How can a workplace well-being coach support stakeholders with the well-being agenda?
Wellbeing can mean different things to different people. My own definition of wellbeing has changed significantly over the years. For me, it encompasses my physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.
There has been much research on what is meant by corporate or workplace wellbeing. According to Robison (2010) there are five essentials of workplace well-being: career, social, financial, community and physical. For organisations to have an engaged workforce they need to consider each of these elements.
In my view, there are four stakeholders in the organisation the workplace wellbeing coach can support.
Leadership:
Workplace well-being coaches can coach senior leadership at an individual level. Coaching may be in the space of their own mental health and wellbeing to support them achieve their full potential.
Coaches can use their coaching skills to probe and understand what workplace wellbeing looks like for senior leadser and what does successful workplace wellbeing culture entail.
The coach can perform team leadership coaching to understand at a macro level what success in workplace well-being looks like and to gauge whether there is full team buy in.
Line Manager:
The line manager plays a crucial role in the workplace well-being space. The relationship that an employee has with their line manager is one that can impact most on their wellbeing. In many cases, the line manger may be a technical expert with the additional responsibility of people management. They need adequate training, and need to be equipped, and supported for the vital role they play in creating a caring environment and culture that supports the well-being of their teams (Cooper and Hesketh, 2019)
The workplace wellbeing coach can support line managers in many ways. Like leadership, 1:1 coaching can be provided to line mangers.
The coach can also support the line manager with essential communication skills, dealing with people and issues that might arise.
The coach can educate managers through training and development. For example, I have designed a course for workplaces called “Developing the Coaching Culture in the Workplace” It was a very simple introduction to coaching for managers. This is turn has the knock-on effect of turning directed conversations into coaching conversations which has a positive knock-on effect on corporate well-being.
Human Resources and Well-Being Champions:
Human Resources address learning and development, employee engagement and workplace health and safety to name a few. They play an important role in creating and developing a workplace well-being vision, having well-being conversations, and embedding employee wellbeing in the culture of the organisation.
Well-Being Champions promote workplace wellbeing in the organisation. They are not expected to be advisers.
As coaches we can coach, engage, and educate Human Resources and well-being champions on workplace well-being as well as offering support such as facilitation of programmes that support the workplace wellbeing agenda.
Individual:
The workplace well-being coach can ultimately support the organisations well-being agenda by coaching at an individual level. The coach can support with workplace issues, stress, work-life balance, communication to name just a few.
The role of the workplace coach can include creating and promoting the link between wellbeing, engagement, culture, productivity, and the bottom line.