Coaching is giving an employee input, training
and encouragement on a day-to-day basis. Day-to-day coaching
helps
the employee see the feedback in terms of the actual situation
and improve performance right away. Coaching is a key part of
performance improvement. It isn’t separate from
setting
goals and
performance
planning and review sessions. In fact, coaching is what
links everyday activities to goals and long-term planning
-- in an informal,
supportive environment.
Focus on helping, not on criticizing. Finding fault with your
employees every day definitely won’t make employees more
productive!
Catch people doing things right. Say something when you like
what they have done. They will do it again.
Give people some background information. You don’t always
have to be commenting on how they are doing. Tell them about
your business or why you made a decision one way over another.
That helps people understand what to take into account when
they are solving problems.
Don’t provide coaching over anything that isn’t
important to the job. (My seventy-eight year old father says
that if you want to form people’s characters, you had
better hire three-year-olds. My mother says you had better hire
them earlier than that!) On the other hand, don’t gloss
over important problems -- the employee has a right to know.
Give coaching to all of your employees -- not just the worst
ones or the best ones. It is important to pay attention to the
people problems and take care of them. But also invest time
in developing all of your other employees.
Provide day-to-day coaching, not day-in-and-day-out coaching.
Employees need feedback and advice in everyday situations, but
they don’t need non-stop evaluation. People won’t
appreciate advice too often, when they are busy, or when they
are tired.
Don’t give your employees all the answers. Tell them
how to find out more or what questions they should ask themselves.
And let them make the decisions. Don’t ask them questions
if you have already decided how they are going to have to do
the work.
Help the person set priorities and meet to go over the priorities
each week until things get better. Slow down the flow of new
work going to the employee. Be positive. Set limits on the hours
the individual is working. If the person is very stressed for
a long period, be clear that it is very difficult for others
to work with.
Really listen to the employee. Try to get the problem solved,
but don’t let the person start to control all your time.
Give cheerful feedback about how to address problems more positively
and let the person know he or she needs to focus on the important
issues.
Give the person time to cool off before discussing the problem.
Tell the employee it isn’t appropriate at work and that
it will hold up chances of promotion.
Sit down with the people having the conflict and help them
work it out with each other. If one person continues to have
problems, let him or her know that you expect people to cooperate
in the workplace. Take disciplinary steps if it continues --
don’t avoid the issue by changing people’s schedules
or locations.
Give the employee positive reinforcement. If you want input,
set things up so that the employee can give it to a small
group
or write the comment down. The employee needs to have decisions
placed back in his/her hands and not be second-guessed. The
person
may also need feedback about how to sound more confident. Don’t
tease this person -- give praise instead.
Allow more opportunities to explain the need for changes;
acknowledge his/her experience of the change; address the
person’s
uncertainties; provide training and support.
Be very specific when you give negative feedback and keep to
critical issues; be clear that this is not a criticism of the
person as a whole, but that every operation has problems and
you need to be able to talk about them and fix them; be clear
about what kind of response makes it possible to keep making
things better and what makes it difficult.
