Life coaching is becoming increasingly popular, with more people placing importance on self-development and wellbeing. This trend has also found its way into the workplace, with many looking for support with their career goals. What’s more, life coaching has a number of benefits for both professionals and their employers. Below, we’ll discuss in more detail what this coaching is all about and how it can benefit your staff. 

What is life coaching?

Life coaching is not to be confused with therapy or counseling. A life coach works with their clients to help them understand their goals, looking at what’s going on in their life and any challenges or obstacles that stand in the way of them achieving these goals. 

What’s more, the aim of life coaching is not only to set goals, but to meet and exceed them through self-development, empowerment and self-reflection. Through life coaching courses, professionals can even learn to power and support their peers.

How can life coaching benefit your staff?

Life coaching can be used to work on all areas of life, whether personal or professional. When used as a career development tool, there are a number of ways it can be beneficial to both employers and their staff. 

Setting clear goals 

Career goals are important, they keep us focused, driving forward and working hard. We spend a huge amount of our time at work, so it’s important that we don’t feel stuck in a rut. As such, life coaching can be extremely helpful for identifying career goals and laying out a clear plan of action to achieve them. This gives employees a sense of direction and something to work towards. 

Teaching staff to embrace work-life balance 

Not all professionals are able to get the work-life balance quite right. While employers obviously want to get the most from their teams, ensuring staff aren’t overworked is also vital. Life coaching, while helping them to identify the next step in their career, will also encourage them to take time out to enjoy their private life. This means they can be happier and more productive when they’re at work – it’s a win-win situation for both parties! 

Empowering employees 

One of the key aspects of life coaching is that it’s design to empower individuals and encourage them to take control of their career. This will help them to feel motivated and truly invested in what they’re doing. Especially if they have set goals that they’re working towards, taking a proactive approach to achieving these can feel very empowering. Ultimately, adding to their overall job satisfaction.

Highlighting their strengths and weaknesses 

Through coaching, participants are actively encouraged to highlight any areas or challenges that stand in their way of success. This means, throughout their coaching they’ll identify areas of strength and weakness. This will help them to choose a path for development, to learn new skills and to work towards strengthening their skill set in order to achieve their goals. This will allow them to take the next step in their career.

Teaches staff valuable skills

Life coaching not only helps them to identify their strengths and weaknesses, but it also teaches them a new skill set that they can apply to their work. It teaches them self-reflection and problem solving. Looking at what stands in your way, and putting a plan in place to move past this, you can apply these skills to your career and any challenges you face in the workplace.

What’s more, it also promotes good communication and self-development. Communication is a vital soft skill for any employee, and life coaching can really help them to hone in on their ability to speak, listen and communicate well with others.

Final thoughts

There are a number of ways your team could benefit from life coaching and taking some time to reflect on their career. It will help them to set goals and identify the skills they need, and any challenges they may face on their journey to achieving said goals.

It also gives them an opportunity to develop their skills, identifying any areas of weakness that they need to work on. All of this will help them to progress in their career and make the best possible contribution towards your business. Consider whether life coaching courses, or hiring external coaches could be a good move for your workforce.