Group coaching: an effective intervention to support workers?

Current global economic and political uncertainty and cost hikes in employing workers has led to budget cuts and rapid organisational change. Organisations are looking for new ways to remain competitive and maintain productivity. Employers need interventions which support individuals while creating the workplace conditions for cultural change, innovation and new working practices to be adopted faster and more systematically.

Employers have utilised various coaching forms including one-to-one, team-based and manager-as-coach. Extending coaching to ever more of the workforce is a considerable investment. Consultancies are marketing group coaching as a cheaper alternative that, they claim, still provides the same wide-ranging impacts. Group coaching is not new outside work settings but there is little empirical research to explore the purpose and impact of workplace group coaching and the benefits for organisations and employees.

This paper is the eighth topic explored in the IES Coaching Effectiveness series which uses evidence to explore different aspects of business coaching.

This review cast the net widely across empirical academic evidence and insights from coaching practitioners and experts, to answer key questions:

■     What does group coaching in work settings look like?

■     How is it different from other coaching, especially team coaching, and other group-based development approaches?

■     What is the evidence that group coaching works? What problem does it solve or workplace culture does it enable?

■     When is it appropriate to use? And with which ‘groups’?

■     Is group coaching an intervention employers should be considering?

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