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Workplace coaching is essential for many individuals to develop themselves for various organizational needs. According to our research, 81% of HR professionals agree that coaching has a positive impact on individual development and 77% agree it has a positive impact on organizational performance.
Companies looking to improve their employees’ productivity and increase profit can look into workplace coaching to achieve these goals.
Is coaching and mentoring in the workplace effective? Are there any benefits to coaching employees? In what ways can the management conduct effective coaching sessions?
This article discusses the effectiveness of workplace coaching and its positive effects, including fostering an environment conducive to professional growth and mentorship. The article also lists how managers can become useful workplace coaches to benefit employees and the organization.
🗺️Feel a little lost when it comes to workplace coaching? Grab a copy of our “Best Practices for Running a Coaching Program” ebook for step-by-step guidance on how to set up a workplace coaching program and tips on how to ensure your program’s success.
Effective coaching in the workplace: What you need to know
Coaching in the workplace has numerous potential benefits for organizations and individuals. When we surveyed HR professionals about their top reasons for using coaching and mentorship programs in the workplace, their top three responses were:
- To provide guidance to help others reach their full potential
- To help create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce (achieving DEI goals)
- To prepare a pool of talent to fill future critical roles
Our research also shows that companies with a larger percentage of effective coaches and mentors do things differently. They are:
- More than four times more likely than other organizations to say both coaching and mentoring lead to improved individual development.
- More than two times more likely to say coaching leads to improved organizational performance.
These outcomes indicate that managers should not underestimate how coaching can impact employees, as this activity can create a fundamental shift in how employees approach work and help them achieve their long term career goals.
For example, when employees have increased self-confidence, they can become more assertive and resilient. Feeling this sense of support in the workplace makes them more empowered to make positive changes, both within their own teams and within the company as a whole.
Despite these advantages brought by workplace coaching, there is still a need for a more straightforward approach to evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of workplace coaching.
Managers and other decision-makers are likely to be interested to know how coaching can ultimately benefit the organization in terms of productivity, revenue, and cost savings.
The benefits of workplace coaching
What benefits does coaching in the workplace provide to the organization? The Institute of Coaching of McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, lists these benefits as follows:
- Encourages individuals to take responsibility
- Increases engagement among employees
- Motivates and empowers individuals to excel
- Improves the employees’ performance
- Helps identify and develop promising employees
- Identifies the strengths and developmental opportunities of the organization and the individual
- Demonstrates the organization’s commitment to developing human resources
Aside from organizational benefits, coaching also provides personal benefits to individuals. Clients report that coaching impacts their careers and lives positively in the following ways:
- Establishing realistic goals and taking action towards achieving them
- Becoming a more self-reliant individual
- Contributing effectively to the organization
- Achieving more satisfaction at work and in life
- Becoming a more effective communicator
- Taking responsibility and accountability for commitments and actions
- Working more efficiently with peers, bosses, and direct reports
How to implement coaching in the workplace
You can attribute a successful coaching session to a well-designed mentoring plan and the coach’s supervisory capacity. Thus, managers coaching their employees must have the necessary skills to conduct a coaching session effectively.
These coaching skills, when applied, should allow managers to perform the following:
Coach employees according to their development needs
Coaching can help discover an individual’s challenges or areas for improvement. However, some coaching programs use only one generic action plan for different employees.
Thus, coaches should be mindful that a single approach may not be practical for everyone. Instead, the coach should assist the employee in formulating action plans for the employee and making sure that these plans are reasonably doable.
Reinforce a continuous approach
Coaching should not only be a one-off session or something you can schedule weekly or monthly. Instead, managers and employees should engage in coaching every day.
Coaching does not necessarily have to take place in a formal setting. You can conduct this activity through a team meeting, one-on-one, quick huddle, video conference, or catch-up session.
You can consider all these meetings as coaching as long as they provide an opportunity for managers and employees to address possible improvements.
Focus on the individual’s future performance
Coaching should not focus too much on past performances and make guesses about what could have been.
For instance, coaches should not dwell too long on what could have been a better result had the employee performed better in the past.
Instead, coaching should utilize the information from such performances to help determine what employees should improve on moving forward.
Implement two-way communication between the coach and employee
An ideal coaching session is one where the coach or manager is not doing all the talking. While the coach is there to help moderate and assist employees, communication should not be one-sided.
Instead, employees should provide a significant part of the input while the coach guides the session’s direction. This guidance can make the employee realize their areas for improvement.
Identify SMART goals
After identifying these areas, the employee can develop an action plan. The coach’s role is to assist the employee in determining whether or not the plan is a SMART action plan.
What is SMART? The University of Massachusetts defines SMART as an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.
Specific: Having a specific goal has a better chance of being accomplished than a general goal.
For example, a general goal is saying something like, “Increase sales.” However, a specific goal can be, “Increase product A’s sales by 10% at the end of the month.”
Measurable: Establishing tangible criteria for measuring progress can help you stay on track for attaining each goal you set.
Having measurable goals also means you have a method to determine your target dates. This measurement can help you experience a sense of achievement that can push you further to exert effort to reach your goal.
Attainable: Identifying goals you believe are most important to you can help you think of ways you can make these goals come true.
Having attainable goals means you develop the skills, attitudes, and financial capacity to accomplish those goals. You also start seeing opportunities you previously overlooked to bring yourself closer to achieving your goals.
For instance, suppose you want to achieve a 200% production increase this year. You can think of ways to hire more employees or improve manufacturing efficiency so your production line can manufacture more units.
Realistic: Having a realistic goal represents an objective on which you are willing and able to work.
Your goal is likely realistic if you truly believe you can accomplish it. To know if you have a realistic goal, recall if you have accomplished something similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions should exist to accomplish this goal.
For example, being the next chief executive officer (CEO) within five years might be too wishful for a newly hired clerk in a large company.
However, saying you will increase your processed documents by 20% within five months is more realistic.
Timely: Establishing a timely goal should have a well-grounded time frame. If you do not establish a goal with an appropriate deadline, there will be no sense of urgency.
Suppose you want to hire 100 employees. You can probably achieve that goal anytime. However, hiring 100 applicants in six months means the organization likely has plans in the immediate future to utilize those individuals.
Create a blueprint for effective coaching activities in the workplace
You now know the benefits of workplace coaching and understand some of the most effective coaching activities in the workplace. What comes next?
To bring these concepts to life in your organization, you’ll need to recruit coaches, match them with coachees, provide them with tools and templates to guide their sessions, and collect feedback to track their progress.
If this all sounds overwhelming, we get it! Together is here to help you. Our mentoring platform creates a strong foundation for your coaching and mentoring programs. Whether you’re running traditional or peer mentorship programs, closing skill gaps through coaching, or just want to connect employees over a cup of coffee, Together matches employees at scale.
Want to see how we can help you bring your coaching or mentorship program to life? Get in touch to book a demo.
