Employee performance is a key to profits. Regrettably, study after study reveals most employees aren’t engaged or committed to doing their best work.

There are assorted problems from a lack of engagement.

For instance, consider two questions: Do you have employees who contribute positive ideas? Or do you have employees who always seem to whine?

Naturally, it’s important to get good employee ideas, not whiningAimless complaining is a symptom of problems in teamwork, morale, negativity and/or productivity. This impairs profits.

However, when managers become coaches, you get a higher-performing workforce. You will have replaced mediocrity with strong performance.

Strong employee performance stems from a healthy level of employee engagement. This means employees solve problems and think strategically to do their part in helping the company to prosper.

Employee engagement results after employees start feeling acknowledgement and support from supervisors. Confident workers take pride and ownership of their work.

In effect, a coaching culture inspires employees to be CEOs of their work.

How is this possible? It’s possible when a company has a culture of coaching from top to bottom.

You can develop a coaching culture in five steps:

1. Persuade executives about the benefits of a coaching culture

Without overt support and approval of senior management it isn’t possible to have a coaching culture.

It’s necessary to communicate effectively. Research senior management’s attitudes about installing a coaching culture. Appraise their interest.

Address any concerns or misconceptions by marketing the benefits of the solutions to executives.

2. Recognize centers of influence

Determine the employees who will be effective centers of influence or coaches of employees. Search for managers and employees who are trainable as coaches.

Consider the people who are being tapped in the firm’s succession planning. Gauge their interest in participating.

You’ll need enthusiasm for this mission: Support for the program in interfacing with employees and continuous marketing of the concepts until the program is finished.

Make sure they understand the differences between coaching and micromanaging, which costs opportunities in efficiency, productivity and teamwork – in other words, optimal profitability.

Aimless complaining is a symptom of problems in teamwork, morale, negativity and/or productivity. This impairs profits.

3. Design measurement systems

The key is to design measurement systems to drive engagement, productivity and quality.

Design the curricula with relevant information for all of the departments. Goals need to be set for your coaches and the workers being coached. Be sure that everyone understands the objectives.

You can accomplish this by building performance indicators.

4. Launch the training of coaches

Explain roles and responsibilities to your coaches. Emphasize the need for consistency of coaching their efforts.

5. Evaluate the results

Chances are you’ll notice the improvement in employee engagement by their attitudes and morale. Interview employees about their feelings about the coaching. Or query them on the benefits they received.

Survey the coaches about the improvements they noticed in the employees.

Measure the returns on your investment in such areas such as efficiency, production, profits, customer satisfaction or sales revenue.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are relevant articles:

How to Get Results from Your HR Training Investment — Here’s how to obtain a strong ROI from human resources training.

Trends — Employee Engagement and Business Success — Many companies will be more successful if they update their approaches in human resources. That’s the obvious conclusion from eye-opening information that was revealed in a survey of 40,000 employees at 300 companies. When companies implement outstanding human resources programs, they’re more profitable than their competitors that don’t.

Trust Gap between Managers and Workers — How to Drive Engagement — While it’s true there are companies that are aware that good morale among employees propels profits, many businesses are missing opportunities for growth. It’s not because of marketing. It has to do with internal issues. Why? There’s still a wide gap between what managers and workers think about trust.

HR Trends in Talent Management Using Technology — Despite all the talk about the use of technology in talent management, the majority of human resources departments are behind the curve. Why? A study shows 72 percent of HR departments reveal they’re not using such tools.

Best Practices to Evaluate Your HR Performance — To reach profit goals, leading organizations assess the performance of their human resources programs. If you want to accurately analyze the performance of your HR, at the very least you must research two areas.

Office Productivity: Psychologists Share Secrets — If you work in an office, corporate psychologists say there are several strategies you can use f or more productivity. Here’s an infographic entitled, “What You Need to Know to Be Productive at Work.”

“The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision.”

-Bruce Barton

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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.