In today’s competitive employee market, the importance of a robust employee engagement strategy is well known. Coaching teams in the workplace can improve both the retention of existing team members and the recruitment of new ones, making it a critical element of effective employee engagement strategies.

But how can you make your organisation stand out?

Most workplaces these days offer some type of employee development program. Most programs will include individual development plans, a focus on clear KPIs, regular performance reviews and scheduled formal training. But traditional performance management centred on annual reviews with training and development delivered off-site often won’t deliver the results you’re looking for.

So what else can you do that will make your program not only unique but also more effective?

Create a culture of continuous improvement

Organisations often focus on formal training when considering employee development. But the 70:20:10 rule developed by Morgan McCall, Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo proposes that only 10% of learning and development takes place in a training room while 90% happens on-the-job with the support of leaders. Following the 70:20:10 rule 10% of employee development is done via formal training, 20% is learned from other people (colleagues and leaders) and 70% learned by doing, in other words the informal learning that happens with the experience of doing the job. When creating your team’s professional development plan, consider the ways you can build informal learning into your plan throughout the year to create a culture of continuous improvement.

Coaching: the secret weapon

One underrated method for embedding continuous improvement in an organisation is by regularly coaching your team.

Regular coaching provides team members with the opportunity to set their own goals, reflect on their progress, identify areas to work on and celebrate success. By regularly coaching teams in the workplace, employees will know that the organisation values them and is willing to invest in their development. This provides motivation to focus on performance goals.

Employee coaching programs help businesses too. Organisations that invest in coaching their people will develop employee capability improving the bottom line, organisational performance and engagement.

With guidance from their leader and coach, team members can develop with a stepwise discipline – mastering one behaviour at a time.

Bupa: strengthening leadership and the frontline with YakTrak

Bupa has been using YakTrak for more than six years. To test the value of YakTrak’s platform an A/B test was conducted to see how YakTrak usage would impact the quality and quantity of coaching interactions. Bupa’s objective was to improve the quality and quantity of leadership interactions with frontline team members and the company wanted to see an increase in coaching, meetings and goal setting. The measures of success Bupa wanted to see were an improvement in the quality of coaching interactions and an improvement in team members’ perceptions of their leader’s coaching and development activity.

A group of retail staff from Bupa using YakTrak were compared to a control group of Bupa retail staff who weren’t using YakTrak. YakTrak designed a solution that aligned with Bupa’s existing coaching and conversation frameworks and outlined and measured best practice leadership cadence and activity.

The results for the YakTrak group were impressive, achieving:

• a 131% increase in behavioural coaching
• a 101% increase in team meetings
• a 161% increase in goals set
• an 83% improvement in the quality of coaching conversations, according to a staff survey
• improvements in two regions’ results from “under-achieving” to “exceeding target”.

How YakTrak helps

Why was Bupa’s YakTrak group so successful?

Engaged and capable employees deliver higher performance outcomes and on-the-job coaching is super-effective at both engaging people and improving capability.

Regularly coaching the team at work helps management and leaders build trust with front line employees. Teams are more likely to develop a clear understanding of what needs to be done to improve performance and are more likely to be recognised for achieving goals. Great coaching programs work when they’re connected to the daily operational reality of a workplace. YakTrak’s software specifically supports on-the-job coaching helping to drive employee engagement.

YakTrak provides:

• reminders to leaders and frontline staff that coaching conversations are due helping people prepare for them and encouraging coaching to happen regularly
• an easy-to-use interface to record goals and store relevant documents (so all the information you need at your fingertips)
• real-time reporting giving leaders key insights into the quality and quantity of coaching activity.

Using YakTrak when coaching team members in regular coaching sessions means you’ll build a framework for regular feedback and helpful conversations – this means that team leaders and team members are more likely to stick to the program.

Plus, YakTrak also supports management and leadership to become better coaches. With YakTrak, leaders in on-the-job training roles are inspired to keep learning too. With practice they improve their coaching skills, meaning that leadership development and employee development outcomes are lifted!

To learn more about coaching, check out our blog and talk to YakTrak today about how coaching can be part of your employee engagement and development strategies.