Successful coaching relationships build employee engagement.
The key is to have a dialog with employees and get them really involved in their roles at your company. This will engage them into achieving the results needed for the organization.
In a recent coaching training class I conducted, an attendee asked, “Is coaching the new word for management?” The question reminded me of a continuum that used to appear in certain management courses that put “Managing” on one end of the continuum and “Leading” on the other end.
“Managing” included actions such as directing and ensuring procedures are followed, and is tied to a supervisory position; “Leading,” however, included actions such as inspiring and motivating. Coaching is typically seen as a leadership competency, and is not necessarily tied to a management or supervisory position.
When I hear the phrase “employee coaching,” it brings me back to the management development courses my company uses to train our clients’ managers. The courses focus on different types of coaching, but all emphasize the importance of engaging the employee to bring their work performance to the next level.
Coaching is not just giving directions or telling others what to do. It’s also inspiring action and motivating people to do and be the best they possibly can.
Mistakes I Commonly See:
- Directing versus Engaging—How much do you tell your employees what to do versus asking for ideas from them?
It’s really a balancing act. You might need to tell employees the purpose and importance of a task, but when you’re developing ideas or addressing concerns, you really want to engage the employees to find out what their ideas are for development.
- Allow your employees to have a say—Many employers don’t allow employees to have any influence on the decision or company goal that is being worked toward. However, employees will be a lot more productive and inspired if you acknowledge the value they have to the organization and enable them to determine how to reach that goal.
Steps to Effective Employee Coaching
Here are some steps you can take if you’re interested in practicing effective employee coaching in your workplace:
- Take a step back and identify some of the results that your employees want to achieve—Before telling an employee what they should want or making an assumption about what they want, ask them for their ideas first.
- Let them know what results you desire—Communicating what you expect to achieve is important because it will impact how engaged your employees are. This is when you really need to engage them in dialog about the results and how their contribution will impact the company.
- Addressing employee issues and concerns—It’s likely your employees are going to have issues and concerns, so hear them out. Share the big-picture perspective with them; then help draw out a workable solution from them.
- Give your employees parameters—Every project, every goal has parameters–a set of details that need to be followed. So be sure to communicate the parameters to employees, but then ask them, “Given these parameters, what ideas do you have for achieving results?” Then explore their ideas to determine how they are workable.
These steps should be a good starting point for coaching your employees.
In my next Insight, I’ll give an example of a time I helped a company with employee coaching.