Cognitive Behavioural Coaching (CBC) is fast becoming a popular practice in many areas of business because the benefits of the process are far reaching. It’s an effective practice for Human Resource (HR) managers to use because it can address any issue that could arise regarding interpersonal relationships among employees. It also serves as a tool to teach employees how to self-reflect.

Cognitive Behavioural Coaching is a combination of coaching and psychology, and involves using questioning to encourage behavior and belief analysis and problem solving. Human Resource managers can be trained to hold conferences with individuals to allow them to reflect on their approaches to work performance and interactions with co-workers.

Coaching or mentoring is beneficial to business organisations because guidance by the more experienced individuals of the less-seasoned employees in similar roles promotes growth. Growth for individuals, work teams and the company as a whole.

Managers and those in other leadership roles are given their positions because they have proven successful in their jobs. In order for the success of an organisation to continue, they must be willing to mentor less-experienced workers. Cognitive Behavioural Coaching adds an extra element to coaching or mentoring because it requires that you think about your actions and the motivations behind them.

Human Resource managers who are trained in CBC are able to help employees with a variety of issues including but not limited to disputes with co-workers, anger management, time management and work-related goals. Coaching conferences may be initiated by HR managers or by employees themselves, and are meant to be discussions in which all parties are engaged in the process.

For example, if an HR manager observes an employee who is often late arriving to work, the manager may schedule a coaching conference to address the issue. During the conference, the parties should sit facing each other, with no barriers between them, and a comfortable distance apart. According to the process of CBC, the manager should pose questions to the employee to encourage them to self-analyse their tardiness and arrive at their own, achievable solution to the problem.

In the conference an HR manager may ask questions similar to the following:
•       How do actual mornings differ from what you plan?
•       What do you think causes this/these differences?
•       What might you do differently tomorrow?

The manager would pause to allow the employee to consider, and remain quiet and listen when the employee was ready to respond. The manager doesn’t make assumptions or suggestions about the behavior or necessary changes; they simply guide the employee to discover the weight of their thoughts, actions and consequences.

Written documentation of the conference would occur after the conference ended. Perhaps the HR manager would compose an email to send to the employee stating the topic discussed, statements made by the employee and the plan of action decided on.

Implementing Cognitive Behavioural Coaching in businesses allows HR managers to empower employees by teaching them to reflect on their beliefs and actions in relation to their work lives. In turn, learning to reflect on the reasons for behaviors and how conscientious plans of actions will bring about change leads to more responsible workers and a better work environment in general.