If you want your business to grow, you must help your employees grow. One of the most important aspects of being a manager is providing employee coaching. If you effectively coach employees’ performance, you help foster the success of the business and their success as professionals. Employee coaching prevents performance problems from escalating, builds stronger relationships within the company, and motivate employees to contribute to the best of their ability. To be able to provide coaching to your employees, you must gain a good understanding of their personality and working style as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Here are some effective employee coaching tips and techniques:
1) Set Clear Goals with Measurable Results
In order for your employees to do their jobs and contribute to the company effectively, they must know what you want. Communicate thoroughly to employees how they can help the company meet its objectives. For examples, if you are a retail store looking to produce a certain number of sales each month, decide how much each employee should be selling and what methods they can use to reach their goals. Find a system that allows you to keep track of how each employee is performing and what their level of progress is. Salesforce and Insightly are examples of good options for employee management software.
2) Provide positive and negative feedback
You may think that it’s your underperforming employees that need the most coaching, but you may get the best results from coaching your high performing employees to help them excel even more in their jobs. That’s why it’s important to offer employee coaching to all employees, and when doing so remember to recognize the parts of their job they are doing well. When you notice a performance problem in an employee, be as positive as possible in redirecting their efforts, and make sure not to humiliate them. Express your confidence that they can improve and offer your help. Also, one of the most important employee coaching techniques is to ask for their insight and ideas into why the problem is occurring and how it can be solved.
3) Show enthusiasm and motivate employees
One of the most important employee coaching tips starts with your performance as a manager. If you don’t show eagerness and devotion to your job and the company, your employees won’t be as encouraged or motivated. Be honest about ways you have had to improve in your own job, so employees will see that everyone is a work in progress.
4) Provide feedback on a regular basis
One of the most effective employee coaching techniques is not letting things go and addressing everything head on. Don’t wait for annual reviews to correct employee performance problems or express your appreciation for their achievements. Set up brief discussions with each employee on a quarterly or monthly basis. Make sure that each employees’ needs are met on a regular basis so they are not lacking the tools they need to do their job effectively.
5) Provide Continual Training and Career Development
Train employees on a regular basis, not just when they start their jobs. Giving them detailed instruction on new tasks as they come up will increase employees’ confidence in their ability to do their job. Statistics show that career development and training is one of the most important employee coaching tips. A recent Gallup poll found that 59% of millennials find opportunities to learn and grow to be important factors when applying for a job. Older workers weren’t too far behind, with 44% of Generation Xers and 41% of baby boomers feeling the same way about growth opportunities. Employees are happier and more engaged when they are continually learning new things and developing as professionals.
Author: Jessica Cody
Jessica Cody, a native of Fairfield County, Connecticut, has a background in online marketing and public relations. Currently, she works at VHMNetwork LLC in the role of Marketing Analyst. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, where she studied Journalism and Political Science. She is also an avid runner with a passion for the outdoors.
