Good teammates help each other confirm and activate their knowledge through peer coaching. This form of support reduces work stress and increases engagement. With the pandemic, millions of people are now working from home. Moreover, many of the business functions may not easily lend themselves to remote work. Additionally, few workers spent entire weeks working from home without the routine and social atmosphere of an office or work site.

Remote work offers tremendous benefits. However, there are challenges. Researchers found that the feelings of isolation remote workers experience can lead to more negative emotions such as loneliness, irritability, worry, and guilt. Moreover, those feelings can make it tougher to focus on work and be productive.

Organizations ensure that their remote workers have the technology they need. However, it is as critical to helping workers reduce their stress and stay focused and productive. Many people and organizations have issued warnings emphasizing the importance of mental health during the pandemic. Additionally, children at home due to school closures add to the mounting burdens and distractions.

Research confirms that peer coaching helps people find focus, meaning, and purpose in their jobs. In addition, organizations often use peer learning to onboard employees in new roles. However, fewer entities use peer coaching to help workers reduce stress and remain engaged. These techniques work in both office and remote work environments.

What Is The Difference Between Peer Learning And Peer Coaching?

• TEACHING — peer learning focuses more on skill development
• LEARNING — peer coaching, two employees, share their challenges, stresses, fears, and hopes. The duo listens and talks equally. They support and encourage each other’s vulnerability.

In my coaching practice, my focus is on unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their performance. I do this by helping them to learn rather than teaching them. So, in peer coaching, you help each other find their solutions. It is best to avoid producing solutions to each other’s problems.

How Does Peer Coaching Differ From Mentoring?

Peer coaching, at its core, is about knowledge transfer. It differs from mentoring. Peer coaching is about two people helping each other confirm and activate their knowledge about themselves. Moreover, the insights they gain will help them in their work and daily lives. During the peer coaching session, both participants have identical roles. In peer coaching, the participants are in the same organization. So, they face some of the same challenges and stresses. This kind of camaraderie is particularly helpful in alleviating stress.

Mentoring encourages personal and professional goal-setting. The mentor and the mentee have massively different roles. Many organizations find mentoring as a useful way to integrate new workers into the organization as seamlessly as possible. However, these efforts need to be much more than an onboarding tool. You can create an open, inviting culture that emboldens all workers to contribute their ideas for improving the organization and the individual through focused self-development through mentoring. A team member generates ideas and shares knowledge while building personal and organizational success.

Peer Coaching Creates A Better Work Environment

People who regularly engage in peer coaching are:

• 73 percent more likely to report feeling a sense of belonging at work
• 67 percent more likely to report being a top performer
• 65 percent more likely to feel fulfilled at work
• 50 percent more likely to stay in their jobs for more than five years

However, you must get a few crucial steps right for these programs to be as successful.

Make Peer Coaching A Priority

Encourage and expect your direct reports to set aside one hour each week to engage in a single, uninterrupted session with a peer coach.

It is best to avoid pairings individuals in a direct chain of command. The coaching gets blurred with direction. Peers do not need to be at the same level in the organization, be in the same department, or have the same amount of seniority. Having different experiences and skillsets and working in various departments is helpful. Participants approach this type of conversation differently, offering new ways to help each other reflect and consider their next steps.

So, invite staff to become a peer volunteer. Create a running list of peer coaches. Team members can easily reach out to anyone on the list and schedule a time to talk.

Peer coaches need to have a clear understanding of how to spend the time. Here are a few ground rules:

• participants need to be on equal footing with each other during the discussion
• set up pairs who do not report to each other within a hierarchy — avoid the power dynamics of a manager-report relationship into peer coaching
• each person speaks and listens to the other person an equal amount of time

Encourage Positivity

Keep a running list of open-end discussion questions. The participants can open the session by asking their fellow coach something like,

• “What has your working from home helped you appreciate about your work or your life?”
• “In the past week, what have you found inspiring in your work?”
• “What do you think of the article I sent you?” (This approach may be the right way to start for those who are reluctant to open up. I posted an insight, How to Master Remote Meetings and Build Team Spirit. Try the approach using this article.)

This discussion is especially impactful amid this lockdown. Encourage participants in peer coaching to start their conversations with positivity. It helps your team members have conversations to find purpose in their work. Having purpose at work is key to helping reduce stress.

Model The Behaviour

You will gain a great deal from peer coaching. As a leader, you often face challenges that are difficult to navigate. Your fellow leaders can often best supply support. Peer coaching between colleagues provides support that might not be possible from other people, like your boss. So, set an example by building time for peer coaching into your schedule, too. Moreover, tell your teams about it.

Peer coaching offers opportunities to develop crucial leadership skills. These competencies include problem-solving, empathy, collaboration, and an aspiration to recover. These are essential skills — ones that will strengthen you and your business for years to come and help you manage through times of uncertainty in the future.

Concluding Thoughts

It is not business as usual. Do not wait for your organization to set up peer coaching.  Find a colleague to try it out. Expand your group. Then share your success with your team. True leadership emerges.