Learn through others

Coaching is a powerful developmental technique that uses intentional conversations between you and a coach to help you grow your self-awareness, find solutions to personal and professional challenges and work towards your goals.

We offer our staff different opportunities for personal, one-to-one coaching conversations.

Career coaching appointments

You can make appointments to speak 1:1 with a career development specialist to help you move forward with their career goals or consider alternative paths.

Staff Coaching Service

Additionally, our internal Staff Coaching Service offer a formal coaching provision for:

• Senior leaders and managers from around the University
• Researchers on Pathway 2 contracts
• Staff about to embark upon or return from maternity, adoption, paternity and partner (MAPP) leave.   

UPDATE: We are currently updating our staff mentoring offer for 2025/26 to enable as many people as possible to access mentoring. Please keep an eye on the People Development and Bristol Clear bulletins (sent to inboxes) and this SharePoint site for updates as they arise, including launch information. In the meantime, if you're interested in mentoring someone in 2025/26 as a new or returning mentor, please contact  uob-mentoring@bristol.ac.uk for further information.

You can find out more about the different staff mentoring schemes from 2024/25 using the links below. 

• Bristol Women's Mentoring Network: annual, whole-institution matching scheme for those who identify as women, inclusive of cisgender women, trans women and non-binary people, with a career or leadership focus.  
• Bristol Clear mentoring scheme: a career-focused scheme for academics which matches mentors and mentees across School and Faculty boundaries to help mentees gain improved clarity and fresh perspectives on their career.
• Local and pilot schemes: Find information about pilot schemes and some local schemes operated within Schools, Faculties and Divisions where known.  . 

Learning from and sharing knowledge with your professional peers can be one of the most powerful forms of work-based learning and development within a large organisation.

You can join one of the University's many learning communities which bring together peers in similar roles from across the University to help you share knowledge, insights and skills. Some examples include:

• Research Professionals Network
• Communications and Marketing Network
• Executive Support Network
• School Managers group
• Heads of School forum

The People Development team can also support staff or teams who wish to set up their own mentoring schemes or new peer learning networks.