A Coaching Apprenticeship you say?

A Coaching Apprenticeship you say?

Written by Priyesh Mistry , Agile Delivery Lead

“Going back to school? Structured education? Whilst I’m trying to do a full time job? Errrm….no thanks!”

That was my initial thought process when given the opportunity to take on a Professional Coaching Apprenticeship whilst undertaking my day job of Agile Delivery Lead here at Dunelm. I was really keen to learn more about coaching and improve in this area, but thought I’d never get the time to give it my full attention whilst trying to ensure I didn’t drop the ball on all the deliveries the team I work with were responsible for.

After thinking it through and talking to various people, I realised the benefits were too great to turn down and so I joined the apprenticeship along with some of my Dunelm colleagues.

As an Agile Delivery Lead, coaching is a big part of the role. I have to coach the teams on improving their ways of working, agility and empower them to come up with their own solutions or experiments to solve the problems they have.

Therefore, to learn more about the theory of coaching people 1–2–1, the correct coaching practices, the various models that can help unlock different thinking, coaching stakeholders, leadership styles and the way we can track and measure how things are going — was only ever going to be positive to take my skills and knowledge in my role to a new level. Also, quite selfishly, it would enable me to coach and work with more people outside of my team.

The apprenticeship was 15 months and was a mixture of set assignments, virtual classrooms and working with a skills coach as well as real coaching of people, who I found myself, in order to practice the course content. All of this was leading to an end point assessment which consisted of 2 observed coaching sessions, an interview with an assessor and a multiple choice exam, of which the pass rate required was quite high.

You’re probably now expecting me to say my above concerns about not getting the time weren’t the case…however I want to be honest. Work was busy, life was busy and the theory and assignments on the course were immense and there were lots. The 20% time you were allocated (a day a week essentially) was getting eaten up with the day job and so I found myself spending many hours outside of work trying to keep up.

This is where it gets better though, as luckily I have a very supportive line manager who often asked me how it was going and if there was anything more she could do to support me. It was clear she had my back and wanted me to succeed. We worked together to work out ways we could unlock time during working hours and it worked a treat. Raising visibility to my team of what I was doing also helped me, as it gave them an appreciation of what I was trying to achieve. It was nice to know I had the support of those around me — but then that’s just the people of Dunelm!

I managed to complete and pass the apprenticeship with Distinction during the summer and it has helped me gain an accreditation with a recognised professional coaching body — the European Coaching and Mentoring Council (EMCC). However, more than this, it has increased my confidence and helped me step up a gear on the delivery side of my role, as it has improved my communication skills with those around me.

I’m extremely proud of myself for this achievement and am so glad that I took on this apprenticeship despite my initial reservations.

I guess the point of my ramblings is…if you get the opportunity to take on such an apprenticeship — I believe Dunelm offer a few — don’t hesitate. Yes it will probably be tough to do and you’ll probably be spending many hours on assignments and classes — it may even stress you out at times — but the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow will be so personally rewarding you won’t regret it — trust me!

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