The Oxford Brookes Coaching Pool is a group of staff who volunteer to coach colleagues.
The coaches are Oxford Brookes colleagues and have diverse, interesting backgrounds. They are all highly experienced and professionally qualified as coaches. They have invested considerable time and energy in their own development as coaches and are committed to providing a coaching service to staff at Oxford Brookes.
They attend regular CPD and supervision sessions in order to practice coaching at Oxford Brookes.
How do I sign up for coaching?
1. The first step is to view our Coach Profiles.
You will find all the coaches' profiles on these webpages and you can choose which coach you would like to work with. We suggest you read through the coaches’ profiles carefully and make a shortlist of three coaches. We recommend you don’t choose to work with someone in the same Faculty or Directorate as yourself.
2. Once you have made your shortlist, you need to complete the Coaching Request Form.
We will then match you with one of these coaches and will send you an email to confirm this.
3. Once this has been confirmed, the coach will contact you directly by email.
All forms are confidential and are only seen by those staff who run the scheme: Alison Cumpsty and Luvena Wilson.
What can you expect from coaching?
Your coach’s role is to support you to make effective changes in the way you work and approach your career. Your coach is trained to help you work out what you want from your coaching sessions and help you achieve a satisfactory outcome. Coaching is meant to be an enjoyable and stimulating experience. We believe it is important to look forward to your coaching sessions and feel comfortable working with your coach. Your coaching sessions are confidential.
Your coach will not tell you what to do or give you advice. Instead, they help you work out what you want to do. They may share resources with you such as an article or a podcast.
Coaching works well either face-to-face or virtually. It is best to find a quiet place to work where you can think clearly and have a minimum of distractions.
Most coaching programmes comprise four to six one hour sessions.
At the start of your coaching
The first session will enable you to get to know one another, check whether you think you can work well together and agree the specific arrangements for your programme.
Together with your coach, you will clarify what you want from coaching by setting out some goals and agree ground rules such as confidentiality. If your manager has sponsored you, they can also participate in the contracting.
During the coaching programme
The coaching sessions are scheduled at times and intervals to suit you. Often people choose monthly coaching sessions but sometimes people want to meet fortnightly or even at six week intervals.
At the start of each coaching session, your coach will ask you what you want to work on. As a coachee, you set the agenda for each meeting.
At the end of your coaching
At the end of the programme, your coach will ask you to review your experiences and complete an evaluation form. The evaluation form is then sent to coaching@brookes.ac.uk. If your manager nominated you for coaching, it may be beneficial to review the coaching with your manager and your coach.
External coaches
Sometimes it is beneficial to work with an external coach. An external coach usually works independently or runs a small consultancy offering a coaching service to organisations. Independent coaches sometimes specialise in specific areas such as management of change, creating a vision and other leadership issues. An external coach may also have extensive experience of a specific sector.
People prefer to work with an external coach because they think that an external coach can be more objective and also, they are not likely to bump into an external coach at work once the coaching is finished.
The factors which might influence you in deciding whether to work with an external coach include cost, availability and the nature of the issue(s) you want to work on.
We have a list of preferred external coaches. These people are known to us and have a successful track record as coaches
Payment for a coaching programme is usually made after each session or at the end of a specific number of sessions.
If you would like to explore external coaching for yourself or another member of staff, please contact coaching@brookes.ac.uk.