Workplace Coaching Impacts Employee Sustained Change

Mindsets at Work: Understanding the Positive Impact of Growth Mindsets on Workplace Coaching

Understanding mindsets is crucial to understanding coaching behavior. Recent research has demonstrated that growth mindsets have both positive (i.e., increased outcome expectancy) and negative (i.e., increased blame attributions) effects on prosocial behavior. However, little is known about the role of these two opposing effects in work settings, especially when considering the history of competence- and morality-related failure of people receiving coaching. To address this gap, we conducted four experiments (N = 2,295), which consistently revealed that a growth mindset (mediated through outcome expectancy) was positively related to willingness to coach. However, there was no evidence of detrimental effects via blame attributions, regardless of the recipient’s failure history. Therefore, promoting growth mindsets in organizations likely contributes to a supportive workplace culture.

It's a match! The role of coach–coachee fit for working alliance and effectiveness of coaching

AbstractThe coaching literature emphasizes the role of the coach–coachee working alliance in obtaining positive coaching outcomes and proposes that a good match between coach and coachee promotes this working alliance. However, existing coaching research has some methodological shortcomings that limit drawing robust conclusions about the importance of coach–coachee fit and working alliance for coaching effectiveness. In this study, we investigate coach–coachee fit as an antecedent of the working alliance and its effects on coaching outcomes. Using a three‐wave study design, 184 coachees participating in a workplace coaching program in healthcare answered online surveys before, halfway‐through, and approximately one month after coaching. We measured both coachee‐rated and coach‐rated working alliance and, based on person‐environment fit theories, we included three measures of coach–coachee fit, that is similarity‐fit, general needs‐supplies fit, and idiosyncratic needs‐supplies fit. Multilevel path modelling revealed that only idiosyncratic needs‐supplies fit, where the coach fulfils a coachee's unique needs, related positively to coaching satisfaction through coachee‐rated working alliance and predicted improved goal attainment. Coachees’ similarity‐fit related positively to their assessment of the working alliance but, unexpectedly, predicted lower coaching satisfaction. Coach‐ and coachee‐rated working alliance related to coaching satisfaction but not goal attainment. These findings make a unique contribution to current debates in the coaching and person‐environment fit literatures and advance our understanding of the role of coach–coachee fit and working alliance for affective and behavioural coaching outcomes.

Bringing joy back into higher education: the potential contribution of coaching

PurposeThere are significant challenges facing academics and senior leaders in higher education (HE) institutions internationally. These challenges have led to increasing levels of metrification and managerialism, which has fostered work intensification, reduced professional autonomy, stress and burnout amongst faculty staff. Traditional approaches for supporting and developing staff, such as mentoring and training, do not provide the resources faculty staff need to meet the challenges they face. In contrast, experiences in various other educational and professional settings have demonstrated the effectiveness of workplace coaching in fostering well-being, adaptability, flexibility and sustainable performance. This review argues that workplace coaching could similarly support academics.Design/methodology/approachA critical literature review evaluates coaching interventions across educational and comparable sectors to identify positive well-being and performance-based outcomes.FindingsWhile there is limited research into the efficacy of coaching interventions for faculty staff in HE, research in other educational, as well as comparable professional contexts, identifies significant sustainable improvements in well-being and performance for professional staff.Practical implicationsThe evidence that identifies positive outcomes of coaching in professional workplace contexts is compelling. This critical review uses some of that evidence base to propose an agenda to implement coaching programmes that support faculty staff to improve their well-being and performance.Originality/valueWhile there are published research studies on the positive outcomes of coaching in primary and secondary educational contexts, as well as for postgraduate research students, there is very limited knowledge, practice and research about coaching faculty staff in HE. This article addresses this by critically reviewing a broad range of literature to identify coaching and research initiatives for faculty staff in HE institutions.

Coach competencies to facilitate transformative learning: a multiple case study involving public-sector executives in South Africa

ABSTRACT A significant amount of research has been conducted to understand what makes workplace coaching effective. Several factors, including coach competencies, have been found to contribute to coaching success. Extant literature, however, shows that there is still a knowledge gap in terms of which coach competencies lead to specific coaching outcomes. Some scholars have identified transformative learning (TL) as an outcome of coaching. However, few empirical studies have explored which coach competencies facilitate TL. We adopted a multiple case-study design, with a sample of five coaches and nine senior public-sector executives in South Africa. We conducted a longitudinal study over a period of six months, to observe and assess coach behaviours including how these might lead to TL outcomes. The findings isolate five core coach competencies, their related coach behaviours and the role played by each one in the TL process. These are: creating a safe environment for managing disorienting dilemmas, facilitating self-awareness, motivating and challenging the client, engaging with emotions and holding the client accountable. We propose a framework that can guide practicing coaches who work with leaders and managers, coach trainers and education institutions and HRD practitioners who engage coach services on how to facilitate transformative learning.

Motivations of internal workplace coaches: what attracts them to the role? A mixed-methods study

Purpose Internal workplace coaches are employees who, in addition to their main job, volunteer to provide coaching to work colleagues who are not their direct reports. The purpose of this paper is to explore what motivates these individuals to volunteer to be an internal workplace coach and to continue carrying out the role. Design/methodology/approach To explore the experiences of internal coaches, a questionnaire was devised and issued; it attracted 484 responses – the largest survey response to date from this population. Following analysis of the questionnaire data, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 20 internal coaches from private, public and not-for-profit UK organisations. The responses were analysed in relation to motivation theory, principally self-determination theory. Findings Individuals were motivated to volunteer for the role, and to continue to practise as coaches, in the most part to satisfy intrinsic needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy. The research presents rich information about how coaches perceived these needs were satisfied by coaching. In general, there were only moderate or poor levels of support and recognition for individual coaches within their organisation, indicating limited extrinsic motivation. Practical implications The practical implications are that organisations can draw on the findings from this study to motivate individuals to volunteer to be internal coaches and to continue to act in that role. Originality/value Many organisations use internal coaches, but there is very little research into what motivates these volunteers.

Workplace coaching: study tests if Big Five personality traits and their ABCD components predictauthentic self-development

PurposeThis paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.FindingsA study explored whether the Big Five personality traits and their affective, behavioral, cognitive and desire components (ABCD) components were relevant to authentic self-development (ASD) through workplace coaching. The authors assessed the personalities of 176 clients both before and after they worked with coaches. Results showed higher levels of mean AB mediated associations between personality and perceived competence and goal commitment, Personality predicted goal self-concordance, but these effects were not mediated by AB. Meanwhile, neither personality nor AB predicted goal stability.Originality/valueThe briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Empowering the Next Generation: Navigating Challenges and Opportunities in the Modern Workforce Through Coaching and Mentorship

Each workforce generation grapples with distinctive challenges, and the contemporary job market introduces new complexities with the integration of artificial intelligence. The impact of artificial intelligence on organisational productivity is noteworthy, especially as it provides opportunities for lower-skilled workers to enhance their capabilities, albeit with potential implications for the development of tacit knowledge. Despite prevailing generational judgements, insights from various studies and reports reveal that the younger generation in Singapore values workforce acceptance and hard work, and exhibits resilience. Concurrently, the 2022 National Population Health Survey by the Ministry of Health highlighted a significant proportion of individuals aged 18–29 years experiencing poor mental health. Managing the well-being and productivity of the younger workforce becomes crucial, with the introduction of a growth mindset offering a potential solution. A growth mindset refers to the belief in one’s capacity for development and the malleability of human attributes. Three key strategies are identified for fostering a growth mindset and well-being in the workforce: regular constructive feedback, organisational responses to project failures, and adopting a “not yet” approach to unmet goals. Furthermore, the implementation of workplace coaching and mentoring emerges as a strategic solution, targeting individual and organisational performances, and sustainable well-being. Within workplace coaching, bridge mentoring is proposed to address diversity gaps and positively impact employee learning and development.

New ways of investigating coaching: linguistic research on executive, business and workplace coaching – a systematic scoping review

ABSTRACT In this review, we give a systematic overview of linguistic coaching process research. This research represents a relatively recent inductive, descriptive-phenomenological approach allowing to linguistically document and analyse the in-situ co-construction of the coaching conversation by coach and client. Applying qualitative, linguistic methods and working with transcribed, video/audio-recorded authentic coaching sessions as data, this approach allows insights into what coach and client actually do together on a moment-to-moment basis. Using a scoping review methodology, the aim of this paper was to systematically collect, present, synthesise and critically assess for the very first time what we know about linguistic process research on business, workplace, and executive coaching to date; to map its most important concepts and findings; to carve out advantages and limitations as well as research gaps. Following a rigorous search strategy, 46 contributions were reviewed. Findings are divided into quantifiable results regarding, for instance, coaching format, methods, and data used etc., and non-quantifiable results. The latter give an overview of the most important research foci and findings on the macro, meso and micro levels of coaching interactions to provide readers with a comprehensive picture of the depth and richness as well as the complex opportunities of linguistic coaching research.

Workplace coaching to develop leadership flexibility: the impact of after-event review

PurposeThe main goal of this study was to determine whether coachees assigned to complete an after-event review (AER) to prepare for each coaching session would experience greater development in their leadership flexibility than participants assigned to a group experiencing process-oriented coaching without AERs.Design/methodology/approachData were obtained using a quasi-experimental design with multi-source and longitudinal data, including 46 coachees and 103 external raters.FindingsThe AER was associated with greater improvement in leadership flexibility (forcing-enabling duality). In contrast, participants who did not use AER had lower leadership flexibility as assessed by external respondents. Leadership flexibility was associated with team performance and vitality.Practical implicationsResults show that during this process, clients' ownership of their development plan is reinforced, as is their capacity to internalize this process of reflection once the coaching is finished, thus allowing the development to continue beyond the approach.Originality/valueThese results are among the first to suggest that a specific structured facilitation process used by coaches may be more effective in the development of coachees than regular process-oriented coaching.

Return of the ‘Three Amigos’: Applying the Functions of Supervision in the Executive Coaching Context

Gender equality in organisational leadership is still poor. Evidence suggests that women may experience lower levels of self-confidence than men and that this may influence the representation of women in senior leadership roles. Addressing this would play a role in the equalisation of gender differences in organisations and coaching can be effective in building self-confidence and the allied concept of self-efficacy. An exploratory qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with 12 workplace coaches experienced in coaching female leaders. The aim was to explore the effect of self-confidence amongst female leaders and the role that coaching can play in providing support that will encourage leadership progression. Low self-confidence was found to be ubiquitous in coaching conversations with female leaders, and was often a safer, surface level topic that masked much deeper issues. The value of trusted relationships that encourage trial of new behaviours was identified. A reflective coaching process of trial, reflection and adaptation is recommended to overcome low self-confidence and challenge leadership stereotypes. The study provides benefits to workplace coaches to understand the challenges that female leaders bring to coaching and how they may be addressed.

Working Alliance Theory in Workplace Coaching: A Pilot Study Exploring the Missing Role of the Organization

Working alliance theory describes the therapist–client relationship in psychotherapy and has been adapted to study workplace coaching effectiveness. The application of this theory in workplace coaching research has produced mixed results suggesting that additional factors could be at play. In workplace coaching, the organization often pays for and influences the coaching process. The role of the organization in the working alliance between coach and coachee has, however, not been studied sufficiently. his exploratory, hybrid deductive–inductive qualitative study used the Working Alliance Inventory as theoretical lens to examine coachees’ perspectives on the organizational role in the coach–coachee working alliance. The findings indicate that organizations have a direct impact on the bond, task, and goals of the working alliance by facilitating the coaching process, influencing the coaching agenda and contract, and through coach selection. This tentative analysis suggests that measurements of the working alliance should be extended to include these organizational aspects.

Workplace coaching: testing whether personality traits and their ABCD components predict authentic self-development via affect balance

PurposeLittle is known about how individual differences play out in the process of authentic self-development (ASD) through workplace coaching. This article explores whether the Big Five personality traits and affective, behavioral, cognitive and desire (ABCDs) components of the Big Five personality traits were relevant to ASD, specifically examining the role of affect as a potential mediator.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 176 clients' personality was assessed pre-coaching. Aspects of ASD (perceived competence, goal commitment, self-concordance and goal stability) were assessed post-coaching. Clients' affect balance (AB) scores were obtained post-session.FindingsMultilevel path models showed that higher levels of mean AB (but not the slope) mediated the associations between personality and perceived competence and goal commitment. Personality predicted goal self-concordance, but these effects were not mediated by AB, neither personality nor AB predicted goal stability.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors encourage randomized controlled trials to further test findings of this study. Ruling out method variance is not possible completely. However, the authors put forth considerations to support the authors' claim that method variance did not overly influence our results.Practical implicationsThese results suggest the necessity of an optimal experience of affect for ASD in workplace coaching and the understanding of how ABCDs, AB and ASD are related beyond coaching psychology.Social implicationsA deeper understanding of personality processes is important for fostering ASD to meet the challenges of management development in the authors' volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) world.Originality/valueThis is the first study to test personality as a process in workplace coaching linking personality to one of the most valued leadership skills: authenticity.

The barriers to a scientific, evidence-based coaching evaluation practice

Workplace coaching has grown in popularity and is increasingly used for a plethora of purposes across organisations. As a growing field, coaching is still in need of a continuing commitment to evidence-based evaluation, especially considering the current unsystematic outcome literature. However, this need for scientific, evidence-based evaluation is not actioned and there is indication that coaching evaluation is even less rigorous in practice. This position paper explores what might be the barriers against a scientific, evidence-based coaching evaluation in practice. Suggestions grounded in the literature are presented with the aim that these might inform future research and practice.

Movement Synchrony Over Time: What Is in the Trajectory of Dyadic Interactions in Workplace Coaching?

BackgroundCoaching is increasingly viewed as a dyadic exchange of verbal and non-verbal interactions driving clients' progress. Yet, little is known about how the trajectory of dyadic interactions plays out in workplace coaching.MethodThis paper provides a multiple-step exploratory investigation of movement synchrony (MS) of dyads in workplace coaching. We analyzed a publicly available dataset of 173 video-taped dyads. Specifically, we averaged MS per session/dyad to explore the temporal patterns of MS across (a) the cluster of dyads that completed 10 sessions, and (b) a set of 173 dyadic interactions with a varied number of sessions. Additionally, we linked that pattern to several demographic predictors. The results indicate a differential downward trend of MS.ResultsDemographic factors do not predict best fitting MS curve types, and only client age and coach experience show a small but significant correlation.DiscussionWe provide contextualized interpretations of these findings and propose conceptual considerations and recommendations for future coaching process research and practice.

Exploring the role of self‐awareness in coach development: A grounded theory study

AbstractWorkplace coaching is a rapidly growing industry, and while there has been some research carried out to explore the effectiveness of coaching and to evaluate coaching outcomes, there has been very little research to underpin coach development and how coaches best develop coaching competence for workplace coaching. Self‐awareness is perceived by many, including the professional coaching bodies, to be a core‐competency for practising coaches. However, there is a lack of research evidence to underpin this perception and therefore this study, using an inductive grounded theory approach, explores the linkages between self‐awareness and coach development. It finishes by presenting a conceptual framework to identify the linkages between self‐awareness and coach development. The paper aims to make a theoretical contribution to the literature supporting workplace coaching and in particular coach development, by developing theoretical principles to underpin those providing coach development. The findings indicate that self‐awareness is an important competency for coaches to develop as it provides the backbone to developing deep and meaningful connections both for the coach in terms of self‐acceptance and confidence, and for the client in terms of the depth of the relationship, thereby creating an environment in which challenging work can be carried out.

The future of workplace coaching – an explorative Delphi study

ABSTRACT Current mega-trends and the Covid-19 pandemic are influencing the future of work. Workplace coaching is directly and indirectly affected by these changes in numerous ways, which is why we have conducted a Delphi study about the future of workplace coaching. We followed the standard procedures for this technique, using 16 structured interviews and identifying 15 future workplace coaching scenarios. These scenarios were evaluated for their estimated prevalence in 2020 and 2030 and desirability by N = 822 (before the pandemic) and N = 337 (during the pandemic), with market participants from German-speaking countries. To explore different perspectives, four different groups were recruited: coaches, HR professionals, representatives of coaching associations and coaching institutes. The prevalence of digitally-related scenarios is rated significantly higher for 2030. At the same time, artificial intelligence, algorithm-based programs, online coaching and online coach training are rather disliked, especially by coaches who prefer high quality, face-to-face coaching processes. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these scenarios were estimated to be more likely than beforehand.