Peer coaching can play a key role in building resilient, high-performing teams, while allowing remote workers to connect with one another from afar. The nature of work is continuously evolving, but never has the pace of change been as rapid as it has been over the last couple of decades.
What is peer coaching?
A peer coaching relationship consists of colleagues on the same level in terms of experience and position who are committed to helping each other by sharing insights, feedback, and best practices.
- Peer coaching is entirely two-way, with participants on roughly the same organizational level equally giving and receiving to help each other grow.
The importance of learning how to give and receive feedback
Peer coaching is entirely dependent on the free and open exchange of actionable feedback, so in order for it to work, all parties must feel safe and have each other’s best interest at heart
- Knowing that all partners in the peer coaching relationship are committed to each other’s psychological safety creates a climate of trust and support that encourages openness
Guidelines for a successful peer coaching program
Establish a process for identifying peer coaching participants
- Provide onboarding for participants who are new to the peer coaching process
- Instill a commitment to confidentiality among participants to create a risk-free, nonjudgmental, and psychologically-safe environment for peer coaching
- Place an end date on each round of peer coaching to provide a window for evaluating and improving the program before beginning again with a new cohort
- Measure of a program’s success is the extent to which employees continue to apply the skills developed once they’re no longer active participants
The benefits of peer coaching for individuals and organizations
Participants in peer coaching gain an outside perspective of their own performance and receive accountability, better equipping them to succeed as individuals
- Cross-functional relationships form a support network that participants can rely on to help them solve problems and achieve goals
- Peer coaching helps develop skills that lead to greater efficiency and productivity
- Employees learn a great deal about themselves and develop the emotional intelligence needed to lead individuals and teams
Ways to implement peer coaching
There isn’t one specific approach to peer coaching that’s guaranteed to yield the full range of potential benefits for employees and organizations
- Some organizations encourage and support peer coaching without establishing a specific process for making it happen
- Other organizations implement a more formal structure, with defined requirements for serving as a peer coach and sessions held on a regular schedule
- Ideally, with or without a formal program, peer coaching becomes ingrained in an organizational culture
