October 2020

Fig. 1 BY Andy Savva T here are four main types of support and development that can be provided to employees. Each has a different purpose, different benefits, and should be used for different situations and objectives. These are counselling, mentoring, coaching, and training. Counselling is a form of consulting and often is part of a measurement outcome or employee evaluation. Counselling suggests therapeutic outcomes and focuses on the past. Coaching does not do this. Coaching may occur before counselling, instead of counselling, or in addition to counselling. People with an expertise conduct mentoring. This expertise enables them to advise new or inexperienced employees. Mentoring is a process that helps people with their career development. Mentors provide guidance to help people attain the kind of professional achievement they seek. Mentoring differs from coaching in that it is a long-term process and mentors have no responsibility to their mentees for personal and professional development. Mentors provide motivation, connections, and advice, but they do not directly enable mentees to improve their performance. Coaching is a conversation focused on helping other people (the clients) move forward relative to their goals, hopes, and curiosities. Goals are accomplishments yet to be achieved; hopes and curiosities are the rough material of future goals. For coaching to be helpful, it needs to tie to something the client wants to accomplish. Many people confuse coaching with advice. When people give advice, it may not be welcome. Coaches focus on clients and the goals they want to achieve. The aim of training is to develop the knowledge and skills of the learner. This is the only time it should be used. Training may also raise the levels of motivation, attitude, or commitment. 14 AFTERMARKET OCTOBER 2020 BUSINESS www.aftermarketonline.net COACHING ESSENTIALS Andy Savva goes over top techniques to support your team’s development