Developing internal coaching capability across Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) wanted to make coaching more widely available across the Trust, giving staff access to support regardless of their role or level.

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Coaching was already used within day-to-day practice, appraisal conversations and management development. The Trust also had an existing internal coaching framework inherited from a former organisation. Over time, however, the available pool of coaches had reduced as people left the organisation or no longer had the capacity to coach alongside their main role.

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MFT recognised that creating a stronger coaching culture would require more than promoting coaching as a useful development tool. It needed to rebuild its internal capability, develop managers who could use coaching skills in everyday conversations and create a more practical way to manage coaching relationships across a large workforce.

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The Challenge

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MFT’s ambition was to create a coaching offer that could support staff development, wellbeing and performance across the Trust.

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The existing internal coaching pool provided a foundation, but it did not have enough capacity to meet the Trust’s wider ambitions. Coaches were managing busy workloads, protected time was not always available and trainee coaches needed suitable coachees to complete their coaching practice.

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There were also practical questions about how to expand the offer without losing quality or creating a significant administrative burden.

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The main challenges included:

• Rebuilding a depleted internal coaching pool
• Increasing access to coaching across different roles and disciplines
• Developing managers’ confidence in using coaching as part of everyday management
• Giving trainee coaches enough opportunities to practise
• Securing line manager support and protected time for coaching
• Maintaining a consistent experience as the programme grew
• Improving the way coaching requests, matches and evaluations were managed

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The challenge was not convincing MFT that coaching had value. It was creating enough internal capability and structure to provide it consistently at scale.

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Our Solution

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Mission Inc. worked with MFT to deliver coaching training as part of the Trust’s wider internal coaching offer, supporting its ambition to embed a coaching culture and build leadership capability at scale.

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The programme combined two levels of development.

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A one-day Line Manager as Coach workshop was made available to managers, helping them build the skills, knowledge and confidence to use coaching within normal management conversations. This was delivered through 40 cohorts, with capacity for up to 12 delegates per cohort.

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For staff who wanted to develop further as internal coaches, ILM Level 3 coaching programmes provided a more structured development route. In total, 20 ILM Level 3 cohorts were commissioned, supporting the development of MFT’s internal coaching pool. Entry was managed through an application process with line manager approval, helping MFT identify people who had both the interest and organisational support needed to contribute to the internal coaching offer.

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The wider approach also addressed some of the conditions required to make internal coaching work in practice.

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Coaching agreements helped set expectations between the coach, coachee and line manager. The Trust considered how supervision, continuing professional development and further skills development could support coach quality and commitment over time.

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The coaching offer was opened more widely to staff and a dedicated route was introduced for managing coaching requests. A digital coaching platform supported registration, matching and evaluation, allowing coachees to identify a suitable coach and coaches to accept or decline requests according to their capacity.

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This reduced some of the manual work involved in facilitating relationships and provided a basis for monitoring activity as the internal offer grew.

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The Outcome

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The programme helped MFT begin rebuilding its internal coaching capability and extend the availability of coaching across the Trust.

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Early qualitative feedback from people receiving coaching identified:

• Increased self-confidence
• Improved engagement and motivation
• Improved work performance
• Stronger working relationships
• More effective communication skills

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The programme also placed greater focus on staff wellbeing, connection and support. These were particularly important as MFT sought to help people manage workplace challenges, identify their own solutions and perform at their best.

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The work also highlighted some important lessons about providing coaching at scale.

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Training coaches is only one part of the solution. Internal coaches need time, line manager support and access to supervision. Organisations also need a clear process for recruitment, matching, evaluation and quality assurance. Without those conditions, an internal coaching pool can gradually lose capacity even when the original programme was well received.

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By combining accredited development, everyday coaching skills and a more structured way of managing coaching relationships, MFT created a stronger foundation from which to continue developing its coaching culture.

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If your organisation faces similar challenges around alignment, leadership or execution, get in touch with us to explore how we can help.

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_{Image attribution: CMFT Headquarters/ CMFT Comms / CC BY-SA 3.0}