Coaching, Mentoring, Volunteering and Work – What Works and What Doesn’t

This perspective piece provides an outline of how mentoring, rather than coaching, is prevalent in the voluntary sector and used as a tool to develop skills in volunteers. Mentoring, a voluntary activity, is chosen over coaching, usually a paid activity, and examples of developmental and peer mentoring programmes are outlined. The learning drawn from these examples at individual, team, and organization level are outlined and the need for a higher level of involvement by HRD professionals in the design and implementation of mentoring programmes is recommended.