Coaching for a better future

‘We can open the door for people through coaching, but it’s up to the individual whether they want to walk through it or not’

Coaching can help transform one of the most challenging life experiences into a new and more positive future

Being made redundant is almost always a tough experience but during a recession, when options and opportunities seem limited, the situation can feel particularly devastating. For many people, career coaching at this time can be a hugely valuable course of action that can help them to envisage and ultimately realise a new and more positive future.

John Fitzgerald, founder and managing director of Harmonics, which works both with individuals and with companies that are downsizing, is keen to stress the difference between traditional outplacement services and those incorporating coaching.

“Outplacement has a bad name and that has to do with people delivering a bad service in this area for quite some time,” he explains. “People see it just as CV and interview skills, whereas it’s a lot more than that. The service we provide is very much grounded in a coaching approach.”

It’s an approach that can be particularly beneficial at the moment, he says. “I’ve been working in this industry for 10 years and over the past six to eight months I’ve seen a state of fear and panic in people that I haven’t seen before,” he says. “In the previous nine years, there was always another opportunity around the corner. People took voluntary redundancy because they felt happy that there was a pretty full job market. Now they need an approach that is completely different, and that’s where coaching comes in.”

It’s no longer just about honing your interview skills, dressing up your CV and getting it out there as quickly and to as many people as possible, he points out. “It’s about starting with a blank page – it’s about identifying what you really, really want to do next. Coaching can move people through a process to enable them to envision a new future, but also to add greater value going forward.”

According to Fitzgerald, people who go through the outplacement process should look on it as a full-time project that will take around four months and will involve a series of six or seven coaching sessions. 

“This is a bridge to finding a new career,” he explains. “Many people, particularly those who are highly skilled or in very technical areas, are not seeing great opportunities at the moment. What they need to do is take a step back. I ask them three questions: what are you passionate about, what can you be the best at, and where can you add value?”

Fitzgerald stresses the fact that for many people their job – and even their job title – is intrinsically tied into their identity. “We need to remove that from them,” he says. “There may be a certain ego about the status they have reached at a particular time in life. But the coaching approach can enable the individual to see a new future that they want to go for.

“We will provide them with the tools to make the diagnosis. They’ll then go through an exploration phase looking at their different options and then making a decision and taking action.”

Understandably, people can sometimes be slow to take that action. “And that’s where the coaching approach is really there to support them over a period of time,” says Fitzgerald. “That’s incredibly important when you’ve just been made redundant and your self-confidence is at a low ebb. For somebody to be there, to believe in and support you, to find the strengths you have and to help you market them is what you want and need.

“I’ve worked with the best salespeople in different fields, but selling themselves is a completely different concept to selling a product,” he says. “People do make mistakes. They do go out there and try to obliterate the market with their CVs. You need to be very focused: going out to people who want your skills and to places where you can add value.”

He points out that coaching can provide direction, but that individuals must then take control of their own situation. “Quite often we can open the door for people through coaching, but it’s up to the individual whether they want to walk through it or not,” he says. “We’re there to coach, guide, facilitate and provide information, but it’s the individual who needs to make the decision if it’s really what they want to do. The coaching approach is not about forcing someone down a certain road.”

At the end of the coaching process, Fitzgerald says that people will usually be on the road to where they want to go – and this may involve upskilling, reskilling, being in a bridge job or even starting their own business.

For the majority of people, he says, the long-term outcome of the process will be positive. “For nine out of 10 people who go through our programmes, if you asked them in a year’s time, they would describe it as a fantastically positive time in their lives, because they’ve created a new future for themselves,” he says. “When people’s backs are to the wall, that’s when you see their real capabilities and talents. They’ll also gain a lot of confidence from the process, because they’ve been down in the depths and then they’ve risen phoenix-like and are now moving on.”

Fitzgerald will shortly be working on a new series with RTÉ Television, with six people from different situations who have been made redundant, taking them through the career-coaching approach between now and Christmas. The series will air at the beginning of 2010.