Coaching for wellbeing and engagement in contemporary work environments

Abstract

Wellbeing and engagement in the workplace have been on the decline since 2020. This decline is attributed to factors such as economic instability, technological change, demographic shifts and new workplace settings employees and employers are experimenting with. This atmosphere continues to challenge employers and employees. Increased levels of flexibility and autonomy bring benefits and simultaneously pose heavy demands on workforces and companies. Upskilling workforces and leaders to better navigate these new work environments is indispensable. Extant literature acknowledges a decline in wellbeing and engagement but is inconclusive about what skills are required to equip the future workforces. Workforces have a strong desire in keeping the benefits flexibility and autonomy offer despite the negative impacts likewise evidenced. Leaders play an important role in shaping workplaces and in supporting their workforces. Synchronously, leaders themselves must develop new skills and drive the cultural and technological transformation of their organisations. This research project aims to provide more clarity about the specific skills leaders require to navigate these ambivalent dynamics and complex workplace situations. Furthermore, the role of coaching in these evolving workplace settings is investigated. A multimethod approach is deployed, comprising an online questionnaire to the researcher’s client base in Germany and England, her network on LinkedIn, and two focus groups to further reveal latent themes developed in the online questionnaire. Reflexive thematic analysis is used to develop themes from both datasets to answer the research questions posed. The findings of this research project add knowledge to existing literature about the growing importance of flexibility and autonomy for workforces, the ambivalent nature flexibility and autonomy entails, and how wellbeing and engagement can be negatively impacted by these paradoxical dynamics. Insights are added about the interrelatedness of competing interests and the impact an individual’s decision can have on the collective causing friction at task and at people level. A deeper understanding is provided for work process adaptation to alleviate workloads and time spent in meetings, paired with suggestions on how to humanise workplaces dominated by technology. Additionally, the findings present recommendations for practitioners to better balance ambiguities and paradoxical needs of new work. Ideas are proposed to re-design learning and leadership development programmes to upskill employees in organisations so they can benefit from the gains of flexible work arrangements and mitigate the deficiencies. A conceptual model synthesises the contributions made and exposes the unique skills combinations from the findings to support wellbeing and engagement in contemporary workplaces. A 4-phase framework is offered to practitioners to support reflections and facilitate skills transitions to the workplace. The findings and recommendations developed from the data are applicable to specific sectors including the automotive industry and their suppliers.