The benefits of mentoring and coaching in the public sector

Abstract

A project at the Frontier Hospital in Queenstown (South Africa) commenced in January 2009, and extended over a period of four months. Two mentoring and coaching workshops were held to create a broad awareness and a common understanding about mentoring and coaching as tools for learning and growth. A study was carried out to determine the effects of mentoring and coaching on managers following attendance of the workshops. The study results revealed that the race and gender of the respondents did not significantly affect mentoring and coaching. The respondents were in unanimous agreement that the programme was beneficial and the functional specialisation of the respondents did not affect their assessment of the mentoring and coaching programme. The study also revealed that mentoring and coaching did improve work performance and that it had far reaching positive effects in improving work-place performance at Frontier Hospital, in South Africa.