In the world of sports, a coach is a trusted advisor who helps athletes become the best versions of themselves. Athletes act on their coaches’ guidance to train, practice, and improve their performance so that they can better meet their goals. The same is true of coaches in the workplace — employees work in collaboration with them, managers, and mentors to continually reach objectives and achieve their full potential at work.
Enhanced Productivity
Coaches help employees develop new skills or improve upon existing ones so that they can work more efficiently. They also provide people with tools to help them stay on track while working under pressure, managing multiple projects, or meeting tight deadlines. Employees who are assigned coaches are also more likely to be engaged and feel supported by their companies which leads to better performance and higher levels of productivity.
Increased Confidence
In order for employees to become high-performers, they need to have coaches who can help them adapt to changes and experience self-confidence in the work they do as well as the choices they make across their lives. Coaches can help shift people’s mindsets when they’re experiencing a mental block or fear of failure, allowing them to recognize the areas of their life that they need to work on and develop.
By replacing the thoughts of fixed mindsets with those of growth-oriented mindsets, people will find greater self-confidence in their skill sets. Additionally, by dismantling their fear of failure, employees will feel empowered to keep trying, bring new ideas to the table, and push forward after setbacks, leading to increased productivity and innovation which ultimately helps your business thrive.
Strengthened Efficiency
It's not enough to rid harmful habits, people also need to develop healthy tendencies in order to thrive throughout all areas of their lives. Coaches can help employees pinpoint the poor habits that are directly or indirectly impacting their work and help them uniquely determine how to replace these harmful tendencies with positive initiatives to boost their efficiency and engagement.
For instance, the ability to manage time effectively is an essential skill for any professional to harness. It keeps individuals from experiencing overwhelm or stress related to looming deadlines and curbs burnout simultaneously. Coaches can teach employees tools to set manageable objectives, develop systems for staying on task, and hold themselves accountable. They can also help individuals better communicate their struggles with their leaders so they can make adjustments together and set realistic expectations. If employees have been struggling with the ability to budget time at work or in their personal lives, coaching may be able to transform their ability to complete projects in a timely manner, based on their order of priority.
Boosted Employee Morale
Coaching drives employees’ connection with their teams and organizations, increasing their motivation to do well. When employees feel heard, they can recognize that their leaders truly value and care for them. Individuals are more likely to stay with their employers long-term if they feel like they care about them as people, not just as workers. These benefits are especially important today, as more people are working remotely and need new ways to stay connected with their professional peers and purpose in their work.
Strengthened Communication
In a largely remote or hybrid world, it has become easier for people to work in a vacuum, forgetting that they're working alongside others who can support, collaborate with, and advise them. Coaching not only supports teamwork, it provides people with a structure for understanding the components that contribute to effective communication. These components include engaged listening, appropriate nonverbal messages, awareness of self and others, and mindfulness. When employees are coached on how to best communicate with their peers, they can determine how to improve their interpersonal skills and build stronger relationships at work. This allows people to perform at a higher level through collaboration, perspective-taking, and critical thinking skills which accompany effective communication.
Encouraged Feedback
Feedback is essential to helping individuals evolve, especially when it comes from someone who is an experienced, objective, and credible source. Coaches with professional expertise can provide employees with constructive, unbiased criticism to help set realistic targets to take their careers to the next level. Additionally, coaching also improves people’s relationships with feedback, building a healthy mentality when receiving and giving assessments.
One way coaching can encourage feedback is by creating and integrating commonly recognized language and conversation frameworks to help people have these potentially challenging conversations. This ensures that individuals engaging in feedback conversations are aware of each other’s intentions, can understand their concerns, bring personal perspectives, and communally solve the problem at-hand. Some coaching organizations teach entire companies about how to conduct clearing conversations, which have an outlined system and language that make it easier to provide or receive feedback. This style of conversation prevents emotional charge and helps the parties involved maintain focus on the common goal of finding a long-term resolution.
Developed Leadership Skills
Coaching is a great way to develop individuals’ interpersonal and professional skills, especially when it comes to leadership. Coaching can support whatever struggle or predicament clients are facing, whether that be dealing with conflict at work, managing an underperforming employee, or providing individualized support for different work styles. It gives leaders the tools and practice they need to handle any situation calmly and effectively, building rapport and trust with their colleagues along the way.
Overall, coaching is a great way to improve workplace performance, especially when employees are matched with the right coaching fit. For this reason, many employers now offer coaching programs to encourage workers to set and achieve professional initiatives.
Whether you lead a smaller company or a large organization, coaching can make sure your employees’ personal and professional goals are achieved. In today’s increasingly fast-paced business world, a high-quality employee coaching program can make all the difference when it comes to employee and company success.
Tess DiNapoli is an artist, freelance writer, and content strategist. She has a passion for yoga and often writes about business, home, health and wellness.