Training combined with coaching can make a significant difference in job performance and satisfaction.

Coaching in organisations is often limited to high potential employees and varying levels of management for a specific duration of time, typically lasting six months. The Strategies for Enhancing Performance Initiative introduces a more simplified usage of coaching and one that has potential to address a much larger audience. The Strategies for Enhancing Performance Initiative began in 2003 and involved 115 workers in an experimental/control design. The purpose of the study was to identify, test and measure the most effective Performance Control Practices used in the workplace to increase performance while simultaneously mitigating the negative effects of stress. Participants took part in a 4-hour traditional classroom-based training programme, followed by one individual 30-minute phone coaching session with an external coach 3–4 weeks after the training programme. The results for the experimental group, when compared to the control group, showed a significant difference in their ability to identify solutions to issues that positively impacted their work to be done, their effectiveness when being criticised, their heightened ability to deal with changing priorities and more effectively dealing with tight deadlines and turning around assignments. The experimental group also showed an increased adeptness for articulating ideas more clearly and concisely when compared to the control group. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]