Discussion

The sudden outbreak of the COVID 19 virus has impacted the business operations and employees in a number of ways. As a consequence, organizations have had to make several rapid changes and alterations in the manner they operate, including how and where the jobs are carried out effectively (Cornelius, Rosenber and Sandmel 2020). In addition to this, organizations have also altered the overall organizational planning for ensuring employee safety. This has allowed employees in navigating new ways of working thereby adapting to changing situations in their respective lives. This pandemic has also increased the issues of job security, anxiousness, and concerns for the employees. Therefore, every organization now aims at responding effectively to these pressure by cutting costs and by bringing automation, lowering the number of employees, and increasing flexibility in various job functions (Ali, Wahi and Yamat 2018). Coaching and mentoring are the two most effective techniques that any organization can use for developing and implementing the required changes with the help of extensive support by the members in researching as well as developing innovative lines to meet the changing demands of health care (based on the case study given) (Al Hilali et al. 2020). This reflective statement demonstrates the reflection of the coaching session by critically evaluating how coaching and mentoring could result in enhanced performance and morale of the employees. The reflective essay also presents an analysis of the behaviors, skills, attitudes, beliefs, and values of an effective coach or mentor by the application of different models and theories. The coaching method for this reflective report was considered using the GROW Model and the Skilled helper model of coaching.

Coaching could be described as the method where an individual is observed and supervised by any superior person in order to enhance and improve their overall capabilities and competencies (Hakro and Mathew 2020). On the other hand, mentoring could be described as the advisory process where a fresher within the organization gets the required guidance and support from a senior person (Alabdali 2020). Coaching and mentoring are responsible for making an employee feel more valuable to the organization as it involves enhancing and developing their respective skills both personally and professionally. Thus, by showing interest in the employees, organizations could effectively increase their loyalty towards the employees and keep them engaged for a longer period of time. Coaching is responsible for enhancing the performance of the individual and helps in identifying and developing high potential employees and individuals. In addition to this taking the organization into consideration, coaching and mentoring are effective in identifying with the individual as well as organizational strengths and development opportunities and assist in motivating and empowering the individual to perform better in the future.

GROW Model

Organizational coaching plays a significant role in making sure that the employees obtain professional development and satisfaction within the organization (Anthony et al. 2018). This would help the organizations in retaining the most valuable employees and manage them in a better manner. GROW Model is capable of unlocking the potential of the employees thereby enhancing the overall performance by increasing motivation and self confidence (Baker 2019). GROW model also allows the coaches to use and ask effective questions in a proper and structured manner which in turn assists in promoting profound awareness and greater responsible leading to practical steps of attaining goals thereby overcoming obstacles. The main objective behind using this model is that the model assumes that the coach is not an experience in the situation encountered and acts only as a facilitator (Bishop 2015). This helps in identifying the situation closely and assisting the individuals to select the best suited alternatives and not offering suggestions or directions directly.

This is one commonly used coaching model by organizations that assist in attaining effective change and empowers individual to handle and manage their respective problems more effectively (Jackson, Davison and Brady 2021). This model is also helpful in developing unused opportunities entirely and acts as a significant framework for managing issues encountered and developing better opportunities at the same time (Darmayanti, Winata and Anggraini 2020). This model is also helpful in assisting individuals and clients to transfer newly acquired knowledge and skills to freshly encountered situations and facilitate a better as well as a realistic goal for the situation. As a whole, this coaching model is helpful in developing the problem solving skills and making individuals more self directive.

I am highly committed towards the role of a key manager in this healthcare organization and have aimed at developing new methods of testing, dealing with tricky technical issues, and liaising with manufacturing regarding the overall production process. However, while doing all this I experienced that it is imperative for me to keep other members motivated. I reported the same to the head of the HR and came up with the idea of undergoing a training course in caching and mentoring in order to enhance the morale and performance of the staff involved (Das, Connelly and Johnson 2021). After the coaching session, I focused on conducting a coaching session with a specific member of the team. For this, I had chosen Maria Cook who is a basic grade microbiologist at our organization.

Skilled Helper Model

The two coaching models were used for identifying the issues encountered by Maria cook within the organization. The first model that is the GROW model was helpful in identifying the root cause of the situation. Later I found out that Maria Cook was highly frustrated by the behavior of other employees as she did not feel included. In addition to this, not getting enough or the desired amount from the organization’s end was another major issue I encountered through this coaching session. The session started pretty well as it took only a couple of minutes for both of us to get comfortable and communicate the issues encountered by her. She explained that she has been working along with the working for a couple of years and it is imperative for the organization to consider her monetary needs (Stepien, Rutter and Kuang 2018). I started the session with by asking a few basic questions related to her like, how her day was, what she is planning to do on the weekend, how much she likes her team, are the team members cooperative, and what she likes about the organization. After getting answers to all these questions I increased the level of the question and asked her what she wanted to change about the team or the organization. During the initial stages of the questionnaire, she was calm and composed, however, during the second round of the questionnaire she was a bit loud and aggressive. This gave me a hint that she is not feeling involved in the team or the organization and this is one of the major reasons for her reduced morale. the skilled helper model also helped me in being more direct towards asking questions such as why she of looking for another job and what are the things he believed could be implemented to reduce her frustration that would prevent antagonism.

The main motive behind using the GROW model of coaching for Maria was to create a reliable scaffolding for the coaching session, this would allow Maria Cook in easily moving through the required questions and whatever is required for exploring in order to decide the required action steps (Yang et al. 2021). This model also helped me in understanding the requirement of Maria in terms of her personal satisfaction and empower her to make an effective and powerful decision in favor of her (as an individual) and for the organization as well. In the same way, the skilled helper model also helped me in setting practical and realistic as well as attainable goals for Maria Cook in the organization which would keep her associated and involved thereby decreasing her frustration as well. This model was also helpful in assisting Maria to identify the areas in which she could make progress easily and also identify the gaps in her perceptions and assessment of the encountered situation.

Reflection of the coaching session with Maria Cook

From the question answer session, I observed that Maria was not happy about her compensation statement and she required a quick appraisal. I believe this appraisal if given to Maria could reduce her frustration to a significant level and make her feel involved with the team and the organization as a whole (James and Arnold 2022). Everything went quite well in the case of Maria Cook’s coaching session, however, while taking any coaching session further, I would make sure that I am capable of building trust with the individual (involved in the coaching session). For this, I will aim at developing an atmosphere of open communication and mutual respect. Doing this would help me in laying an effective foundation of trust and conducting an effective meeting would be possible as well. As a consequence, I would be able to gather the required information and make a judgment or decision based on the collected data. I would also aim at being more flexible in future coaching sessions and would try to identify and understand that each person has a different learning style and every individual is expected to respond differently to how I communicate (Melwich and Mofokeng 2020). Therefore I require to be more flexible and create a better ground for the individual to speak for themselves. This will help in identifying the issues more closely and maintain the proper or required level of trust, integrity, commitment, and action for moving the coaching partnership ahead.

Coaching plays a significant role in revisiting the shared values of the organization thereby reevaluating the organizational culture. For this case (Maria Cook’s Case) coaching can play a critical role in setting up new effective and strategic plans and enhancing communication to reduce the team conflicts and lower her frustration to a great extent (Edgerton and Palmer 2005). This in turn would enhance the morale of Maria, thereby making proper use of opportunities. Caching is also responsible for providing a high return on investment and improving the talent retention rate of the organization to a better extent. In this context, coaching could act as a cost effective method for developing talent from within the organization and provide effective solutions to the issues encountered at the same time (Grant 2011).  As a result, these solutions will eventually lead to empowered employees with successful, positive, and favorable views of the organization. Therefore, conducting the coaching session with Maria was imperative in enhancing her morale and keeping her motivated for a longer period of time.

Using appropriate coaching models like GROW model and the skilled helper model was also effective for this case and has helped me in identifying the individual strengths and better development opportunities for Maria that would reduce her frustration and keep her involved and associated with the team in a positive manner. Coaching is responsible for improving the performance of the individual by encouraging them to take responsibility. This way Maria will feel empowered and this in turn would increase her employees’ engagement with the team and the organization as well.

In the same way, mentoring is known and responsible for influencing the overall performance of the employees to a significant extent. Hence, with coaching, if mentoring is added it would allow in influencing the required and mentored support for enhancing the performance of the employees thereby lowering their respective intention of turnover (Haidar 2007). Mentoring also allows individuals to have a flash of better career growth through a faster transfer of information. Mentoring allows employees in letting them know the organizational values primarily through supporting initiatives such as programs involving mentoring and coaching (Herd 2015). In the case of Maria, mentoring could play a significant role in influencing her job satisfaction, however, it is imperative to consider a specific mentoring technique that would explore the issues encountered in a better manner. This would also help individuals in getting a better exposure to new and different perspectives by fostering better art of delivering feedback. Conducting a mentoring session would also enable the organization in assessing the performance of the job and void biases to a significant extent.

A mentor is responsible for sharing knowledge, skills and experiences to assist others to grow and develop successfully. On the contrary, a coach is someone who is responsible for providing required guidance to a client or individual on their respective goals and assist the, reach their desired objectives. From the role play conducted, I have understood that it is imperative for a mentor or a coach to have few specific skills that would help in making the entire processes effective and successful. I also understood that, in order to be a better coach or a mentor having a through knowledge about the situation and the concerns of the clients is imperative in resolving the queries thereby reaching to an effective solution or result. I also learned that in order to be an effective mentor or a coach, it is essential that I develop active listening skills, positive attitude towards the encountered situation, being non judgmental, open to feedback and questions and self aware. In addition to this, innovation, communication, sincerity, guidance, curiosity and persistence are another skills that I require to develop in order to be an effective coach. This would help me in developing a positive attitude towards the situation and generate better strategies for solving the queries and concerns. I also believe that developing these skills will help me to a better mentor and coach and help others by solving their queries and concerns. Other than this, as a coach or a mentor I will be more open towards taking feedback from the individual and try to make improvements based on the collected feedback. This would help me in taking responsibility of the situation and make the individuals more valued. As a consequence, they could also generate a better understanding and trust thereby possessing, meaningful outcomes from the conversation.

Doing this would help in improving the  performance and morale of the individuals by adding on new ventures that are considered to be more accurate and capable of encouraging better and constructive ideas that deal with issues encountered by Maria within the workplace. Making the required changes in skills, and attitude while coaching and mentoring an individual would be considered as an imperative aspect of applying better strategies thereby attaining the goals and objectives aimed.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, I can conclude that the sudden outbreak of the COVID 19 virus has affected the manner in which organization operates and thereby coaching and mentoring is imperative for every organization. I have learnt that using different coaching models and mentoring techniques would enable the mentor in assessing or identifying the issues encountered and serve better strategies to mitigate them issues encountered. As a whole, the overall performance of the employees and the organization would be enhanced. This reflective essay is capable of demonstrating the same in a better manner. I have also learnt that developing few skill associated with mentoring and coaching is mandatory for addressing these issues in present and in future.

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