Purpose-led programme design
Defined participants, intended benefit, practitioner requirements, access and support arrangements.
04Talent Development
Coaching and Mentoring Framework
Match developmental relationships to a clear need and help learning reach the workplace.
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Clear reasons for each relationship
Agreed roles and boundaries
Learning connected to workplace practice
CCF6A Workplace Coaching and MENTOR
Start with your situation
When this framework helps.
- Coaching or mentoring relationships begin without a shared purpose.
- Participants need help applying insights to work.
- An organisation wants consistent matching, support and programme oversight.
The decisions it supports
- Does the need call for coaching, mentoring or a different form of support?
- What should participants, practitioners, managers and sponsors agree?
- How will learning and workplace application be reviewed while respecting confidentiality?
The framework at a glance
6A Workplace Coaching and MENTOR
Support growth through purposeful conversations, guidance and shared learning.
Explore the complete model
The approach
Give the relationship a purpose and the programme a working system
HR Delivery helps organisations design coaching and mentoring around a clear workforce purpose, capable practitioners, fair access and practical application. Connect developmental conversations to the work people need to do, with clear boundaries and credible evidence of progress.
This page brings together two distinct approaches: the 6A Workplace Coaching System and the MENTOR workplace mentoring architecture, supported by BRIDGE and RELATE.
Explore the frameworks. Discuss your coaching or mentoring priorities.
Coaching can generate valuable insight that never reaches the workplace. Mentoring can create enthusiastic matches that lose direction once the launch event ends. Both require more than good intentions: participants need preparation, appropriate support, opportunities to apply learning and a safe way to raise concerns.
HR Delivery connects organisational purpose, programme design and relationship practice. The result is a clearer decision about where coaching or mentoring can help, what the organisation must provide and how progress will be judged.
Coaching supports reflection, informed choices, experimentation and work-related change within an agreed developmental partnership. Mentoring enables learning through experience, advice, challenge and developmental connections. Select the approach around the need and make its purpose explicit to everyone involved. A person exploring how to change their own behaviour may need coaching; someone learning to navigate an unfamiliar professional context may benefit from a mentor’s experience. A missing technical skill may instead require instruction and supervised practice.
What you can take forward
Useful work. Clear next steps.
Relationship agreements
Clear goals, roles, confidentiality boundaries, review points and a route to resolve an unsuitable match.
Workplace application plan
Practical experiments or developmental experiences, with proportionate evidence of learning and use.
CCF · In practice
Coaching through the 6A Workplace Coaching System
The 6A system works at three levels. The organisation decides why coaching is needed and who can access it. Programme leaders arrange suitable practitioners and support. Each coaching relationship agrees its goals, boundaries and opportunities to apply learning. The six stages connect these responsibilities so the participant is supported beyond the conversation itself.
Align
Connect coaching to strategic priorities, critical capabilities and workforce risks. Test whether it is an appropriate response to an evidenced need. The strategic coaching charter and strategy-to-behaviour chain explain the intended contribution and why coaching is suitable.
Agree
Establish a clear contract among coachee, coach, sponsor and programme owner. Agree purpose, responsibilities, confidentiality limits, information sharing and exit routes. The four-way contract protects the developmental relationship while making legitimate organisational expectations visible. Specify what the sponsor will receive, such as agreed progress information, and what stays within sessions. Resolve conflicting expectations before work begins.
Assess
Explore strengths, readiness, role context, goals and systemic constraints through proportionate evidence. A person-role-system map and relevant baseline help focus the work. Evidence should be sufficient to act without over-testing, stereotyping or implying certainty it cannot support.
Activate
Use skilled dialogue to develop awareness, alternatives, choice and accountable action. Establish a session purpose and help the coachee consider options. The practical test is whether the conversation helps the coachee make informed choices while staying within competence and agreed boundaries.
Apply
Translate insight into workplace experiments, practice, feedback and habits. Agree cues for action and the stakeholder support needed to make change possible. Observe whether behaviour is changing in the actual working environment and adjust when barriers emerge.
Assure
Review goals, relationship quality, behavioural evidence and contribution. Supervise practice, protect ethical boundaries and decide what should scale, adapt or stop. Assurance runs throughout the relationship and programme, rather than waiting until the final session.
Six enabling conditions support every stage: Strategic sponsorship; Coach capability; Culture and manager ecosystem; Equity and access; Data and technology; Governance and improvement. The overarching quality lens is Ethical, Useful, Applied and Evidenced.
Conversation approaches such as GROW, CLEAR, OSKAR or PRACTICE can support Activate and Apply. They remain choices within the wider organisational system.
CCF · In practice
Mentoring through MENTOR, BRIDGE and RELATE
Mentoring has its own architecture. MENTOR governs the organisational operating system. BRIDGE defines the purpose of the portfolio. RELATE guides relationship practice. Keeping these three levels distinct helps organisations connect strategic intent to the experience of each mentor and mentee.
MENTOR organisational operating system
- Mandate & Mobilise: define the need, alternatives, sponsor, value case and decision rights. The Strategic Licence gate confirms a justified purpose and ownership.
- Evidence & Engineer: diagnose needs and barriers, design the portfolio, establish a baseline and specify safeguards. Design Integrity tests whether the programme is ready for its intended population.
- Nominate & Match: recruit, assess and match through fair, explainable human judgement. Fair Allocation examines access and the basis of matching decisions.
- Train & Contract: prepare participants and agree goals, boundaries, support and confidentiality limits. Launch Readiness confirms that relationships can begin responsibly.
- Operate & Assure: support live relationships, monitor health and intervene early when needed. Live Assurance keeps programme responsibilities active after matching.
- Review & Renew: close relationships well, evaluate results and decide whether to scale, adapt, pause or stop. Renewal turns experience into the next design decision.
BRIDGE portfolio purposes
Choose one primary purpose for each initiative: Business Capability; Role Transitions; Inclusion & Access; Development & Careers; Generational Knowledge; or Ecosystem & Engagement. Secondary benefits can be recognised, with their expectations governed explicitly. A knowledge-continuity programme needs different matching criteria and evidence from a programme focused on career access.
RELATE relationship practice
- Readiness & Rapport: prepare the relationship.
- Expectations & Ethics: establish its limits.
- Listen & Learn: explore context.
- Advise, Challenge & Connect: offer experience, options and networks.
- Translate into Action: turn learning into workplace experiments.
- Evaluate & Evolve: review, adapt and close the relationship.
CCF · In practice
Design the right route and support it in practice
HR Delivery can begin with a strategic diagnostic, review an existing programme or design a bounded pilot. The work examines intended outcomes, eligibility, participant needs, practitioner capability, organisational constraints and the support required for application.
Coaching design clarifies the appropriate delivery mode and the responsibilities at organisation, programme and engagement levels. Mentoring design selects the BRIDGE purpose, establishes recruitment and matching arrangements, and prepares mentors and mentees to use RELATE responsibly.
A pilot tests the full experience, including contracting, support, concerns, closure and evaluation. Scale depends on evidence of useful practice and manageable risks, with the design adapted to the organisation's circumstances.
From insight to action
Outputs that make the programme usable
The work can produce a strategic charter, defined participant population, programme design, eligibility and matching arrangements, role responsibilities and participant preparation. Coaching adds the four-way contract, contextual evidence, workplace experiments and transfer plans. Mentoring adds purpose-led portfolio design, relationship agreements, live-support arrangements and renewal decisions.
The source suites provide 88 coaching tools and 91 mentoring tools. Each practitioner resource supports its own model and decision points, with tools selected around the purpose and needs of the engagement.
CCF · In practice
Protect trust, fairness and professional boundaries
Employer funding does not give sponsors automatic access to session content. Agree what can be shared, with whom and for what purpose. A manager acting as coach also holds evaluation and reward authority; those limits must be clear.
Mentoring should preserve voluntary choice, inclusive access, human judgement, active support and safe exit. Participants need a route to raise concerns, request a change or end an unsuitable relationship without avoidable disadvantage.
Neither approach replaces appropriate management direction, technical instruction, formal investigation, therapy or a necessary performance-management process. Practitioners need competence, supervision and referral awareness. Use minimum necessary information and transparent safeguards for any digital or AI-supported workflow.
CCF · In practice
Evaluate application and contribution
Coaching evaluation follows the chain from insight and choice to behaviour, capability and contribution. Mentoring uses a balanced scorecard covering Reach, Equity, Fidelity, Experience, Learning, Application, Talent, and Strategic value and risk. In practice this asks who participates, whether access is fair, whether the intended design is delivered, how relationships are experienced, what is learned and applied, what talent-development evidence is available, and what strategic contribution or risk is evident.
Participation and satisfaction matter, but they do not establish improved performance or retention. Review the quality of the relationship and what changed in work, alongside contextual explanations and evidence limitations. Maturity reflection supports organisational development; it is not certification, a compliance audit or a validated personal assessment.
Your questions, answered
Frequently asked questions
Can one programme include coaching and mentoring?
Yes, where each intervention has a clear purpose, suitable practitioners and explicit boundaries. Retain the distinct models, contracts and evaluation logic so participants know what support they are receiving.
Does mentoring include sponsorship?
Advice and developmental connections may help a mentee, but sponsorship involves active advocacy and different expectations. Make any sponsorship role explicit rather than assuming it follows from a mentoring match.
What if a match or coaching relationship is not working?
Use the agreed concern, review and exit arrangements. Explore the issue safely, provide support and change or close the relationship when appropriate.
An illustrative application
Give developmental relationships a useful direction
Illustrative scenario.
The situation
A newly appointed team leader is struggling to delegate. They also want to understand how experienced leaders work across organisational boundaries. The sponsor proposes one mentoring programme to cover both needs.
Explore the evidence
Use 6A Align and Assess to examine delegation behaviour, role clarity and the manager’s support. Decide whether coaching is suitable for reflection and workplace experiments. Separately consider a BRIDGE Role Transitions mentoring purpose for learning from experienced leaders. Clarify any need for management instruction before assuming a developmental conversation will address it.
Agree the next step
Contract each relationship for its distinct purpose. Coaching might support a delegation experiment with clear authority and feedback; mentoring might use RELATE to explore stakeholder judgement and relevant connections. Agree workload, review points, concern routes and exactly what progress information the sponsor may receive.
Review what changes
Review observed application and the participant’s experience against the agreed goals. Distinguish improved delegation from broader contextual learning. Respect session confidentiality, address an unsuitable match and adjust or close support that is no longer useful.
Put the framework to work
Build a developmental system people can trust
HR Delivery can help you diagnose current practice, design a pilot, prepare practitioners and establish proportionate governance and evaluation.