Considering coaching for yourself and your staff, but wondering if it is an investment worth making? We look at how coaching can help managers and their teams to improve overall performance…
According to the Institute of Coaching, over 70% of those who receive coaching report improved work performance.
Sounds great doesn’t it? But how does this actually work?
Coaching allows for personal development, and this in turn results in a positive outcome for employees.
Coaching works in two ways. First, there are the personal benefits that coaching can bring – these include being able to establish goals and work towards them, and the ability to be more self-reliant.
Secondly, coaching can help you to take more responsibility for your actions and accept accountability for what you do – this can only be of benefit in the workplace.
When it comes to coaching within an organisation, this can achieve what sending employees on random courses cannot do. For example, imagine you have a member of staff who is struggling with low self-confidence. You choose to send them on an assertiveness course. When they come back, all seems well, they have learnt some new strategies for effective communication, which will certainly help their confidence – however, what the course has not dealt with are their internal struggles and thought processes.
Coaching is the answer
Helping your staff to increase their self-confidence will have numerous benefits. They will feel more comfortable in the workplace, feel able to bring their thoughts and ideas to the table, and more often than not, these are great ideas that they have just not had the confidence to present before.
Staff engagement is vital for a happy workforce. It ensures that you attract the right candidates when a position becomes available – it also ensures that you are able to keep your staff, ensuring that you hang on to well-trained and effective people, rather than losing them to another organisation. Coaching, resulting in improved self-confidence, assertiveness and in the long term, better performance, will ensure your staff are engaged in their work and in your company.
Coaching versus course
One of the benefits of coaching, as opposed to sending your workforce on a course – in addition to that highlighted above – is that the coaching can be devised or tailored for them alone. It means that the coach can identify what that particular team member’s sticking points are, and between them they can identify what needs to be improved in terms of performance.
The plan of action will be devised between the employee and coach – this way they will be invested in the plan for improvement because it will be bespoke for them and not a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Once a good plan is agreed upon, the coach can check back in at regular intervals – and help the staff member learn how to check-in on themselves too. That way, the improvement continues. Another benefit is that any issues can be identified quickly, while they are still minor and before they become a real problem.
Another benefit is that there will be regular positive feedback – this helps to raise self-esteem and positivity, which in turn will help to ensure continued improvements in performance.
They can also decide how they are going to measure progress and improvement.
Finally, introducing coaching within your organisation, sends a very positive message to the workforce. It lets them know that the company values its staff and is willing to invest time and money in helping them develop personally and professionally. This can only have positive benefits.
If you would like to discuss this subject in more detail, and find out how we can help you to coach managers, we offer a free 30-minute skype consultation – drop us an email to hello@springer-alexander.com. Otherwise please continue to browse the website or call us on tel: 07739 898167.