Health coaching in the workplace: an emerging approach to whole-person health and wellbeing in the legal sector

The legal profession continues to grapple with high levels of stress, burnout and long-term health challenges. In response, many organisations have invested in wellbeing initiatives – from employee assistance programmes to mental health awareness training. These interventions matter, but there is growing recognition that supporting health at work requires more than signposting services. It requires leadership capability, everyday conversations, and systems that help people stay well and stay in work.

Health coaching is increasingly being explored in other sectors as part of wider shifts towards prevention and sustainable participation in work. For the legal profession, it may represent an under-used and largely untapped approach, raising questions about how and when the sector might wish to engage with this evolving area of practice.

Why health coaching, and why now?

Workplace health conversations are changing. Employers are being asked not only to respond to ill-health, but to play a more active role in prevention, retention and sustainable participation in work.

The recent Keep Britain Working review, led by Charlie Mayfield, highlights the scale of this challenge. It found that one in five working-age adults in the UK are now out of the labour force, with around 800,000 more people out of work for health reasons than in 2019. Ill-health that prevents work is estimated to cost the UK economy around £85 billion a year in sickness absence, turnover and lost productivity.

A key theme of the review is the importance of earlier, more personalised support that helps individuals manage health alongside work, rather than exiting employment altogether.

Against this backdrop, health coaching offers a structured way of supporting people before problems escalate, and of equipping leaders to have better health-related conversations.

What is health coaching (and what it isn’t)?

Health coaching is a rapidly growing profession. UK registered Health Coaches are regulated by a professional body, the UK & International Health Coaching Association, with robust professional standards for education and training, a clear scope of practice, and annual CPD requirements to clearly set them apart as safe trusted professionals.

Health coaching is not therapy, clinical treatment or performance management. At its core, it is a person-centred, non-directive approach to whole-person health and wellbeing that supports individuals to:

• explore their health in the context of their work and life
• identify what matters to them
• recognise strengths and resources
• consider realistic options
• agree achievable, self-directed actions

Importantly, health coaching does not tell people what to do. It works with where someone is now, taking account of their circumstances, constraints and priorities.

From wellbeing initiatives to leading for whole-health and wellbeing

One of the most promising applications of health coaching is not as a standalone service, but as a leadership capability. A health coaching-informed approach to leadership supports more open dialogue, earlier support and shared problem-solving around health and work.

This does not mean leaders becoming health coaches or delivering health coaching. In practice, health coaching is delivered by trained, registered and regulated practitioners and works alongside, and in collaboration with, existing support such as occupational health, HR processes and employee assistance programmes. A whole-health and wellbeing coaching-informed leadership approach supports earlier, more effective health conversations and appropriate signposting when concerns arise.

Training partners, managers and senior staff with a coaching-informed approach to health and wellbeing (for example, through leadership development or wellbeing training) can help move organisations from:

• reactive responses → early, preventative conversations
• generic policies → personalised support
• stigma and silence → openness and trust

This approach focuses on equipping leaders with the skills and confidence needed to support healthier dialogue, without extending their role into coaching.

How Registered Health Coaches support health and wellbeing at work

A coaching-informed approach helps leaders:

• Normalise conversations about health
  When health is discussed as part of everyday work, rather than only at crisis points, it becomes less threatening and less taboo.
• Reduce stigma associated with health conditions
  Health Coaching focuses on the person, not the diagnosis. This can help shift conversations away from labels and assumptions.
• Meet people where they are
  Individuals differ in readiness for change, confidence and capacity. A Health Coach respects this, rather than pushing a one-size-fits-all solution.
• Encourage open discussion
  Skilled questioning and active listening can create space for people to speak honestly about challenges they may otherwise conceal.
• Focus on strengths and options
  Rather than centring on limitations, coaching explores what is possible within current constraints.
• Support realistic, achievable action
  Small, self-chosen steps are more likely to be sustained than imposed plans.

Why this matters in law

Legal work is often characterised by high autonomy, strong professional identity and concern about perceived weakness. These factors can make it particularly difficult for individuals to disclose health concerns or ask for adjustments – making a strong case for providing access to an independent, Registered Health Coach.

A whole-health coaching-informed culture does not lower standards or expectations. Instead, it recognises that sustainable performance depends on whole-person health and wellbeing, and that people are more likely to stay engaged when they feel safe, understood and supported.

A strategic opportunity for law firms

Positioned thoughtfully, Registered Health Coaches can support wider organisational aims, including:

• retention of experienced staff
• reduced sickness absence and presenteeism
• improved engagement and trust
• leadership confidence in managing health-related issues
• alignment with emerging expectations around employer responsibility for prevention

For firms, the question may not be whether to “add another wellbeing initiative”, but how to embed health-supportive behaviours into everyday leadership practice.

Looking ahead

As policy discussions increasingly emphasise prevention, participation and collaboration to keep people in work, organisations will need practical ways to respond. Health coaching, particularly when used to inform leadership capability and everyday health conversations, offers one such approach.

Within the profession, some are already recognising the potential value of working with a Registered Health Coach and choosing to develop skills in this area alongside their existing capabilities. Firms that provide meaningful support for whole-health and wellbeing will be well placed to attract, retain and support their people over the longer term, and to respond to changing expectations around wellbeing at work.

Kate (Walmsley) Moran is a Senior Associate Costs Lawyer, a UKIHCA registered Health Coach, and a LawCare volunteer.