What is employee coaching?
Coaching in the workplace is an incredible tool for managers when it comes to developing talent. As a leader, employee coaching involves actively mentoring and developing the skills of individuals on your team. Focus on building up your team’s knowledge and expertise in a specific domain of their job, like SEO or software architecture. You can also focus on coaching and developing soft skills like public speaking or building trust.
The importance of coaching in the workplace
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace found that when employees fill their growth and personal needs, they’re more attached to their work and workplace. This includes:
- In the last 6 months, an employee has discussed their progress with someone at work
- In the last year, an employee has had opportunities at work to learn and grow
Coaching in the workplace offers the opportunity to fulfill these needs in a way that benefits the organization by:
- Improving the talent, knowledge, and capabilities of the team
- Keeping employees engaged and motivated at work
- Building great relationships with managers and their teams
How to effectively coach your team
Although this can vary across departments and individuals, here are some general guidelines that leaders should keep top of mind when coaching their employees.
- Make feedback sharing part of your team’s culture. Don’t wait for quarterly or annual reviews to provide feedback, but rather do it on an ongoing basis.
- Encourage employees to seek feedback and coaching from you and others. This is a great opportunity to get well-rounded feedback and coaching for individuals on your team.
- Recognize employees. Along with growth and development, coaching is about recognizing an individual’s strengths too. When an employee does something worth recognizing, make the effort to let them know they did a great job.
- Ask what you can do to help. Make sure that you have an open-door policy when it comes to asking for help, bringing up challenges or roadblocks, and addressing any questions or concerns.
- Learn about what excites them. Instead of making assumptions about what areas excite your team, ask them straight up. If you’re able to, coach them on that specific topic, that’s great! Otherwise, try to make any appropriate connections to help get your direct report where they’d like to go.