Coaching and mentoring in housing with care organisations

Great viewpoint Katey. Totally agree and can testify to the absolute benefits I have had from coaching both internally and externally when working on the Guinness Housing and Dementia project. I am now able to coach those around my organisation so that they also feel able to make those key decisions.

Our Head of Organisational development, Catherine Proctor led on the implementation of coaching at Together Housing, following a commitment by our Leadership team to make the investment into coaching, both to help support staff in their personal development as well as strengthening our coaching culture. Directors, senior and middle managers have been trained up to become accredited coaches to provide coaching and mentoring requests received directly from staff or via their line managers. This has led to an increased appetite for coaching from frontline members of staff with a rising understanding of the benefits that 1:1 coaching or mentoring support can deliver. We also offer coaching interventions to teams and to staff going through restructure challenges and this approach has been positively mentioned by many employees via our staff survey

As one of the members of our management team who was given the opportunity to become a trained coach, its been a fantastic opportunity as well as a privilege to work with colleagues who have put themselves forward for the coaching programme and see them develop. The skills I have gained from being part of the coaching programme have been hugely beneficial in helping me develop my leadership skills in my day job too. The support we receive from our Head of OD including ongoing CPD sessions also makes sure coaching is part of our continuous development.

It's good to see positive examples of housing with care organisations that have embraced a coaching culture. Embedding coaching in organisational development processes leads to organisational learning and creates higher value for all stakeholders. It's great to hear about the increased appetite for coaching in your organisation Sue, and to see that coaching is becoming one of the important styles of management and leadership in your organisation.

It would be good to hear how other organisations have approached coaching and any benefits it has brought to them.

Hi Wendy, great to see that you are benefiting from coaching both within and outside the Guinness Trust. Coaching is an empowering way to do business with all our stakeholders, encouraging reflection and problem solving - crucial when we are trying to take forward complex matters with both tenants and partner organisations. It's very positive to hear that you have been using it within your Guinness Housing and Dementia Project. I'd be interested to know if coaching is a formal part of your organisational development programme at the Guinness Trust in the same way as it is for Sue at Together Housing.

We have a number of ways to access coaching at Guinness, we have a GROW programme which is offered to all leaders and managers and also many tools available like 'silent coaching'. Our L&D teams support us with these more formal ways to access coaching.

That sounds really positive Wendy - look forward to hearing what others are doing.