Becoming a better coach to your employees

The quality of human capital in any organisation will determine its success. IFE ADEDAPO writes on how to improve productivity in the workplace with excellent coaching skills

As a business owner, you might have a tight schedule and many work-related issues that need your attention, but the coaching of your employee is valuable to your organization. Your leadership can help create motivated and productive employees. These high-performance employees will, in turn, lighten your workload. In addition, you can also consider the benefits of formal and informal employee development tools, such as monthly, quarterly or annual performance appraisals and planned performance improvement sessions which are used by highly successful companies to bring out the best in their employees.

As a coach, you bring an enthusiasm and sense of accomplishment into your workplace, when you are mentoring, you are teaching and developing your people and the organisation’s future. By counseling, you are eliminating the problems and barriers to real job satisfaction.

This feat should not be relegated to other members of the management team alone, but should be handled personally, because they need to perceive you as their leader. The Managing Director of Likemind Consultancy says that coaching people for career development should start from their tertiary institution and should continue when they start working.

According to Micki Holliday in his book “Coaching, mentoring and managing”; coaching is more than a set of management actions for improving performance. It is concerted and supportive approach that allows others to realise their potential.

Experts have identified the effects of employee coaching on the organisation, the employer and the workforce.

It increases productivity

As long as you want to get your workforce to a point where they can take the organisation to the greatest levels of productivity, then coaching has to be taken cognisance of. Helping an employee develop a positive perspective is essential with words of praises and encouragement; however, while doing this, you should avoid making exaggerated statements that can be interpreted in another way by others. In as much as you do this, do not be afraid to challenge the employee’s attitudes with additional job involvement. The result can mean new levels of productivity.

Stress level decreases

Research has shown that humor in the workplace has a way of reducing stress. It is also the best way to connect with people especially those who are generally unsociable. No work environment is less appealing than one that bans or discourages humor. Moreover, they need training on proper time management in situations when they have been given additional duties. Encourage and direct performance outcomes during the normal course of any workday, while relying on the planned processes to review progress and performance measures and expectations for the future.

Quality of work improves

In the training process the employees should be aware a benchmark of quality level that should be met to achieve the desired results.

Experts have highlighted ways which the employees can be adequately coached.

Inspire them

To start with, you have to bear in mind that based on work performance assessment, not all your employees can achieve the same result. No matter what you do and the number of people you have on your team, you will always experience the same phenomenon. Some team members will perform above expectations while others will perform at an average or standard level and some will perform at substandard levels.

Express a genuine interest in their personality in order to know what incentives, concerns and actions will inspire them. Show empathy people who work for you and have a basic understanding and acceptance of human nature. If you expect people to be super human beings then there is little chance you will be able to inspire them to greater heights. People usually are not enthusiastic about being with someone who lacks sensitivity toward them or their situation.

Value them

Especially when it comes from the top of the corporate ladder, encouragement and opportunities for individual success will motivate your people to do more. If individuals on your team slowly get the feeling that the results of their efforts are somehow more important than they are, it might affect their morale. Find something complimentary to say to the person who performed a newly completed task.

Be proactive

An effective coach should not wait for things to happen before taking the necessary actions. You have to encourage your team members to also be smart in handling issues by envisaging the outcome from the onset. You have to take the lead by teaching them to be innovative.

Listen to them

Most coaches believe that what they say is more important than what they hear and that listening to team members is an effortless or passive aspect of the communication process. The majority of effective communication is spent in good listening which requires making a conscious effort. Failure to understand those important facts can cause you to misinterpret team members’ intentions, jump to incorrect conclusions and ultimately, antagonise them. Your respect for a worker’s ideas and feelings builds up their esteem even if you ultimately disagree with their opinion.