Human resource management practice I also available by michael armstrong

Chapter 

23

  The Practice of Learning and Development

307

to follow up each segment of experience to check 

what has been learnt and, if necessary, modify the 

programme.

Coaching

Coaching is a personal (usually one-to-one) approach 

to helping people develop their skills and knowledge 

and improve their performance. The need for coach-

ing may arise from formal or informal performance 

reviews, but opportunities for coaching will emerge 

during everyday activities. Coaching as part of the 

normal process of management consists of:

 

●

using whatever situations may arise as 

opportunities to promote learning;

 

●

controlled delegation – ensuring that 

individuals not only know what is expected 

of them but also understand what they need 

to know and be able to do to complete the 

task satisfactorily; this gives managers an 

opportunity to provide guidance at the 

outset: guidance at a later stage may be seen 

as interference;

 

●

making people aware of how well they are 

performing by, for example, asking them 

questions to establish the extent to which 

they have thought through what they are 

doing;

 

●

encouraging people to look at higher-level 

problems and how they would tackle them.

Coaching has an important role in workplace learn-

ing. Executive coaching is used frequently as part of 

a  blended  learning  approach  (ie  one  that  includes  

a number of complementary learning activities) to 

leadership and management development. Coaching 

skills are covered in Chapter 52.