How coaching helped a small business deliver big results

When HR Coordinator Bethaney Nero began working at Online Education, a small e-learning business, she was in a customer service role. However, a period of strong organisational growth and an acknowledgement that formal policies, procedures and resources to support employees were needed, led to Bethaney’s appointment as a one-person HR department.

It’s not an unusual practice for growing small businesses to either outsource the role of HR or for it to be absorbed by existing staff.

With limited organisational knowledge of requirements and best practice, and a steep personal learning curve, Bethaney signed up for Workplace Mental Health Coaching after completing the NSW Government’s free Workplace Pulse Check.

“We thought we were doing pretty well,” Bethaney says. “But then I did the pulse check.”

Bethaney acknowledges that initially she was sceptical of the benefits of coaching.

“There were a few things I didn’t understand. For example, why we would have to do a psychosocial survey [within the organisation]. Why did our staff need to know about psychosocial hazards in the workplace? How was this going to benefit us?”

Bethaney acknowledges that coaching helped her to not only understand why it is important, but how to explain that importance to others.

“It’s really important to have these procedures and documents in place because it’s risk mitigation for the future. So, it’s in your interest and the employee’s best interest to have these in place.” Bethaney explains.

“I think there are things you can do to tick the box and go, ‘yep, we’ve got that policy, we’ve got that’,” Bethaney says. “But [coaching] was bringing it to the next level of, ‘OK, you’ve got that. But what’s the plan? What if this happens? What’s the next step and how are you providing support to your employees?’”

 One of the common themes that came up for her small tight-knit team was role overload and role ambiguity.

“So from that we’re going through job descriptions. We’re asking, ‘How can we help you with your workflow?’, ‘What can you delegate?’, ‘Do we need a meeting to fine-tune things?’”

“And that’s just the first step,” Bethaney says, acknowledging that even with coaching complete, managing psychosocial risks in the workplace is a continuous process.

Coach and psychologist Tess Collins speaks to the many actions Bethaney has implemented since beginning her coaching.

“Bethaney’s implemented a psychosocial survey and educated the team on hazards, which has led to a workplace wellbeing plan and psychosocial risk register,” Tess says.

The survey, Tess says, was used as a tool to consult with their workers.

“Consulting with workers is important to not only make workers feel heard, but to learn directly what specific workplace factors are affecting them and to gain input into what supports they need,” says Tess.

The coaching also guided Bethaney in creating a mental health policy and introducing one-on-one discussions about psychosocial hazards with the CEO.

“In six months, we’ll go back and see how the changes have affected us,” Bethaney acknowledges.

In the meantime, Bethaney has a list of initiatives that Online Education is prioritising to continue their management of psychosocial risks in the workplace. These include completing the NSW Government’s Mental Health at Work training for leaders and employees, facilitated by Black Dog Institute, reviewing position descriptions and running mental health initiatives, such as RUOK? Day and staff morning teas throughout October for mental health month. Tess says, “These efforts will help build mental health awareness within the team, enable the team to speak more openly about mental health and help reduce any stigma that may exist”.

Bethaney also plans to develop internal pulse checks (i.e. a shortened survey that assesses progress on reducing the psychological hazards that were raised in the original survey) while using the NSW Government’s Workplace Pulse Check to measure improvement.  

Bethaney credits coaching for putting her on the right path and delivering certainty.

“If I hadn’t done coaching and just tried to educate myself, I’d definitely still be thinking ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m doing this correctly. Is this the right thing? What am I meant to be doing here?’ Coaching validates everything in a really easy, practical way. “

Learn more about Workplace Mental Health Coaching here.

3 key takeaways

Coaching can validate your learning – “You can only do so much reading. You can try and put it all together in your own mind, but when you’ve got another human saying, ‘OK, this is what you need to do’, it clicks. The light bulb turns on. I feel like if you’re having a one-to-one with a person that’s got the knowledge, it just makes it easier to process what we should do.”

All feedback from your coaching sessions can lead to positive outcomes – “It’s not as scary as we thought it would be. You know, it’s all positive feedback. Even if [you receive] negative feedback, you can …  create a positive outcome from it.”

It’s more than a tick-the-box exercise – “At the end of my third session I was like, ‘we’re going to be able to implement these things and create positive change’. It’s not just ticking the box and doing a little graph. It’s actually going to create proper change.”