Coaching is a popular approach for supporting personal development. A Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s survey into workplace learning reported that as many as 70 per cent of organisations are routinely using some form of coaching approach in their businesses. They concluded that not only has the frequency increased but also that the purpose had shifted, with around 40 per cent indicating that the main reason that coaching was used was to manage and improve workplace performance.

In a business context, coaching has a focus on performance improvement and is very much about turning the things that people do everyday into learning experiences. It is most effective when done in a planned and systematic manner:

• Performance improvement – Utilising a wide range of learning experiences that naturally crop up every day in a typical pharmacy’s day to day activities
• Things that people do – Focuses on individuals and uses what they do on a daily basis. These can easily become experiences from which people can learn from and reflect upon
• Planned and systematic – A structured approach which maximises learning in a time efficient manner.

In essence, coaching is all about building up people’s skills, knowledge and confidence on either a one-to-one or small group basis. Importantly its focus is to get people to the level at which they need to be performing to ensure that they make a valuable contribution to your pharmacy team and overall business.