Why we as a company rely on coaching in personnel development

At Apps with love, we have been asking ourselves various questions around the topic of human resources development over the last few years:

...how can we keep our employees in the company?

...how can we offer employees personal development?

...how do we best use the individual skills of the employees in the different roles in the company?

...how can we promote team leads without leadership experience?

...how can we make the best use of our flat hierarchies?

...who conducts recurring talks with the now almost 50 employees?

...how can we set ourselves apart from the competition as an attractive employer?

Based on the needs expressed by employees, we came to the conclusion that coaching as an instrument of human resource development could be a suitable approach to take a step forward in these issues.

So, as part of the MAS Coaching training at the FHNW Olten, I investigated for my MAS thesis what to consider when introducing coaching in HR development and developed a concept for the introduction of coaching at Apps with love based on the various theories. 
The coaching offer has been running for a few months now and in this blog post I would like to share experiences that we were able to make during the introduction and since then. 

The (working) world is changing

Digitalisation is having a huge impact on the way people work together in companies. Competition is increasing and so is the pressure for rapid change and new developments. Agile and flexible forms of work and new teamwork are a possible answer to dealing with these changes and are showing promising results.

Project management methods such as Scrum are being used instead of conventional methods and traditional hierarchies in companies are being replaced by flat ones. It is becoming more difficult to find suitable specialists and employers need to take special care of their employees in order to retain them in the long term. Good salaries alone are no longer enough to attract workers from younger generations. As Frederic Laloux, the pioneer in the field of integrative organisational development, explains in his basic book "Reinventing Organizations", employees today want a meaningful and self-determined way of working. However, this also changes the demands placed on employees. They need more flexibility and creativity to solve complex work tasks, and the ability to cooperate and deal with conflict is becoming increasingly important. Many companies now work mainly in self-organised teams with a high level of decision-making authority. This allows costs to be saved and problems to be solved more efficiently. In addition, employee satisfaction increases and motivating and meaningful work has a positive effect on the number of sick days. Individual and team coaching can support employees in all these new and complex processes.

Coaching as a tool in personnel development

Coaching can be used as a tool in personnel development. It should be implemented strategically and not just be available to selected managers as a privilege. Even if it is not easy to scientifically prove the effectiveness of coaching, it can be assumed that coaching has a variety of positive effects in an organisation. For example, coaching can lead to improved performance and greater career satisfaction. It can be supportive when taking on leadership roles and make a positive contribution to employee retention. It can also help to reduce employees' stress levels and thus help to reduce absenteeism.