Coaching Intelligence

Empower Coaching & Training will provide two live, interactive workshops for SHRM Southern Oregon members:

Workshop One

Boundary Intelligence: Creating Healthier Workplaces Through Healthy Boundaries

• One 2-hour session | November 2026

Workshop Two

Coaching Intelligence: Brain-Based Conversations for Accountability and Growth

• One 2-hour session | January 2027

Each workshop will include practical teaching, reflection, discussion, real-world application, and tools participants can immediately use in their HR roles.

**You do not have to attend both, however the content is meant to go together

January:

COACHING INTELLIGENCE: BRAIN-BASED CONVERSATIONS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AND GROWTH

Today's HR professionals are navigating increasingly complex workplace dynamics, supporting employees through stress, change, burnout, communication challenges, performance concerns, conflict, and emotional reactivity while also maintaining accountability, clarity, and organizational expectations.

Research in neuroscience and human behavior shows that people are more likely to engage in problem-solving, ownership, learning, and behavioral change when conversations reduce defensiveness and increase psychological safety, self-awareness, and cognitive flexibility. Coaching skills provide HR professionals with practical, evidence-informed communication tools that support these outcomes in real workplace conversations.

This interactive two-hour workshop introduces HR professionals to brain-based coaching approaches that strengthen communication, improve employee engagement, reduce escalation, and support more constructive workplace interactions.

Participants will learn practical coaching skills rooted in neuroscience, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and solution-focused communication, including active listening, curiosity, reflective questioning, strengths-based language, and emotionally intelligent responses that help employees think more clearly, regulate emotions, increase accountability, and access their own problem-solving capacity.

This workshop is not designed to turn HR professionals into therapists or internal life coaches. Instead, it equips participants with professional coaching tools that can be appropriately and ethically integrated within HR conversations to support both employee well-being and workplace accountability.

The session emphasizes practical application, realistic workplace scenarios, and immediately usable communication strategies that help HR professionals move conversations from resistance and reactivity toward clarity, ownership, collaboration, and forward movement.

Participant Outcomes

Participants will:

• Understand the neuroscience behind defensiveness, emotional regulation, stress responses, and behavior change in workplace conversations.
• Explore how coaching skills can strengthen communication, trust, accountability, and employee engagement within an HR role.
• Apply active listening, curiosity, and reflective communication techniques that reduce reactivity and support productive dialogue.
• Use solution-focused and strengths-based questions to help employees identify options, ownership, accountability, and next steps.
• Recognize when to coach, when to clarify expectations, and when situations require referral, escalation, or formal HR processes.
• Strengthen their ability to support employees without over-functioning, rescuing, or taking responsibility for employee outcomes.
• Use brain-based communication tools that foster psychological safety while maintaining professional standards and workplace expectations.
• Increase confidence in navigating difficult conversations with calm, clarity, compassion, and accountability.