Offering coaching to employees requires time and money, but results are not guaranteed. Whether you choose to coach employees yourself or decide to hire a highly paid professional, there are the steps you need to take to succeed.
You may not have time or money to attend a coaching skills training program, so in this article we'll give you some quick, free tips that you might find helpful.
1. Choose a clear and concise topic:
You can share a lot of wisdom with your employees, but know that they cannot absorb a great deal of information at once. Oftentimes, coaches make the mistake of choosing a topic that is too general or complex for employees to understand. For example, you can't help your employees communicate better in one training session, but you can probably teach them nonverbal gestures and how to notice them to get a better understanding of how a person feels. So, choose a clear and concise topic to enhance understanding and lead the session to success.
2. Measure your team's interest:
Another common mistake that prevents achieving effective coaching results is the employees' unwillingness, interest, or loss of motivation to learn for the following reasons:
- boring topic.
- They already know the topic.
- The topic is very difficult.
3. Discuss your expectations:
You may think that your employees are ready to implement a new procedure after one coaching session with minimal supervision, but employees may not realize that this is what you expect of them at all, so you should agree with your team and discuss with them your expectations from the coaching session. They may immediately tell you what is realistic and unrealistic, so you can adjust the expectations accordingly.
4. Set small goals:
Some topics can be challenging and require many sessions to apply; however, as a leader, you need to develop an action plan to achieve specific interim goals. Therefore, split the topic into small topics and determine dates of their application during the process.
This will not allow your employees to abandon a goal that seems hard to get, and it won't prevent their efforts being recognized by giving them small rewards, or even verbal praise.
5. Communicate with the employees after the coaching process is over:
Completing the coaching process successfully is undoubtedly fantastic, but it is also helpful to have regular meetings after days, weeks, and months to make sure everyone is in agreement and doing their job properly. This is a great time to observe your employees as they work and provide feedback at the right time to help them improve and stay on track.