Coaching for Mental Well-Being: Changing Needs for Organizational Clients

Coaches are responding to a growing need to support their clients’ emotional and psychological needs, going beyond skills development. This signal of change indicates a future where mental well-being becomes part of organizational development.

Coaching in Organizations Goes Beyond Professional Development 

The 2024 ICF Coaching Snapshot revealed growing client demand for mental well-being support. Coaches are meeting this need through stress management and mindfulness techniques. Yet, broader workplace trends point to greater systemic challenges: declining manager and workforce engagement, increasing workplace loneliness, and rising employee distrust. 

This raises an important question: How can coaches respond to this urgent signal of change? 

Benefits for Coaches

• Access to data insights enables coaches to monitor and address stress trends within specific teams or departments.
• Systemic coaching approaches help uncover the root causes of organizational challenges, leading to more sustainable solutions.
• Enhanced engagement, connection, and resilience across the organization contribute to individual mental well-being and performance.

Data-Driven Coaching Delivery

Imagine this: A coaching client organization, fatigued by ongoing change, wants to proactively address employee stress and burnout. While internal coaches have collected self-reported well-being data, they seek deeper insights. They propose issuing employees with wearable health trackers to collect aggregated data on stress, sleep, and recovery.

Identifying Stress Patterns to Support Team Capacity

By using aggregated, anonymous data from wearable trackers and self-reports, coaches can monitor stress across departments and intervene before burnout occurs.

• Opportunities
  • Biometric data helps coaches identify when teams need recovery between projects.
  • Combining stress readings with team self-reports helps coaches identify root causes and create tailored support.
• Challenges
  • Data is only useful when a significant portion of the team participates in tracking.
  • Some employees may feel uncomfortable sharing personal data or self-reflections about workplace well-being. 

Team Mental Well-Being Support

Imagine this: Charly, a team leader, uses a smartwatch and notices her stress peaks during team meetings. She also notices her team appears to be overwhelmed by uncertainty during brainstorming sessions. Charly invites a coach to her next team meeting. The coach is able to track stress patterns, inviting the team to pause and realign before moving forward. AI-generated prompts also suggest follow-up mindfulness resources. 

Delivering Just-in-Time Mental Well-Being Support

Smart technologies and coaching dashboards can provide teams with moment-by-moment feedback to support energy management throughout the day. 

• Opportunities
  • Health trackers can notify employees about real-time mental well-being insights and suggest personalized resources. 
  • Coaches can proactively work with leaders on energy maintenance during times of transition. 
  • Team dashboards can alert coaches to peak stress moments and intervene to reorient the group. 
• Challenges
  • Team-level data cannot differentiate between individual stressors outside of the workplace and work-related stressors. 
  • Notifications from smart devices can be disruptive in the moment. 

Organizational Development Beyond the Individual

Organizations are evolving from skills-based development to whole-person growth. By integrating coaching with technology, mental well-being can be addressed at the individual, team, and organization levels.  

Reflection Questions

• What data or metrics might help coaches understand team and organizational mental well-being more effectively? 
• How might AI integrate coaching into the workday to provide real-time support? 
• As a coach, what mindfulness or stress management techniques have proven helpful for client well-being?