"You know, there's a saying that I love, which is when you heal your inner world, your outer world starts to change....For me, HR isn't just about policies and procedures. It is about people and meeting people where they are at. And when you've done that inner work, you can show up with more empathy, more clarity, more presence. And that's where the real transformation happens."

You don't have to be a freelancer to bring coaching into your workplace. Debbie Connors is a Senior HR professional and qualified coach. Debbie shares her experience of doing HR work with the benefit of her in-depth coach training and experience. Debbie explains the work of an HR professional and how adopting a coaching approach changed the way she works and its impact and results. 

Through three top coaching skills Debbie explores the practice of "presence," how to get into a place of being able to listen deeply, and developing the attitude of curiosity over judgement. For other coaching professionals, Debbie shares some key learnings from her own journey as a coach and how she has come to see coaching as an action of co-creation.

"Coaching is co-creation. It's a kind of one plus one equals three. There's me, there's the client, and then there's the magic that happens in the space between us.”

What will you be doing at 10 o'clock tomorrow?

Will you be caring for someone studying, fulfilling your vocation in a voluntary capacity, relaxing or working?

And if you are in a job, how do you feel about it?

How do you feel about where you are now, and the direction of travel your career is taking you?

There are various reasons why we might want to stop and take stock of where we are in our job or career reasons. There’s the threat of a burning platform. The road you are standing on is about to be engulfed by redundancy or business reorganisation. 

Or perhaps you are at a crossroads. A new work opportunity has opened up which is, in itself, attractive. But if you pursue that opportunity you create challenges in other areas such as with your family or location.

Or maybe you feel more like you are at a roadblock. You can’t see where your career is going, you feel like you’re outgrowing your job, or you don’t have the opportunity to use the many skills and talents you have developed.

What do you do in these taking stock moments?

Geoff's guest today is leadership and career coach Meg Burton. With Meg we explore these questions, and how Meg works with clients to address them. We draw on her combined expertise of career mentoring approaches developed in various corporate environments, and her broad and deep expertise in coaching underpinned by extensive training. Join me as, with Meg, I work through a practical exercise illustrating a way of engaging with, and moving on from, your own taking stock career moment.

To find out more about Meg’s work as a career coach, you can contact her at her Meg Burton Coach. For organisations looking for Organisational Development, Leadership Development Facilitation, Training Workshops and coaching - for teams and individuals - contact Meg or the wider team at Cube Learning and Development.

Join Heather Simpson in conversation with Geoff Ashton as they review a four year coaching programme developed to support primary care workers in the face of the Covid crisis. Discover how Heather and her team rapidly developed a coaching offer tailored to the diverse needs of primary care workers in England, and further developed this as the pandemic unfolded. Learn about the new and demanding challenges that the coaches on the programme faced, how they responded, and the impact of the support structures that Heather put in place. 

Through tens of thousands of coaching intervention, the programme provided high impact and sustainable results for the workers who engaged with it and has influenced the development of further coaching interventions for the NHS in England.

Heather shares details of the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the programme. See details below for newly published evaluation in the June 2025 edition of the International Journal of Human Resource Development: Practice, Policy and Research

Go to LinkedIn for more information about Heather’s work as a coach, supervisor, therapist and organisational development practitioner with over 30 years of experience across Health and Care and broader sectors. You can contact Heather via [email protected].

The podcast is brought to you by Coaching York, a community of coaches serving the communities of York, the counties of Yorkshire and beyond. For more details of our offers and services go to coachingyork.co.uk

Evaluation

Carter, A., Mason, B. & Bajorek, Z. (2025). Effectiveness of an Employee Wellbeing Coaching Programme Delivered Across Primary Healthcare in England. International Journal of Human Resource Development: Practice, Policy and Research, 9(1), 2025. 5-18. https://doi.org/10.2478/ijhrd-2025-0002

Origin stories. You will be familiar with the genre - it’s the story or account of how a character or a group, came into being. 

• What happened that brought them about? 
• How did they get their superpowers? 
• What are their unique or enduring characteristics? 
• What was it about their origin, that contributes to their legacy?

So what about Coaching York? What’s our origin story? 

Peter Lumley is the founder member of Coaching York, in whose company we will will discover:
Peter’s background and the frustrations that motivated him to embrace and promote coaching, some of the key players in the formation of Coaching York, its foundational vision, the challenges of working with dynamic volunteers, and the importance of International Coaching Week in the life and development of Coaching York. 

We end with reflections on Coaching York’s enduring legacy and Peter’s call to us all to embrace the art of better conversations.

The podcast is brought to you by Coaching York, a community of coaches serving the communities of York, the counties of Yorkshire and beyond. 

For more details of our offers and services go to coachingyork.co.uk