RESEARCH BRIEF 5
Topic:Research Brief
Tomanage the performance of employees effectively, regular face-facecommunication between managers and employees is required. The keyelements of this process of communication are coaching and givingfeedback. Coaching and giving response demands planning, patience andwillingness to assist employees to build their own solutions.Coaching can occur at a variety of different levels in organizations(Werner & DeSimone, 2012). This paper will discuss the reasonsfor coaching employees, coaching situations, and steps involved inthe coaching process.
Reasonsfor coaching
Generally,coaching focuses on assisting employees to improve their performance,develop their skills, and grow in their jobs. Therefore, coaches aremotivators, trainers, partners, supporters, and coordinators. A goodcoach should look at the big picture and balance the needs of anemployee with those of the team and the organization. Thus, a coachshould institute a partnership with employees through supportive andaction-oriented behaviors. An effective coach will effectively paintthe “big picture” with realistic metaphors of financialobjectives, business goals, opportunities, and directions.Furthermore, a coach should listen to employees in order to learntheir viewpoints, perspectives, motivators and ideas. Coaches shouldalso support shared problem-solving and focus on action plans toachieve solutions as well as discussing altering organizationalpriorities with employees.
CoachingSituations
Thereare various coaching situations that can be applied to improveemployees’ performance. The first approach is positive coachingwhich can be used when managers want to motivate employees who arealready performing well so that they can continue performing well(Kirkpatrick, 2006). Positive coaching can also be used when managerswant to include new tasks to an employee’s job. Moreover, positivecoaching can be used to assist an employee build up a key skill or toprepare an employee to take on a new assignment, or for a promotion.In positive coaching, coaches should clarify the expectations fordevelopment of the employee, assist the employee to recognize stepsto develop and grow, and finally offer support and resourcesrequired. The second coaching situation is called correctivecoaching. This is used when the managers want to help an employeeimprove performance, take responsibility for change, and when thereis a need to establish required actions, time limits and consequences(Butteriss & Right Management Consultants, 2008). This approachfocuses on situation or behavior rather than the person and describesthe impact of the behavior on others.
Stepsinvolved in coaching employees to success
Ifthese steps are followed in coaching employees, they can create apositive environment for providing feedback.
Step1: Building a relationship that entails mutual understanding andtrust. The coaching relationship is deep-seated in the day-to-dayrelationship between managers and employees of which, without somedegree of trust, an effective coaching will be impossible (Kloster &Swire, 2009).
Step2: Get An Agreement. The most significant step in the coachingprocess is getting a verbal agreement from employees who acknowledgethat a performance problem does exist. It is a typical mistake formanagers to overlook performance issue and assume that employeesunderstand it. To convince an employee that a performance issueexists, managers should be able to define the nature of the issue andmake employees understand the penalty of not changing their behavior(Brounstein, 2011). To do this, managers should spell out thebehavior and make clear the consequences.
Step3: Explore alternatives in which issues can be improved byencouraging the employees to identify alternative solutions. Managersshould avoid jumping in with their own alternatives unless anemployee is unable to think of any. Then settle on the bestalternative and get a verbal commitment from the employee regardingthe action that should be taken and when it will be taken.
References
Brounstein,M. (2011). Coachingand Mentoring For Dummies.New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Butteriss,M., & Right Management Consultants. (2008). Coachingcorporate MVPs: Challenging and developing high-potential employees.Mississauga, Ont: J. Wiley & Sons Canada.
Kirkpatrick,D. L. (2006). Improvingemployee performance through appraisal and coaching.New York: American Management Association.
Kloster,T. W., & Swire, W. S. (2009). Anytimecoaching: Unleashing employee performance.Vienna, VA: Management Concepts.
Werner,J. M., & DeSimone, R. L. (2012). Humanresource development.Mason, OH: South-Western.