Today, coaching and mentoring have become increasingly important for professional as well as personal development. It is important for budding HR professionals to understand the power of coaching, counselling and mentoring employees in an organisation. These are effective ways of building solid relationships, bringing about a positive change in individuals, and profoundly beneficial for career growth.
Coaching has the potential to revolutionise the way professionals and, thereby organisations, function. A good human resource professional is also someone who provides feedback to the management after addressing issues. This helps managers make deft decisions.
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In this role, the HR is expected to be partner managers or executives and help in their career growth. Organisations often hire external career coaches to guide employees. But, with the evolving business environment, organisations seek human resource professionals to coach and train employees internally.
One-on-one sessions help employees manage stress and achieve personal and business goals. This also helps managers identify opportunities in a particular department. This method is specifically helpful when a new manager is hired and he/she needs to be aligned with needs of his/her assigned role.
Based on the insights garnered from coaching, HR can provide leadership with metrics for goal setting, employee engagement activities, employee retention strategies, and so on.
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Counselling
The role of HR has evolved over the years. ‘People Professionals’ are expected to build enabling relationships between and with managers and executives. Counselling usually involves an employee expressing emotional aspects of their problems. The process is all about providing a safe platform for employees to discuss their emotional and professional issues. It helps them manage their work and related stress, efficiently. Often, there are issues on the personal front and grievances, or cases of harassment that affects one’s mental wellbeing. Here, HR helps employees recoup from the situation, resolve the issue, and improve their performance.
Mentor
The ability to mentor employees is a vital skill. As a whole, HR professionals aid in the development of leaders by fostering a culture of inclusiveness. This also encourages a collaborative culture in the organisation. They need to build an understanding of the business, which will enable them to understand the exact role required to be played by any employee. A good understanding of the strategic perspective, combined with an ability to negotiate through conflict, imbues the HR department with an ability to mentor other employees.
Thus, students must understand that the role of human resources has moved beyond recruiting, interviewing and onboarding, to helping employees improve their career trajectory.
The writer is Director, SCMHRD Pune