Life coaching in the workplace is an empowerment strategy that can help any employee at any level achieve personal and professional goals, but the quality of coaching matters. Ensuring the life coach has completed accredited training is the first step. - BY INGRID JOHNSON

Workplace life coaching is an empowering process that can help high-potential employees and leaders achieve personal and professional goals. It is particularly beneficial for individuals who are technically qualified for career advancement but need assistance discovering their strengths, potential, and sometimes the career path they want to follow. The expertise of a life coach can also benefit organizational leaders who need assistance with finding additional clarity about goals, career direction, and development needs as they move up in the organization and executives who believe more personal insights will make them better leaders.

However, as an unregulated industry, ensuring the life coach has completed an accredited training program that covers topics like ethics, relationship building, introductory psychology, goal setting, effective communication, and problem-solving is imperative. Coaches who complete formal training programs understand the importance of maintaining a high level of professionalism at all times, and can provide more corporately appropriate advice.

Placing Trust in the Life Coach

Even in the workplace, life coaching is a personal process involving a relationship between the coach and the coachee. The person being coached will share personal aspirations, struggles, successes and failures, and life experiences. The effectiveness of the coaching process depends on the ability of the coach to create an environment of psychological safety and support. This is a developed skill that must be exercised within ethical and professional boundaries.

Anyone can declare they are a life coach because the industry is unregulated. This means some people doing life coaching have never been through a coach training program or completed a degree program teaching skills similar to those needed for life coaching. Though that does not necessarily mean the coach is unqualified or ineffective, it does mean an employer has no way of knowing if the person knows the most essential and critical aspects of life coaching so they can be trusted to maintain professional and ethical standards.

Learning the Coaching Standards

There are two primary certifying bodies for life coaches. They are the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC). The ICF focuses on areas that include leadership, career development, executive performance, and relationships. The NBHWC focuses on health and wellness. To earn certification, the program participants complete a training program, spend a designated number of hours coaching, and pass an exam. Both certifying organizations also require continuing education, so you know the person is always current on standards and approaches as employee and leadership trends change.

The NBHWC program develops health and wellness coaches who work primarily in the healthcare industry. The ICF certification program is called the gold standard for life coaching certification. It accredits people who can work in any setting in any industry, whether it is one-on-one in an entrepreneurial capacity or one-on-one in the workplace. The ICF is not offering an initial training program. People who go through the certification process bring previous training with them. ICF certification is a credentialing process that offers professional development and enables people to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities in coaching.

Coaching the Coach to Hone Skills

There are five components to the certification program. First, the program participant must complete an education or training program at an ICF-accredited organization. Some accredited providers offer training geared towards a coaching niche, like business, career transition, executive, leadership, and small business. Second, there must be proof coaching experience hours were completed after starting the coaching education program. The third element is getting a minimum of three months of mentor coaching that provides the program participant with coaching and feedback in a collaborative manner. The fourth step is a performance evaluation, and the fifth step is a credentialing exam.

Four broad areas are covered on the exam, each with sections. The Foundation domain covers ethical practice and the embodiment of a coaching mindset. Co-creating the Relationship Domain covers establishing and maintaining agreements and cultivating trust and safety. The Communicating Effectively domain covers active listening and the ability to evoke awareness. The Cultivating Learning and Growth domain covers the topic of facilitating client growth.

Maintaining a Strict Code of Conduct

The ICF-certified coach also pledges to meet the ICF Code of Ethics. Ethical standards cover areas like confidentiality, ensuring a clear understanding of how information is exchanged among everyone involved in the coaching interactions, and confidentiality. There is a section on responsibility to professionalism in which the coach agrees only to make true statements about coaching qualifications and the value of coaching. There is even a section on the coach’s responsibility to society, with the coach agreeing to avoid discrimination, respect local rules and cultural practices, and honor the contributions and intellectual property of others.

Wendy Braiman is a Career Development Coach who shared her advice with Randstad Risesmart on coaching for career development to increase employee retention. Big-name companies, including Verizon and IBM, have used life coaching to help reach goals. Coaching can positively impact the organization’s culture, moving it towards being more collaborative, which is essential to attracting and retaining younger generations of labor. It is an approach that helps people identify and reach their potential through greater insights into the career direction to pursue and how to achieve goals.

Braiman explains that the life coach can assist individuals focused on career advancement or enhancing soft skills to perform more effectively. Coaches contribute to success by bringing an unbiased and fresh perspective and can address issues like improving communication and empathy in addition to career planning. The life coach collaborates with the client to develop a customized, achievable action plan. “Coaches meet clients where they are and where they want to be, whether it’s having an eye on the C-Suite, more time at home or a complete career reinvention,” says Braiman.

Leverage the Coaching Relationship for Success

Choosing an accredited life coach is important because accreditation demonstrates that the coach is knowledgeable, experienced, and committed to ethical behaviors. There is always a risk in coaching because it is about relationships. The organization and the person being coached do not want private information revealed and trust broken. The securest route to hiring an effective and trustworthy life coach is to start the search by requiring the ICF or NBHWC credential, and lean on only credentialed coaches to serve as the backbone of an organization’s life coaching offering.