As a manager or leader, you know that your people are integral to your business’s success and you’re probably already investing in people development, but are you consistently focusing on employee coaching and seeing consistent results?

In this blog we’ll explore how establishing an employee coaching operating rhythm can drive people development outcomes.

Establishing a people development and employee coaching operating rhythm can make a huge impact on the success of your people development activities and increase engagement, improve retention and drive business outcomes.

What is operating rhythm?

An operating rhythm is a regular and predictable pattern of communications and processes that a business follows to achieve goals. It includes your meeting cadence – e.g., the daily stand ups, quarterly planning sessions and employee coaching sessions you run; the processes your business adopts for communications and interactions – e.g., weekly status updates and end-of-project workshops; along with the tools you use to manage workflows, share information, provide feedback and collaborate on projects. The concept comes from the Six Sigma methodology which aims to achieve stable business improvement.

The benefits of an operating rhythm

The 70:20:10 model for learning and development tells us that 70% of people development is done on the job, 20% is done from learning from others and the relationships with others in the team, and 10% from formal coursework and training. This means that your employee coaching activity on the job is one of the most important development activities you could be doing. And the key to doing this effectively is consistency.

Establishing an effective coaching operating rhythm will help you achieve predictable results from your employee coaching activities, improve communication and ensure the focus of people development is around the goals you’ve agreed on.

A successful employee coaching operating rhythm will:

• drive the predictable, consistent results you want to see to improve capability
• provide a framework for ongoing performance management and development
• allow leaders to provide feedback and coaching to employees on a regular basis.

Employees who are clear on when coaching and learning interactions are occurring can prepare and execute required activities more consistently and effectively than when coaching and people development is done in an ad-hoc manner.

By setting aside time for regular coaching sessions employees and leaders will see results, while keeping employees motivated and engaged. Regular feedback and coaching helps employees feel valued and supported which can improve your culture and increase retention too.

Introducing an operating rhythm framework

Developing an effective operating rhythm framework involves establishing a regular meeting cadence, along with ensuring consistency in terms of format, content and follow up. Making sure that the rhythm your business establishes reflect people’s preferences and values will help to scale up your people development activities too.

Here are the steps you can take to establish an operating rhythm framework:

1. Set clear goals and objectives before you establish a cadence. This should determine what it is that your people development activities are designed to achieve.
2. Make a list. List all the activities that need to be undertaken on a daily, weekly, monthly cadence for each role and how long those activities should take.
3. Establish a regular schedule. Determining how often you need to meet with your team and individual employees will depend on your organisation and your team, but regular, micro-coaching sessions provide great results. Consistency is key, so even if it’s weekly or bi-weekly make sure that you stick to your schedule.
4. Choose the right format and tools that you can scale up to record observations, goals, notes and outcomes.
5. Be flexible. If the meeting cadence isn’t quite right for your people, adjust it where necessary. Tip: ensure that the coaching and people development elements (including preparation time) of your operating rhythm don’t take up more than 40-50% of a leader’s total available time.
6. Remember to provide regular feedback inside and outside of your coaching sessions.
7. Follow up and track progress.

Creating and maintaining a successful operating rhythm requires ongoing effort and commitment. Teams should regularly review and refine their processes to ensure they remain relevant and effective. Experimenting with new approaches will mean the operating rhythm you establish reflects your people’s values and the company culture you want to see.

How YakTrak can help build operating rhythms

We understand the importance of people development and coaching. That’s why we built YakTrak. Our software helps you establish a consistent operating rhythm for your people development activities.

YakTrak’s operating rhythm system builds operating rhythms that align with the way your business does coaching and people development activities – daily, weekly, or fortnightly.

Watch to see how YakTrak makes it easy to add and track people development activity and provides leaders with powerful visibility over the coaching operating rhythms important to their business.

Get in touch with us today to find out more about how we can help you set up and maintain a coaching rhythm that will drive powerful results.