What is Workplace Health Coaching?

Work is where most people spend a third of their waking lives.

Work is therefore a powerful determinant of health, and a strong lever for upgrading habits, performance, interpersonal skills, and culture.

Professional coaching has long been used in workplaces to improve leadership, and fast track the development of personal and professional skills. Designed to empower individuals and teams to identify and address barriers to performance and productivity, traditional leadership or performance coaching has been a very effective tool - but is not without its limitations.

First, professional workplace coaching misses the one factor that underpins every element of human performance: health.

Secondly, coaching in itself assumes each individual is 100% responsible for their decisions. Whilst at the outset, this appears to be true, it’s actually not the case. In life and at work (perhaps especially at work), external systems and structures shape and influence decision making. This might include organisational policies and procedures; the availability of resources; and workplace or societal norms and expectations.

In an era where burnout is at epidemic levels, and up to 50% of the working population have at at least one chronic health condition they have to manage (1) (as well as all the female workers who have to juggle the effects of perimenopause / menopause) - health, and health self management becomes cornerstone to every element of work.

So we decided to do something about it.

Ad: We’ve designed a unique hybrid of workplace health coaching and regenerative organisational frameworks

What workplace health coaching is... and what it’s not

Professional coaching is a thought-partnering process that uses creative, reflective conversation, to maximise personal and professional potential (2). Professional coaching is not advice-giving, counselling or therapy, but a structured conversation that empowers individuals to safely self-select and address challenges that are important to them, and in doing so, develop lifelong strategies to problem solve and self-manage, as opposed to continually rely on external advice and support.

In short: coaches don’t diagnose, prescribe, or ‘fix’ issues - they empower.

Coaches create the conditions for people to identify and decide what they need to work on (i.e. discover what’s truly pressing for them in any given situation), and then create, implement and be accountable to the changes they need to make in order to achieve the outcome they desire.

Health (or wellbeing) coaching, as the name suggests, uses the coaching process to enable individuals to address health-related challenges such as those relating to sleep, stress, nutrition, physical activity, substance abuse, or the self-management of health conditions or life stages, to improve ongoing health and wellbeing (3).

Workplace health coaching - a unique hybrid of health and professional coaching blends evidence-based coaching with health and professional development education to empower individuals and teams to make sustainable shifts in how they work, lead, and live.

The Kinwork model of workplace health coaching also goes one step further. Kinwork workplace health coaching doesn’t just strive to empower individuals and teams in wellbeing and performance, but also recognises the missions, goals and systems inherent to the organisation itself.

Our model is simple. We coach individuals, but also consider the external factors that may shape their decisions.

Trying to improve sleep? Sleep and sleep opportunity will be impacted by diet and lifestyle factors, but also commute times and scheduled hours of work.

Trying to manage stress? This again will be influenced by personality type, neurodiversity, and lifestyle, but also by work demands, work relationships, supervisory styles, work culture, and the natural cycles inherent to the organisation itself.

Such structures are often outside of a worker’s control, yet deeply influence day to day habits and decision making (4).

By considering the wider organisational context, the Kinwork workplace health coaching model provides new meaning and insights, empowering individuals and organisations by providing insight into how daily decisions and habits are being moulded.

The end goal? Workers who actively pursue health related goals that includes meaningful, productive work, and organisations that can gain greater understanding in how to structure and manage work itself to promote health, productivity, sustainability and purpose.

Why bring health coaching into the workplace?

Whilst an emerging technique, across industries, workplace coaching has been associated with improvements in learning, performance, goal attainment, and psychological wellbeing, with effects moderated by factors like coach qualifications, coaching format, and achievement of goal clarity (5).

• Workplace health coaching has been used to:
• Improve physical activity for sedentary employees (6)
• Improve sleep hygiene and wellbeing (7)
• Address irrational career beliefs and deviant workplace behaviour (8)
• Raise awareness of personal and work related challenges, and change mindsets toward those challenges (9)
• Reduce burnout and work related exhaustion (10)

More broadly, preventive and rehabilitative health-coaching interventions have demonstrated sustainable behaviour change and improvements in clinical risk factors over time, noting that coaching quality does matter (12). (Takeaway? Do not engage with just anyone to be a workplace health coach).

Bottom line: well-designed coaching - aligned to industry, standards, scoped appropriately, and integrated with individuals and workplace systems - works.

What happens in a coaching engagement?

An ICF aligned workplace health coaching session  follows a structured yet flexible flow designed to help the client explore their health and work goals, build awareness, and take meaningful action.

Here’s a concise overview of what typically happens:

1.   Establishing Partnership and Focus

• The coach greets the client, checks in, and clarifies how they’d like to use the session.
• Together, they agree on a specific session goal or focus area, ensuring it aligns with the client’s broader vision and values.

2.     Exploring and Deepening Awareness

• The coach uses open, curious questions and reflective listening to help the client explore their motivations, strengths, obstacles, and current reality.
• The coach may help the client connect body, mind, behaviour and the environment, but avoids giving unsolicited advice.

3.     Goal Setting and Strategy Development

• The client identifies what success would look like for the session.
• The coach supports the client in exploring options, choosing an approach, and committing to specific, realistic next steps.

4.     Accountability and Closing

• The session ends with the client summarising key insights and their chosen actions.
• The coach confirms accountability structures (e.g., self-check-ins or follow-up sessions) and acknowledges the client’s strengths.

Throughout, the coach maintains presence, evokes awareness, and facilitates client-led decision making, in line with International Coaching Federation core competencies and a client centred, non directive approach.

Each coaching session is structured to build self-efficacy, deepen reflective capacity, and develop practical skills such as boundary-setting, recovery, task design, and values-aligned decision-making.

Where coaching fits with OHS and leadership

Coaching doesn’t substitute for risk controls or legal duties; it helps people implement them. When organisations are improving workload design, heat-stress protocols, menopause supports, or return-to-work pathways, coaching accelerates uptake and staying power by translating policies into daily behaviours and team norms under a recognised healthy-workplace model.

The World Health Organization’s Healthy Workplaces model strives for workplaces as collaborative systems that continuously improve to protect and promote health, safety, wellbeing, and organisational sustainability (11). Workplace health coaching is effectively positioned to operationalise this model at the human level - turning policy and programs into individual resilience, actionable daily habits and best practice leadership practices.

When to use workplace health coaching

• Leadership & culture: building psychologically safe, regenerative teams; leading through change (5).
• Recovery & return-to-work: sustaining self-management strategies and work design adjustments alongside clinical care (12)
• Prevention & performance: stress mastery, sleep, movement, fatigue risk, focus, habit formation, and energy-aware scheduling - embedded in real roles and rosters (11).

Getting started

Whether you’re a founder, HR leader, or clinical/OHS partner, we can run targeted 1:1 or small-group programs aligned to your priorities (e.g., new-supervisor capability, complex RTW, support for high-stress teams). If you’re exploring coach training, our certification pathway is also in development - join the waitlist to be among Australia’s first certified workplace health coaches.

References

1. (ABS), A. B. o. S. (2022). Health conditions prevalence: Key findings on long-term health conditions and chronic conditions, and prevalence in Australia. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-and-risks/health-conditions-prevalence/2022

2. International Coaching Federation (2025) - What is Coaching? https://coachingfederation.org/get-coaching/coaching-for-me/what-is-coaching/

3. Dejonghe, L. A. L., Biallas, B., McKee, L., Rudolf, K., Froböse, I., & Schaller, A. (2019). Expectations Regarding Workplace Health Coaching: A Qualitative Study With Stakeholders. AAOHN journal, 67(7), 317-325. https://doi.org/10.1177/2165079919836682

4. Torres, G., Mukoma, G., Neophytou, N., & Gradidge, P. J.-L. (2023). Employee perceptions of an established health and wellness coaching program to improve behavior. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 65(8), e571-e577. https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000002905

5. Cannon-Bowers, J. A., Bowers, C. A., Carlson, C. E., Doherty, S. L., Evans, J., & Hall, J. (2023). Workplace coaching: a meta-analysis and recommendations for advancing the science of coaching [Systematic Review]. Frontiers in psychology, Volume 14 - 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1204166

6. Gawlik, A., Lüdemann, J., Neuhausen, A., Zepp, C., Vitinius, F., & Kleinert, J. (2023). A Systematic Review of Workplace Physical Activity Coaching. Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 33(3), 550-569. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-023-10093-8

7. Röttger, S., Maier, J., Krex-Brinkmann, L., Kowalski, J., Danker-Hopfe, H., Sauter, C., & Stein, M. (2017). The benefits of sleep coaching in workplace health promotion. Journal of Public Health, 25(6), 685-691. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-017-0826-z 

8. Ekwueme, H. U., Ede, M. O., Eze, E. C., Mezieobi, D. I., Aroh, P. N., Oneli, J. O., Nweke, P. O., & Enyi, C. (2023). Impact of occupational health coaching on irrational career beliefs and workplace deviant behaviors among school employees: Implications for Educational administrative policy. Medicine (Baltimore), 102(22), e33685-e33685. https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000033685 

9. Hofer, K., Jennetten, B., Hauer, B., & Strempfl, A. (2016). Workplace health promotion through health coaching on styrian farms: outcomes from project evaluation. European journal of public health, 26(suppl_1). https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckw166.014

10. L’Engle, K., Trejo, E., & Coutinho, A. J. (2025). Digital Coaching to Address Health, Wellness, and Burnout Among Healthcare Workers: Pilot Study Results. AAOHN journal, 73(6), 300-309. https://doi.org/10.1177/21650799241291874

11. (WHO), W. H. O. (2010). Healthy workplaces: a model for action. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241599313?

12. Dejonghe, L. A. L., Becker, J., Froboese, I., & Schaller, A. (2017). Long-term effectiveness of health coaching in rehabilitation and prevention: A systematic review. Patient Education and Counseling, 100(9), 1643-1653. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2017.04.012