Staff coaching programme boosts wellbeing

How do you improve your work capacity and enhance your wellbeing at the same time? For many teachers and staff, who find themselves increasingly strapped for time, this seems like an almost impossible task. After all, there are lessons to be planned and delivered, reports to be written, homework and exams to be marked, and general administration tasks that fill each day (and night). It can feel impossible to find space for big picture reflection and improvement when you find yourself stuck in the nitty gritty of your work week.

Employees at St Andrew’s Cathedral School are beginning to find the space they need through the School’s staff coaching programme. By incorporating an hour or two of coaching per fortnight into their timetables, staff have begun to find solutions to their work frustrations.

Introduced in 2020, the coaching programme offers a space to speak, a place to share vulnerably and a way to be heard.

Employees at St Andrew’s Cathedral School are beginning to find the space they need through the School’s staff coaching programme. By incorporating an hour or two of coaching per fortnight into their timetables, staff have begun to find solutions to their work frustrations.

“We care about people being heard, intimately heard, and we care about people feeling supported in their development and the unpacking of problems. Coaching, in this sense, is other-person focused,” says the Director of People and Culture, Heath McPherson.

Coaching, however, is not always looked upon positively in some workplaces. There is a perception that coaching programs are carefully designed disciplinary processes for people who are simply failing to do their work.

“Organisations have used coaching in the past when someone’s not performing well – the staff member will be asked to go to a coaching programme. That doesn’t always work because there has to be a willingness to change and improve,” Heath says.

“The presence of hope in a workplace is really important and you begin to have hope when you see tangible progress and attain goals in your work.”

Director of People and Culture, Heath McPherson

St Andrew’s Cathedral School has flipped that dynamic on its head and it is a key reason why the coaching programme has started to gain momentum. The staff who access coaching do so not because they are failing at their jobs, but because they want to improve. It’s opt-in, not ‘dob-in’, and the impact for those involved has been significant.

Head of Finance Phil Thai joined the School at the beginning of 2022 and he counts the programme as one of the highlights of his employee experience so far.

“It’s 100 per cent positive. I get in-house coaching, are you kidding me?” he says. “When I joined, there was a lot going on in my mind about what I needed to do. The first month or so I was overwhelmed by not knowing where to start and how to prioritise what I needed to think through and do.”

Heath encouraged Phil to spend some time with the School’s Senior Learning Coach Elle Smith and Phil quickly gained the clarity he needed.

“I said to her, ‘I just need someone to bounce some ideas off and help me to prioritise’, and she said, ‘I can coach you’. Since then, she’s been meeting with me every two to four weeks. She just asks me questions to help tease out my thoughts,” Phil says.

The School’s trained coaches know how to get to the heart of a problem and, through gentle questions and promptings, they’re able to guide their colleague to find solutions. It is in making this transition, from problem to solution, that Phil has observed significant personal growth.

“I know by nature that I’m a problem-oriented person. I can dwell and get stuck in a cycle of negativity. Coaching has helped me move from a place of problems to a solutions-focused mentality quite quickly,” he says.

“I know by nature that I’m a problem-oriented person. I can dwell and get stuck in a cycle of negativity. Coaching has helped me move from a place of problems to a solutions-focused mentality quite quickly.”

Head of Finance Phil Thai

The impact, it turns out, is two-pronged. Coaching makes it possible to improve your work capacity without cost to your general wellbeing – both can be improved at the same time.

“I think it’s an amazing wellbeing and productivity tool because it gives you an actionable pathway through any scenario,” Heath says. “The presence of hope in a workplace is really important and you begin to have hope when you see tangible progress and attain goals in your work.”

Contrary to what some might claim, a staff coaching programme within a school environment doesn’t take resources away from students; it actually helps create a better student experience.

“The fact that we have a coaching resource, and that it’s not just coaching by name – there’s a capability and a competency that’s been built seriously within it – speaks volumes. It says that St Andrew’s Cathedral School cares about the wellbeing of its staff and that it cares about its students too,” Heath says.