Accordingly to the conducted surveys in the OECD countries, successful leadership and management are key drivers of employee engagement in the public service. Therefore OECD recommends using coaching and supervision sessions on the leadership and management skills of middle-level managers, as they will best help civil servants both understand their place and resources for work, as well as help them to better resolve stressful situations The objectives of this project are to respond to these recommendations, by developing a Coaching Toolkit (1st result) with clear instructions and tools which would be intended especially for public institutions and which would be ready-to-use by the top and middle managers within public bodies, and to create a Coaching Course (2nd result) for middle-level managers. Both results aim to enable public administration employees to use coaching in different situations in order to effectively address problems with productivity and work quality so that every manager can use them in practice, increasing work productivity and self-awareness. They will also increase the opportunity for any employee to self-educate and become more productive in their work. The direct target group of the project is senior, middle and low-level managers of public institutions, team leaders, project managers, specialists corresponding to middle managers. The indirect target group is:, employees of public institutions, civil servants. Before the project beginning more than 500 will participate in a massive Survey on the use of coaching in the public bodies, and the results of the Survey will help reach the objectives of the project. During the project implementation, more than 200 participants in 3 different countries - Latvia, Poland, and Greece will be involved in the different activities in the framework of the project: - 3 Transnational meetings; - 3 Short-term joint staff training events; - Course Pilot on the coaching techniques for one group; The project will last 22 months, and at the end, the following result ad impact are envisaged: - The development of the Coaching Toolkit with open access for everyone will offer new coaching content for the middle-level managers and civil servants aimed at improvement of their Management and Leadership competence, increasing their self-awareness. - The creation of the Coaching Course for Managers will increase motivation and satisfaction in the daily work of the public sector employees and trainers/coaches involved in the project activities and will allow implementing more strategic and integrated use of coaching tools and techniques in the professional education/training. - The Coaching Course will also create more digitally friendly training environment in all three partner organizations due to the delivery of a part of the Pilot course via online coaching sessions and meetings; - The production of the training course will also impact the availability of professional development and coaching events in all three partner organizations; - A pilot group of coaching will provide an understanding of the use of coaching tools in improving the managers’ work quality. - The pilot group participants will use the developed coaching tools, will monitor their results, and will whiteness changes in the quality of work performance, employee satisfaction and engagement as indicators to identify which tools are working and which need to be improved. It will help with the practical implementation of the next Pilot group and the course. - Individual and group performance evaluations of Policy planners’ and implementers’ and managers’ work increased in the following specific competencies: Interpersonal Effectiveness Competencies, Thinking and problem-solving competencies, Personal effectiveness competencies, Task and process management competencies, Leadership competencies.
Apart from the intellectual products - the Coaching Toolkit and the Training Course Curriculum plus the Course Pilot, the expected tangible and intangible results of the project were: - published a press-release with the results of the Survey for employees of state institutions on the coaching in public administration; - published press- release on the project results and the new coaching toolkit available online for free on the web-pages of all partner institutions. - developed a Curriculum for the Training Course on the coaching techniques and tools for senior, middle and low-level managers and employees of public institutions, civil servants. - realized the Course polite for 1 group of 12 participants – middle-level managers - in each partner organization country; - organized 1 Multiplier event – International conference (one per country) in order to advertise the innovative Coaching course and present the results of the Pilot group. - reinforced cooperation with partners from all 3 countries: Latvia, Poland, and Greece; - improved competences, linked to professional profiles (teaching, training, management, leadership) of the 4 organizations’ staff involved in the project; Upon the completion of the project the following results were expected: - created and implemented an innovative coaching approach to middle-level managers development in the matter of management, leadership, and self-awareness in all 4 partner countries public administration institutions; - improved management, training, coaching and leadership skills of the staff involved in the project; - improved competence of the English language using professional coaching and training terminology; - more digitally friendly training environment in all three partner organizations due to the delivery of a part of the Pilot course via online coaching sessions and meetings; - availability of professional development and coaching events in all three partner organizations; - trainers/coaches and participants of innovative coaching course are given the possibility to carry on and to undergo the course with blended learning approach (face-to-face + online); - increased motivation and satisfaction in the daily work of the public sector employees and trainers/coaches involved in the project activities; - implemented more strategic and integrated use of coaching tools and techniques in professional education/training;
According to the OECD Public Governance Review on the Skills for a High Performing Civil Service, there is a strong need for the development of a learning culture in the public sector, and the highest priorities fixed for the OECD countries in terms of learning and development are executive leadership development, coaching, and online learning. In order to achieve this goal, OECD recommends to the member states to use a different and wide range of tools, especially coaching, networking, mentoring and training for middle management. Coaching is widely used in the business environment, but public authorities are still skeptical about the use of coaching tools, believing that they are only training for specific skills. The development of an innovative Coaching Course, accompanied by the manual – a Toolkit for Middle-level managers of public administration with coaching techniques descriptions and tool instructions that can be applied and are ready-to-use in every-day work, would enable and motivate all level managers and also regular employees to use coaching in different situations. This will increase the opportunity for employees to self-educate and become more productive in their work, as well as create a very important internal culture of state institutions that would meet the requirements of the 21st century. This could make work in public institutions more prestigious and coveted in the future as a job, thus raising its prestige. The projects addressed the need of managers to acquire the necessary knowledge in order to: - create a highly efficient and dynamic work environment and motivating behavior that stimulates employee initiative; - help employees better understand the goals of the institution and also their goals. - make effective use of employee potential and increase employees’ productivity and as a result, improve the public service quality; The main task of the project was to combine the existing coaching tools with new coaching methods, which were intended especially for public institutions, to create and to propose training course and direct coaching in instructions in order to ensure the long-term development and improvement of the quality and productivity of the work of public institution employees, in particular of the senior, middle and low-level managers