These are two individuals who need professional coaching or mentoring. Consider which approach would be most effective for each case.

Joaquin aspires to become a manager in the organization. He is currently in the very early stages of his career as a financial management professional at CapraTek. He is struggling with understanding what he could do to achieve his dream of becoming an executive at the company years from now, or possibly for one of CapraTek's competitors.

Steve is a Baby Boomer who had worked at CapraTek, retired, and was offered the opportunity to return to the company because he possessed a very specific biotech background that was in high demand in the competitive landscape. Now that he is back and has made some very significant contributions to the company's biotech projects, he would like to work in human resources, as he wants to make his new career about people.

The HR business partner that you support as part of the learning and development office for CapraTek has asked you to make a recommendation for each of the individuals above to begin a mentoring or coaching process within the company.

For the two scenarios described above, please prepare a 2-3 page recommendation for HR leadership in an internal memo.

Select and explain whether mentoring or coaching would be the better approach to support each employee's professional development needs. Describe the nature of mentoring OR coaching best practices, relevant to each individual. Evaluate the benefit to the organization from each individual's mentoring or coaching program. Develop a communication strategy to inform the direct managers and their employees about the decision to initiate the mentoring OR coaching process.