Should a Professional Sports Coach be excluded from a Psychological Safe Workplace?

Should a Professional Sports Coach be excluded from a Psychological Safe Workplace?

Ive been wanting to share my personal views on this for years but feared people calling my personal views out as being weak so Ive always refrained from sharing my views.

I finally decided to share my views on this subject for I feel if I don’t raise this I will always regret it. 

In a time where on average nine (9) Australians are taking their own life every day, as an organisation and community we should be looking out for and supporting all of those around us.

Each year I see Professional Sports Coaches having to justify their performance and positions as a result of their team not performing so well. Whilst I understand all too well in business that the buck stops with the leader, I keep wondering if we have the coaches Mental Health & Wellbeing in our best interest as a valued employee of a 21st Century Professional Sporting Organisation or are we excluding the coach from how we currently support the playing groups mental health and wellbeing?

There is a accepted practice that we allow our Professional Sports Coaches to be placed under public scrutiny about their performance and position in a club by being interviewed via media platforms such a television networks and streaming networks. During these interviews, coaches are looking broken, defeated and clearly under high levels of mental duress which is being watched by millions of people across Australia and on some media platforms throughout the world. 

Lets not forget the flow-on effect to their family. The partner and kids are watching their husband, father, wife, mother, partner etc. being verbally questioned on national television as to how poor they have performed and being asked whether they will be standing down. 

It doesn’t seem to matter what sporting code you work under, whether you're in AFL, NRL, Cricket or Soccer, amongst many others. If you're a coach working within these sporting codes, it appears to be an acceptable practice and part of the coaches role to be publicly celebrated for their success (wins) and publicly ridiculed for losses (non-performance). Whilst I understand that the coach has a responsibility to communicate to their members the wins and losses, I don’t understand why a coach has to sit there and be repeatedly asked about their personal poor performance and in some cases asked whether they will be stepping down.

So, 

• Does being handed to the media to be publicly shamed meet the standards on how we treat people in todays society?
• Is this a workplace that supports Psychosocial Safety?
• Is this supporting an employees Mental Health & Wellbeing?
• Is it an unwritten expectation that an Professional Sports Coach will be expected to answer to their role performance and whether they should stand down on National Television?
• Does earning a high-end salary void their right to working within a Psychological Safe Workplace?

It is the easy option to not question what has been done for decades and simply accept that “it comes with the job” however I believe change needs to happen. Yes under licensed agreements with media platforms they have an obligation to have these press conferences and the clubs commit to the community and corporate members to communicate why a teams performance has been below standard however Im not too sure that we need to continue to belittle a coach on national television by questioning thier personal performance and their exsistance in the role. This is for the Sporting Organisations to have such conversations and performance reviews.

Imagine that your working at your current workplace and you haven’t met one or more of your assigned KPI’s. Now imagine that your employer organises for a press conference where you will be expected to answer to why you haven’t performed and that you need to justify as to why you should keep your job publicly. Another scenario would be having you share your poor performance with the businesses shareholders.

I know that this would be an unrealistic scenario for the majority of us in Australia for it is a given expectation that as employees we are treated in a workplace with respect, fairness and equality whilst maintaining a Psychological Safe work environment. 

The question that I have been asking myself for years whilst watching these coaches being scrutinised publicly, WHY IS THIS STILL OK? 

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