The 70:20:10 rule implies that 70% of employee capability is learned on the job, 20% is learned from peers and leaders and 10% is learned from formal training programs. The sure fire way to ensure your people are learning the right things on the job is with regular coaching.

Employee coaching programs provide you with an opportunity to check in with your employees:

• What is their focus?
• Can they identify success?
• Do they know what ‘high performance’ looks like?
• Have they recognised the areas they need to work on to build capability?

  

A coaching program gives you the opportunity to track employee progress first-hand and provide immediate feedback.

Coaching works when it’s consistent. An erratic approach with infrequent coaching conversations will result in a loss of momentum. To achieve maximum benefit, coaching sessions need to be held consistently and planned in advance. YakTrak provides the framework to hold regular coaching conversations, keep track of employee goals, report on progress and identify capability gaps. In short, YakTrak helps you focus on the right behaviours that drive the desired results.

How coaching helps employees

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

By setting up regular scheduled coaching sessions 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.

When to coach an employee

It can be a mistake to think that only those employees who are struggling need to be coached.

Ongoing coaching can mean the difference between average and outstanding performance. As the YakTrak team points out in the third video about coaching errors, Inputs vs Outputs, businesses are more likely to see results when team members are engaged, understand what’s expected of them and how they can contribute to team success.

By working with your employee to understand the type of behaviour you want to see, and focusing on one behaviour at a time, you can coach them to steadily improve performance. You might even find that one shift in behaviour improves performance in multiple areas.

Coaching resources

YakTrak’s employee coaching resources include coaching videos from YakTrak leader Brad Thomas. He offers practical tips to avoid the common errors leaders make when coaching their people, along with handy downloadable Coaching Tips to print and pin for regular reminders or send to colleagues.

YakTrak can help

YakTrak is a tactical people development system that tracks the quality and quantity of on the job development activity occuring within an organisation. YakTrak’s employee coaching software can help get your employee coaching program on track:

• YakTrak forms can replicate any coaching or conversation methodology so language is familiar for team members
• Easily create and track individual and team goals with a traffic light system that keeps everyone accountable
• Never miss a coaching session again with in-app and email notifications
• Pinpoint the behaviours that require development and learning interventions
• Provide team members with the opportunity to give anonymous feedback about their coaching interactions to improve coaching capability

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help you.

Photo by Malte Helmhold on Unsplash