Chapter 2: Suggested Actions

  • Discover the values and motivations women coaches in your organisation have. One on one conversations, focus groups and questionnaires can all support this action.
  • Discover the barriers and challenges that women coaches in your organisation experience. One on oneconversations, focus groups and questionnaires can all support this action.
  • Set up a Women in Coaching page on your sports website to tell stories and promote female coaches.
  • Use the questions suggested in this toolkit to examine the culture of your sport. This is an exercise that your Women in Coaching Working Group (if set up) might complete.
  • Ensure your sport has a visible Coaching Pathway graphic that visually shows females on it so that it is explicit that women coaches are welcome in your sport.
  • Promote women coaches in your sport to create role models and inspire others to coach. E.g. through short interviews and videos.
  • Utilise existing promotional opportunities by ensuring gender balance (i.e. on podcasts, interviews, on social media/website) so that women are highlighted.
  • Add images of women coaches to all coaching resources and all promotional material.
  • Develop club guidelines for recruiting women coaches using information in this toolkit to guide and advise clubs.
  • Host an information webinar for anyone interested in attending coaching courses. Ensure the host is friendly and alleviates any apprehension someone might have about signing up. Provide follow up contact details for someone to ask further questions, which they may have been too shy to do at the info session.
  • Look at how you advertise coaching courses, have you included enough information that ensures the coach knows exactly what to expect if attending?
  • Create a Communication Checklist using the information outlined in the toolkit when developing marketing material to promote coaching courses/workshops.
  • Commit to contacting all female attendees post-coaching course to follow up on their coaching journey.
  • Trial a women only workshop/course and gather feedback from participants to support future planning.
  • Put extra measures in place to try to ensure gender balance on mixed gender courses, e.g. targeted promotion to women.
  • Investigate if women do/don’t enjoy mixed-gender coaching events in your sport. What are the reasons if so? Is it the environment that is created during these events/coaching courses or how they might be treated by fellow attendees?
  • Put together a ‘Co-coaching Plan’ to share with clubs. This plan can be very simple and outline to clubs the concept of co-coaching, and encourage them to use it with their coaches.
  • Add the term ‘Co-coaching’ and ‘Assistant Coaches’ to modules or content on your coaching courses so that coaches become familiar with it as an option.
  • Put together a set of guidelines for clubs on how they can recruit more women coaches or invite back inactive coaches. Use some of the examples in this toolkit and from the Sport Ireland Women in Coaching Research Report.
  • Provide a subsidy for current players to do coaching courses at reduced costs to encourage/entice them to give coaching a go.
  • Encourage clubs to reduce membership rates for any current players who are also coaching.
  • Create a specific coaching programme for elite athletes in your sport to prepare them for transitioning into a coaching role post-retirement. Helping in any way counts. Have a list of things people can help with to ease them into the role of coach. For example, setting up the training area, administration, social media, gear repairs, helping during asession, planning sessions and task creation, mentor roles, etc.
  • Ensure your organisation has a transparent recruitment process in place whereby all application shortlisting, interviews and feedback stages have both women and men on the panel.
  • Women want details prior to applying for a coaching role or taking their first step into coaching. Put measures in place in your organisation to ensure this information is available and easily accessible to those interested.
  • With all job descriptions, provide contact details of someone whom women can contact to discuss the job and seek more information before applying.
  • Review and change your job descriptions and adverts to reduce gender bias.
  • Ensure women are present on all review and interview panels.
  • Introduce a gender policy that helps ensure women make the list of shortlisted candidates for interview. E.g. if five interviews are taking place, at least two females must be included.