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The impact of a skills gap on business is significant and multifaceted—the World Economic Forum reports that 39% of workers can expect their existing skill sets to be transformed or outdated between 2025–2030. Skill shortages hamper the ability to innovate, lower employee productivity, and affect an organization's customer experience.
Organizations spend billions of dollars on managers to upskill employee coaching training. Yet only a few understand what it takes to coach an employee. A quick-fix coaching method will be futile without real-world application and strategic steps.
One effective way to tackle this is through employee coaching.
⏰ Is it time to take the next steps for your own employee coaching program? Get our comprehensive guide, featuring advice on how to launch your program, match coaches and coachees, and measure your success. Download your copy here.
What is employee coaching?
Employee coaching is a process where an employee is guided on how to improve their performance through regular and systematic feedback, support, and development. Employee coaching helps the individual meet or exceed the expectations of their role and contribute positively to the workplace.
With the looming skills gap—and only 47% of employees strongly agreeing they have the skills they need to be exceptional at their current job—you might expect upskilling programs to be available everywhere. Yet according to Gallup, only 26% of US employees strongly agree that their organization encourages them to learn new skills.
Organizations that value their employees should consider implementing an employee coaching program. It is cost-effective, improves productivity, and reduces staff turnover.
The coaching usually involves senior and more experienced employees coaching junior employees. It's worth noting that coaching employees differs slightly from mentorship.
Employee coaching is primarily concerned with increasing productivity and enhancing workers' performance, while mentorship programs take it further (more on that later).
Why is it important for employees to have access to coaching?
It's a critical issue for employers when their employees fall short of their goals and begin to ignore the company objectives. Effective coaching can be a great tool to help the employee and their commitment towards the organization's goals and objectives.
A good coaching program should be tailored to the individual employee and focus on their specific goals and needs. Below are why it's important for both—employees and the organization.
For Employees
Helps with career development: Many people feel nervous or unsure about talking to their boss about their career. Employee coaching helps ambitious employees create a plan for their career development and increase their value to their company. Career coaching can be a great way for companies to keep talented employees and help them grow.
Encourages creativity and innovation: Creativity is the key to success in any industry. It goes without saying that creativity leads to innovation. And innovation allows businesses to stay ahead of their competition and keep up with changing consumer demand and trends. Employee coaching provides a safe environment for employees to be creative and imaginative.
Boosts morale and motivation: When employees feel like they are being supported and developed, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated in their work. Knowing there are shoulders to lean on during trying times and when difficult tasks arise is a morale and motivation booster.
Reduces stress levels: Coaching allows employees to discuss any work-related issues or concerns they may have, which can help defuse any potential sources of stress. In addition, coaching develops better coping strategies for dealing with stress. Employers can help create a more stress-free workplace by providing employees with regular coaching.
For Organizations
Promotes teamwork: One of the key benefits of employee coaching is that it helps promote teamwork. Coaching improves communication and collaboration between team members and helps individuals develop new skills and knowledge that can benefit the team.
Employees feel appreciated and valued: It's a great way to show your employees that you care about them and develop their talents.
Improves productivity and satisfaction: Employee coaching helps improve productivity and satisfaction by providing employees with the tools and knowledge they need to succeed. Coached employees know what is expected of them and are held accountable for their performance. Coaching also allows employees to learn new skills and improve their existing ones. This leads to a more productive and satisfied workforce.
Reduce employee turnover rates: Most organizations don't know that half of their employees are one foot out of their company. Gallup finds that 51% of US employees are actively looking for other job opportunities. Employee turnover is costly depending on the status and position of the employee:
- It costs between 1.5 - 2X the employee salary to replace them,
- It cost $1500 to replace an hourly worker, and
- 100 - 150% to replace a technical worker.
- For a C-suite employee, it could cost as high as 213%.
Employee coaching can improve motivation and performance, reduce turnover, and improve retention rates.
Employees develop leadership skills: As employees move up the corporate ladder, they are often tasked to lead and manage teams. To be successful in these roles, they need to develop strong leadership skills; employee coaching can help employees develop those leadership skills.
Coaching employees can help organizations achieve their goals and objectives for individual employees and the company.
Examples of workplace coaching and development
There are many different types of coaching programs available, so it is important to find one that meets the needs of your employees.
Experienced employees mentor junior team members
This practice covers mentorship, guidance, and on-the-job training. Junior employees can learn from their more experienced colleagues, and the company can benefit from the skills and knowledge of both groups.
Also, the experienced employees can play a dual role—that serves as a mentor (share practical knowledge skills and experience) and sponsor (recommend for promotions) for the junior colleague. This way, the junior employee benefits from practical knowledge from the senior colleague and receives help in moving up the professional ladder.
The mentor can teach the junior employee appropriate work habits, handling difficult situations, and how to succeed in the company. In addition, the junior employee can learn from the mentor's mistakes and how to avoid them. These are a few of the many reasons to connect your employees with mentors. And if you’re not sure how to do this on your own, Together is a mentoring platform that can help facilitate this process.
Coworkers coach one another
Coworkers are there to support one another. They help each other reach new levels and grow as individuals, which creates an environment where everyone can be successful. Organizations can build a successful coaching program around peer learning, where coworkers coach one another.
In a study by Degreed, 55% of employees turn to their colleagues to learn. Peer-to-peer coaching has been known to be very effective. Albert Bandura's social learning of personality shows we learn best by observing people around us; peer coaching helps employees learn by observing what their coworkers do.
Peer mentoring helps employees build solid support relationships and hold each other accountable; similarly, coworkers coaching one another build strong partnerships that offer support and accountability.
Hire external business coaches
There are some bottlenecks when using internal coaches for employees. They aren't available for everyone, and the employees often cite a lack of confidentiality/privacy; hence they don't open fully for them.
With an external coach, you have a professional who has no connection with your organization's daily activities and at no point in time had any issues with any of your employees. This assures that the external coach will be free of biases, and your employees can be sure of confidentiality/privacy. Depending on your needs, the coach can schedule group coaching sessions that include all your employees or a specific team.
A third of all Fortune 500 companies use business coaches for their employees. Historically, companies like IBM, Motorola, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Hewlett-Packard used coaches as an intervention for troubled employees. Today it's seen as an essential part of leadership development for executives in companies. External business coaches have been described as top executives' hidden power.
How to coach employees
Now that you’ve seen some examples of what workplace coaching can look like, you might be wondering how to set up a coaching program in your company. Let’s start by taking a closer look at what coaching can achieve and why.
Why one-on-one coaching is so powerful
In a one-on-one coaching setup, the more experienced or skilled coach builds a personalized developmental relationship with their coachee to help them enhance their performance or skills.
They’re able to achieve this through:
- Direct observation: The coach spends time assessing the employee’s tasks and techniques firsthand, learning more about their current challenges and how they’re addressing them.
- Tailored feedback: Based on their observations of the coachee, the coach provides specific, constructive feedback centered on the employee’s unique work patterns and behaviors.
- Growth-focused interactions: The coach’s primary aim is to help the employee adapt, develop new skills, and achieve their professional goals.
What effective employee coaching sessions involve
A coach’s primary responsibility is to assist employees in setting realistic goals and devising effective strategies to achieve them. This process involves a blend of encouragement, skill-building, and accountability. Here are a few examples of what coaching sessions might involve:
Discovering strengths and setting goals
Coaches focus on helping employees gain deeper insights into their personal strengths and weaknesses. Through deep conversations, they encourage individuals to reflect on their career experiences, core values, and future aspirations. Based on what they uncover during these conversations, they can create a structured plan that outlines the employee’s path to success.
Questioning and problem solving
While coaches have more experience, that doesn’t mean they’re there to provide all the answers. A significant aspect of the coach’s role is to pose open-ended questions that help employees uncover the root causes of challenges and generate their own solutions.
Providing feedback
Because they spend so much time observing and listening to their coachees, coaches can deliver personalized insights into how employees are progressing towards their goals, offering both praise for achievements and suggestions for improvement.
Motivating and directing
When a coachee’s motivation wanes, coaches act as motivators, providing the necessary guidance to help employees overcome obstacles. This support in the workplace is especially important during times of doubt or stagnation.
Accountability and support
Coaches hold employees accountable to the goals they’ve set and plans they’ve created. At the same time, they provide a safety net of support, which helps coachees stay committed to their objectives and continue moving forward.
The role of Learning & Development in employee coaching
You might be wondering what your role as a Learning & Development (L&D) professional should be when it comes to employee coaching.
We’ve already mentioned the growing skills gap and pressing need for upskilling. As an L&D professional, your role is to create a learning culture that helps employees build these necessary skills. That doesn’t mean that you personally need to act as a coach for everyone — your role is to help identify employees’ needs and connect them with suitable mentors or coaches in your organization.
To achieve this, your work might involve:
- Speaking with employees to understand why they feel stagnant in their roles or are considering a career shift
- Identifying more experienced colleagues who can provide guidance
- Creating templates and guidelines for coaching conversations
- Setting up surveys or other ways of collecting data on your coaching programs
Download Best Practices for Running an Effective Coaching Program for even more detailed guidance on how to go about this.
Understanding the motivations and outcomes for employee coaching
We’ve already discussed the fact that coaching is especially powerful since it involves personalized observation, recommendations, and accountability. And that’s not all — because coaches can customize the experience depending on their coachee’s motivations and needs, coaching can lead to many types of positive outcomes. Here are just a few.
Coaching employees to improve performance
Perhaps one of the best-known types of coaching, performance coaching is a developmental strategy that focuses on enhancing an employee's professional abilities. With developmental coaching, the coach offers detailed guidance to align employees with their job roles and highlights the key skills they need to succeed.
At the heart of performance coaching is the adjustment of behaviors that may be hindering progress. By identifying these areas, performance coaching assists employees in reshaping their actions, ultimately empowering them to reach their full potential.
With performance coaching, the coach creates a structured plan that guides their coachees through their career advancement journeys. Whether it's unlocking hidden talents or building on existing strengths, performance coaching lays a foundation for continuous improvement and professional growth.
Coaching employees to navigate organizational changes
Another area where many junior employees can get tripped up is when they have to deal with organizational changes, especially ones that involve adjusting to unfamiliar workflows or team dynamics.
Coaches can help their coachees adjust to and navigate organizational challenges in several ways, including:
- Providing ongoing, personalized support
- Offering a sounding board for the coachee’s concerns or frustrations and helping them stay motivated and engaged
- Sharing resources and frameworks
- Enhancing the coachee’s communication skills
Employee coaching supports individuals in embracing change while also equipping them with the tools they need to thrive in evolving environments.
Coaching employees to embrace new roles or challenges
One other example of coaching in the workplace involves coaching employees to take on new roles or challenges. This type of coaching can be especially beneficial to employees who are taking on people management responsibilities, managing a distributed team for the first time, or taking on any type of new, high-stakes work.
In these situations, coaching can help employees develop specific skills they’ll need for the new role, boost their confidence in their ability to take on these new duties, make better decisions with proven frameworks and methodologies, and become more adaptable and resilient.
Tips for employee coaching
As we’ve mentioned earlier, L&D pros don’t tend to be responsible for coaching individual employees. However, you may need to help select coaches and provide resources to help them fulfill their coaching duties.
Here are a few guidelines you might want to share with anyone who’s taking on a coaching role within your organization:
- Be clear about what you expect from your employee.
- Explain the reason for the expectation.
- Coach positively, focusing on what the employee is doing well and how they can improve.
- Avoid criticizing the employee.
- Be specific in your feedback.
- Offer encouragement and support.
- Give the employees time to improve their performance.
- Follow up with the employee after coaching to ensure they understand and implement your suggestions.
- Ensure that the employee knows how to contact you if they have questions or need further help.
- Be patient and positive, and your coaching will be successful.
How to build an employee coaching plan
If you’re ready to build a coaching program at your company, here are a few steps that will help you get started.
Identify the areas in which your employees need coaching
The first step is to identify the areas in which your employees need coaching. This may be based on feedback from managers or coworkers, or it may be based on an employee's self-assessment. Some areas that may need improvement include:
- Communication skills
- Time management skills
- Problem-solving skills
Set goals with employees
Once you have identified the areas in which your employees need coaching, it's important to define specific goals for each area. These goals should be measurable and achievable and have a particular time frame for completion. By setting goals for your employees, you can provide them with clear expectations and motivate them to succeed.
Pair employees together
Pairing employees plays an important role in building an effective employee coaching program. Having employees work closely together helps them learn and grow. This creates a more positive work environment, leading to better performance.
There are several reasons why pairing employees together can be beneficial:
- It allows employees to share their knowledge and experiences. This helps them learn new skills and better understand their job duties.
- It creates a sense of camaraderie and team spirit. When employees feel like they are part of a team, they are more likely to cooperate and support.
Pairing employees helps build trust. When employees have a close working relationship, they are more likely to trust and respect. This leads to better communication and collaboration.
Together has algorithms designed to match employees with appropriate peer pairing. The system does this by considering the skills and goals of each candidate, simplifying the process and making it easy to pair employees to support their learning and development.
Provide discussion topics
A coaching session can quickly become unproductive or even awkward without discussing specific topics. Allow employees to explore various aspects of their work and identify areas that need improvement. In addition, discussion topics help employees reflect on their work and better understand how they can contribute to the organization.
The L&D team can provide a variety of discussion topics that cover different aspects of the employee's work. Topics can include job duties, goals, challenges, and best practices. It is also essential to provide employees with an opportunity to ask questions and share their thoughts.
Discussion topics help employees feel more engaged and connected to their work. This leads to better performance and a more productive workplace.
Monitor progress and solicit feedback
If you’re investing resources into a coaching program, you’ll likely want to measure your progress and collect feedback to see what’s working and identify areas for improvement.
Progress monitoring allows you to track how employees perform and identify additional support areas. Tracking progress also helps you identify successful coaching strategies to replicate in the future.
You can gather feedback by adding mentorship survey questions to your regular employee engagement surveys or running surveys specifically for coaching program participants.
Soliciting feedback is important for two reasons:
- It allows employees to provide input on their development. This gives them a sense of ownership and encourages them to take an active role in their growth.
- Feedback can help you identify areas where the coaching process may need improvement.
If employees feel not being heard, they may be less likely to fully engage in the coaching process. Soliciting feedback and addressing any concerns early on ensures that the coaching process is as effective as possible.
Bringing employee coaching to your organization
Employee coaching is a non-negotiable part of employee development. Organizations are competing more and more for top talent and employees prioritize organizations that will help them grow. So coaching is a new priority.
But it doesn’t have to be an administrative nightmare to start an employee coaching program. You can easily encourage employees to coach one another by organizing small coaching groups using Together’s employee connection platform. Book a 20-minute chat with a member of our team to learn more.
