An Employability and Career Hub (EACHOT) page
During the EACHOT project, mentoring and coaching were areas that came up repeatedly with a strong sense of needing more support and guidance for individual employability and career development. There are similarities between coaching and mentoring and both terms are often used interchangeably within healthcare (Stephenson et al., 2022), but they are distinct. The dynamics of the relationship are different between mentoring and coaching; mentoring is more advisory whereas coaching is more driven by the individual being coached rather than the coach (Santiesteban et al., 2022). Coaching is used to maximise personal and professional potential, and less directive than mentoring, which tends to be based more on the mentor’s experience, to advise and guide the less experienced mentee, and coaching tends to have a shorter length of relationship than mentors (Hayden, 2024).
Definition of a coach “the art of facilitating another person’s learning, development, well-being and performance. Coaching raises self-awareness and identifies choices. Through coaching, people find their own solutions, develop their skills, and change their attitudes and behaviours. The aim of coaching is to close the gap between people’s potential and their current state” (Rogers, 2024 p.2).
Definition of a mentor “Mentoring speaks to a long-term relationship that focusses on support and socialisation into the profession, and it not so much focussed on action-oriented performance outcomes and is distinctly different from coaching intentions” (Richardson et al., 2023).
There are many occupational therapists who can provide either mentoring or coaching depending on your needs and can add real value to your employability and career progression. The Elizabeth Casson Trust website provides a list of mentors or coaches organised s into those who are occupational therapists and those who are general mentors and coaches. https://elizabethcasson.org.uk/your-development/leadership-programme/mentors-coaches/
“Having someone champion you and your cause” “A person who believes in you” “Someone else championing you not just for professional goals but for overall well-being to have a sense of feeling valued to see where you are making valuable contribution to an organisation – to society” “Someone to think with, someone to go to” “To have an open discussion about careers [like this one]” “More opportunity to ‘be taken under someone’s wing’ to learn by doing together” “No-one to talk to or turn to, allyship, support from people who are demonstrating transformative leadership” “A list of potential mentors” “about growing their staff and having conversations to help them achieve their career goals rather than just solely keeping them within that job” “conversations should be around career development and helping people achieve their goals” “Lack of support/network/supervisors” “what do I do? What is my role? What isn’t my role?” “still lacking the support” “on the to do list rather than supported positively to support career progression”
