Employee Coaching vs. Performance Training
Adapted by Carole Lewis for HKICC from an article by Samaria Jones at https://www.hrtools.com/StrategicAlliances/Content/May2007/ Employee_Coaching_vs_Performance_Training.asp
Everyone’s heard the old saying, “It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.” In a fast-paced work environment, where the focus is on getting a product out the door, or resolving customer issues, the same attitude is usually taken about coaching. Coaching is often viewed as necessary only when employee performance is unbearably poor, or discouraged employees begin leaving the company. For entrepreneurs, who often have smaller staffs and budgets, coaching might also seem like an unnecessary expense.
Perhaps you’re a business owner who feels too busy with your own work to spend extra time training, communicating or boosting employee morale. But consider this: your leadership can help create motivated, productive employees. These high-performance employees will, in turn, lighten your workload.
Many highly successful companies use a combination of formal and informal employee development tools to bring out the best in their employees. Coaching is one type of highly effective informal employee development tool. Charles Ginn, director of Performance Improvement for Administaff, a Houston-based professional employer organization (PEO), explains the difference between coaching, and its more formal alternative, training. “Coaching can occur anytime, even daily, like simply talking with employees, and setting examples through your own work. Training is usually seen as a more formal process that has to be scheduled.”
Ginn points out that training, in and of itself, does not translate to performance.
“In fact, coaching is critical to the training process. Setting expectations before training lets the employee know what they need to learn. After a formal a training event, it is the ability of the leader to coach and support the employee around what was learned, that helps get the results that were sought through training.”
Ginn says to put this in perspective, think of how people, when watching their favorite sports teams every week often say something like, “He (or she) sure coached a great game.” The reality is that a large portion of the coaching took place in the time prior to the event; preparing the players to perform. This is when coaching has the biggest impact. At game time, it is about adjusting and adapting to the events of the day. The art of coaching is very similar in the business world.
Coaching consists of constructive, consistent feedback aimed at increasing awareness and resulting in improved performance. Constructive, consistent feedback can be adopted into a company’s culture as a systematic approach to employee development. The problem, as Ginn sees it, is that in human resources (HR), people think of coaching only when there are problems. Ginn gives three examples of where coaching can be used effectively:
- To show what good performance is in advance
- To make improvements in already good performance
- To manage potential problems
Once coaching has been established as part of your company’s work culture, opportunities need to be identified. These “opportunities” are often simply managers and supervisors taking advantage of occasions to coach, both formally and informally. The best leaders more easily identify these occasions by familiarizing themselves with employees’ work habits, performances, goals and motivations.
Taking advantage of appropriate informal opportunities to coach also takes the stress out of coaching. Leaders learn to manage their time more effectively by capitalizing on opportunities to reward, encourage and direct performance outcomes during the normal course of the workday, while relying on the business’s formal planned processes to review progress, set planning sessions, performance measures and expectations for the future.
Coaching is important not only when there is concern about poor performance, or when performance is at its peak, it is also essential when performance is somewhere in the middle. Given the fact that the majority of employee performance ratings occur somewhere between outstanding and poor, this “in-between” range is where coaching can have its greatest impact. Before developing and implementing new coaching methods, ask yourself if your company has a work environment that welcomes coaching. Are employees encouraged to share their questions, concerns, opinions and ideas, or does your company have a management style that operates in a more autocratic, non-participatory manner?
After ensuring that your company is open to coaching, make sure that managers and supervisors in your company know how to coach properly. The most effective leaders, coaches and mentors ensure that they are approachable, active listeners and growth facilitators and that they guide employees as needed. “The number one thing employees complain about is the lack of performance feedback and communication from their managers. To have the best results, the feedback should be given as close to when the performance occurred. My employees expect feedback from me, and I request feedback from my employees. It’s critical,” said Ginn.
Retaining top talent and boosting employee morale is vital to your company’s success. Rather than waiting for things to go wrong, or accepting sub-par performance, it’s important that employees receive ongoing performance feedback, or interim coaching, because, if you want better employees, you just might have to mold them.
