Coaching and mentoring
Individual coaching and mentoring are a part of all line managers' roles and the University recognises this through the provision of Manchester Gold (mentoring) and coaching skills for managers. In some cases, a staff member may benefit from working with an accredited coach in order to enhance his/her performance and support his/her personal and professional development (i.e. one-to-one coaching). This service is coordinated by Learning and Organisational Development, who have access to an network of accredited coaches within the University or (in exceptional cases) a register of approved external coaches.
The differences between coaching, mentoring and other forms of one-to-one support can be found below:
Coaching
Coaching is driven by the client. The client chooses the topic of conversation and the coach listens, makes observations and asks questions to help the client clarify her situation and establish actions to progress towards her personal and professional goals. To learn more about developing coaching skills, see the area in the Personal skills and development section. To enquire about one-to-one coaching, contact L&OD (coaching-StaffLD@manchester.ac.uk or 0161 275 2525).
Mentoring
Mentoring is similar to coaching but is usually a subtly different type of relationship. With mentoring an inexperienced member of staff is matched with a more experienced colleague to provide personal, professional and career support. The University offers opportunities to be a mentor or mentee through the Manchester Gold programme.
Counselling
Counselling is specialist expertise aimed at supporting staff to deal with personal and professional issues that are impacting on an individual's wellbeing and/or mental health. The University offers counselling through the Counselling Service.
Mediation
Mediation involves providing informal solutions to workplace relationship difficulties through the support of a trained mediator. The University offers mediation as part of its Mediation Service.