The skill of coaching, counselling and mentoring has the potential to revolutionise the relationship between managers and executives, says DR Pratima Sheorey
Human Resource Management has significantly evolved over the years and has now become a more humane profession. Over the past decade, coaching, counselling and mentoring has become a very important responsibility for HR managers. The skill of coaching, counselling and mentoring has the potential to revolutionise the relationship between managers and executives while also dealing with different aspects of managing human resources like career planning and development, performance management, stress management, and other areas which may affect employees emotionally.
Well being of an organisation including its profitability and business sustainability, has been positively correlated to employee well being in various studies. Therefore, it is a well established fact that whenever the employee satisfaction is high and their well being is looked after, their commitment and engagement with the organisation is also high.
Students pursuing MBA in HR are always encouraged to imbibe these three skills to help the organisation as well as employees perform better. Every manager has their own leadership style, however coaching and mentoring skills helps one to become a friendly yet effective leader.
Let’s understand the importance of the three skills in a business setting.
Coaching in an organisational context
HR professionals are often encouraged to pursue the coaching role. Coaching is a training method in which a more experienced and skilled professional provides advice and guidance to employees regarding their work goals, performance and career trajectory.
Often, organisations hire external coaches and consultants to help employees, but lately, companies prefer internal HR teams working in the coaching arena, since HR professionals are skilled and prepared to take on this role. Such additional responsibilities are also helpful for budding HR professionals to enhance their career. The coaching role enables new managers to speed up, improve conflict resolution and help obtain individual as well as business goals.
Counselling at workplace
In an organisation, HR professionals are at the forefront of employee development, grievance redressal and employee retention. Workplace counselling is an intervention by the HR team, and the HR managers act as a support specialist to employees from all domains. The counselling process involves providing a safe space for employees to talk about issues at work. HR managers ensure that the process is unbiased, confidential and is seen as an activity for employee welfare. Most organisations are emphasising on de-stressed employees to boost their productivity, and also to retain their employees.
An HR mentor for employee development
Mentoring is the process of building a formal relationship with a new and/or inexperienced employee and helping them to quickly understand the organisation and perform to their true potential. An HR professional can thus help build a healthy culture at the workplace by ensuring employee satisfaction and catering to grievances by providing appropriate guidance both formally and informally. This is because a mentor needs to be evaluative and unbiased to help employees quickly speed up as a contributor to the organisation. Considering that every new employee will have new responsibilities and will need to work according to the vision and mission of the organisation, every HR professional must act as a mentor to employees.
Enabling the coaching, counselling and mentoring process, in true earnest, will definitely help to advance organisational goals.
The writer is Director, SCMHRD, Pune
