Employee retention is no doubt a key challenge. A recent study by Gartner states that the rate of employee turnover is likely to be up to 75% higher. And in addition, it takes 18% longer to fill any available jobs than pre-pandemic. Not to mention the annoying “quiet quitting” phenomenon, which is white-anting businesses too!

Robert Half’s 2022 Salary Guide states that 78 per cent of employees are prepared to walk out the door if their pay rise request is not accepted. No wonder 31% of employers say their biggest challenge this year will be retaining top performers.

And the reasons why staff retention is affected?

The main reasons employees are leaving and affecting employee retention are:

Inadequate salary, deficient perks and benefits, overworked, lack of support, career progression, better work-life balance, absence of recognition, and unhappiness with management.

What can you do?

Whether we are trying to shift a few covid kilos or improve our qualifications doesn’t matter. There is never a single magic bullet. It’s usually a series of conscious actions and the discipline to implement them that results in the outcome we seek.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

– Lao Tzu

Let’s start from the very beginning

Getting back to the basics by reviewing your people processes is a perfect place to begin to improve staff retention in your organisation. Here are a few thought starters.

#1 Realistic Position previews

The talent competition is fierce, and at an all-time high, so your recruitment process needs to be engaging, timely and professional. How you or your team handle the recruitment process can strongly influence the desire for a new player to choose to join your company or not.

Research shows that providing applicants with a realistic job preview during the recruitment process positively affects the retention of those new hires. Selling the job or the business as Utopia is not a good idea.

#2 Professional interviews to increase employee retention

When it comes to interview questions, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” or “sell me that pen” are way past their use-by date. The objective of the initial interview is to confirm that skills and abilities align.

The goal of the second or final interview is to confirm fit. Is the applicant a good fit for the job? Equally important is for the candidate to verify if the job is a good fit for them.

It’s a lot less costly to retain people than hire new staff, and with retention as key focus, you need objective information to de-risk the selection process. Tools like our customisable psychometric GR8PI assessments will give you these critical candidate insights— insights that are impossible to glean at an interview.

#3 Socialise and onboard for retention

Early failure is often high among new employees, and hybrid work has added further complexity.

Onboarding aims to help your new team member understand how to be successful in their new job. First impressions count: you have one chance to make a great first impression when an employee starts with your company.

So, it’s best to ensure you have strategic onboarding and assimilation processes that can quickly help new people become embedded in your business and the role. And therefore, more likely to stay. Possible approaches here include:

shared and individualised learning experiences, formal and informal activities that help people get to know one another and assigning experienced employees as role models or mentors for new staff.

#4 Managers are key to minimise staff turnover

Those first few weeks and months in a new employee’s job are critical, especially in the new hybrid world. A first-rate manager-employee relationship is vital in delivering the employee experience and connection to the business for retention.

Compounding the challenge, many managers have never received any formal people management training. Frequently, a person has made it to manager due to tenure, success in their previous role, or the desire to retain a person.

While these may be valid, today, managers need access to new tools to lead and manage their employees. Such tools help them foster career aspirations, well-being, and connection to the organisational culture.

#5 Training and development to improve employee retention

CFO to CEO: “What will we do if we train them and they leave?”

CEO to CFO “What if we don’t and they stay?”

This conversation rings true today more than ever.

But not just any old training works. Sending your people to a one size fits all training course is just wasting money. Everyone learns differently, and unless you fully understand what training is appropriate for each employee, you will not achieve the outcomes.

A gap analysis can clearly highlight the specific deficiencies. Our customisable GR8PI suite of dimensions helps you identify gaps. By enabling you to benchmark and compare your staff at a glance, you can customise the thorough training needed across the various groups.

Elon Musk says, “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.”

If you’d like some help in this area, please reach out or book a call to learn more.

The post Five ways of reducing the risk of dropping employee retention appeared first on Directions Unlimited.

Recent research reports that there has been an increase in the total number of open Customer Success jobs for the first time since February. In June, there were 6,515 available Customer Success jobs posted. This number was nearly 500 more than in May.

Regardless of the organisation’s size, gone are the days of Sales and Marketing departments only delivering the business goals. Today it’s critical to have the customer success department straddling sales and marketing to achieve your deliverables.

Customer Success versus Customer Service

Most customer support roles tend to be reactive as they respond to inbound customer requests, complaints and issues. The opposite tends to be the case when it comes to Customer Success roles.

These roles are focused on working proactively in partnership with customers post-sale to ensure maximisation of the product or service value delivered to the client and head off any issues before they fester. It’s critical that Customer Success delivers a positive customer experience and creates a close professional relationship.

If done correctly, Customer Success’s broader and essential role leads to business success. It’s also a vital contributor to customer loyalty. When you help your customers succeed, they become promoters and advocates of your business. Customer Success is connected to your bottom line as it: 

• minimises customer churn rates, 
• improves renewal and satisfaction, 
• and in turn, boosts revenue.

Murphy’s law

Edward Murphy Jr. was an American aerospace engineer who worked on safety-critical systems and was born in 1918 in the Panama Canal Zone.

He is best known for his namesake Murphy’s law, stating, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.

While Customer Success done well offers a significant commercial advantage to a business, if done poorly and with Murphy’s law at times coming in to play significantly affects business factors.  

But what can possibly go wrong with Customer Success?

For starters, to maximise productivity, organisations may allocate too many client accounts to one team or representative to look after. Or weight incentives are heavily towards revenue generation. Or worse still, wrong people are assigned to the role.

Spend any time with a sales organisation, and you are likely to hear a similar story—a story about a consistently top-performing sales rep who failed to make the transition to sales manager.

And the reason? The skills and attributes required as a successful salesperson are vastly different to those needed to be a top manager. The same is true applies to Customer Success Managers.

The abilities and traits required to be a successful Customer Success Manager are many and varied, and selecting the right people for this role certainly presents risk elements.

What makes a great Customer Success Manager (CSM)?

Firstly, there is no one size fits all. Industry type and service or product offering contribute to answering this question. CSM’s usually possess broad business experience. It’s not uncommon for people with backgrounds in sales, support, presales, project management, and even marketing roles to have made successful CSMs.

When we ask managers what makes a great CSM, they usually tell us their best people are proactive and tend to have similar traits such as:

• Great at managing stress
• Resilient
• Empathetic
• Customer-focused
• Sincere
• Keeps promises
• Positive attitude
• Calm in a crisis
• Self-assured
• Socially relaxed
• Strong reasoning and analytical ability
• Great communicators

It’s quite the laundry list. The complex nature of backgrounds combined with the challenge of pinpointing the varied attributes that align with your business and service offering is where many organisations fail.

In fact, studies tell us that failing to get the right person that fits your organisation will result in a decrease in productivity, higher levels of staff turnover and high levels of job-related stress.

Determine the requirements and spot the people

The challenge for organisations today, especially in the current tight market, is identifying the best potential CSM’s. Typically, in our work, we observe many organisations that rely on the job description, resumes and reference checks when making hiring or redeployment decisions. And this then results in a high level of three out of four recruits who just aren’t the right fit.

It’s a case of “rubbish in = rubbish out”. If we don’t have the right information,

how can we possibly make the right decision?

We have worked with many clients using our next-gen tools and helped them profile the critical success attributes that establish fit for a role. Using our 4-step robust process, our clients in the main enjoy a 3-fold increase in pinpointing top people that excel, 47% reduction in team turnover and a significant increase in productivity.

The war for talent is in play right now in Australia. You owe it to you and your business to remove the higher risk of getting it wrong.

Contact Great People Inside to help recruit your next outstanding CSM or top performers for other important roles to benefit your organisation.

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Now may be an opportunity for your business to increase focus on this area with employees recognising the value of these skills.

These skills help overcome challenges in the workplace and build your team and business for several reasons:

• handling interpersonal conflicts
• leading employee training
• managing deadlines
• communicating and distributing information between employees working remotely and onsite
• building a solid company culture, and
• developing your employees’ maximum capability.

Leaders who adopt people management skills provide constructive feedback and mentor employees to grow and succeed in their positions. Goals will also be able to be established and achieved. And overall, the work environment will be influenced positively.

A leader who has an in-depth understanding of their employees can evaluate:

• the strength and weaknesses of their team
• the resources required, and
• set realistic deadlines.

This approach encourages the employees to strive for success and not set them up for failure.

In addition, leaders are able to build rapport, ask the team for constructive feedback, and take actionable steps to make positive changes in the work culture. As a result, this benefits everyone.

Below are four critical people management areas to help you understand your team and individuals at all levels. From onboarding, developing new skills, preparing them for other roles, to working on specialised projects.

1 Understand Human Behaviour And Acknowledging Diversity

It is crucial to understand one simple concept – we are all different. Each individual will react and behave differently in any given situation.

A leader needs to realise that family, environmental and cultural influences have shaped some beliefs and behaviours. Understanding and learning some of the behavioural types and conditioning will allow leaders and managers to treat their employees with respect. In return, the business will be rewarded with best work practices, a motivated team and promote a culture where ideas and opinions are valued.

2 The Individual’s Purpose

It is also imperative to understand how the individual team member sees their own purpose in their role and how they can contribute to the business. This approach can lead to improvements at both the individual employee and business levels. A continued effort in understanding their sense of purpose, whether they are in the office or working from home, ensures the individual and business goals stay aligned. 

3 Transparent Communication

When there is open and transparent communication, it creates an atmosphere of trust. In effect, by employing people management skills, this communication works both ways, i.e., you tell, and they listen, and you have to do the same – listen to your employees. 

This area is more critical than ever for businesses undergoing managing teams remotely. Video-based onboarding and mentoring and a remote communication strategy are essential for employee skill development and project delivery. 

4 We Own This Together

While leading with example is great, it also benefits when you entrust team members with specific tasks which best fit their skill sets. It shows that you are acknowledging their skillset and allowing them to demonstrate their capabilities. As a result, the team is closer and creates an environment of ownership and positive experiences. 

In a remote setting, delegate tasks through shared online platforms that allow for the employee’s autonomy while still maintaining a sense of community in the workplace.

Responsibility and accountability on both ends improve overall morale and reduces people management skills coming across as complicated, unnecessary at times, and time-consuming.

Ongoing people management for development and retention

Just because you have hired a superstar does not mean you don’t have to continue managing and developing them to maximise their potential and business outcomes.

Development should start from day one of an employee’s journey with their new company. The rapport the new employee develops with the company can have long-lasting effects on the business, including the employee retention rate. 

Trends have seen employees become more focused on developing their individual skills. Placing importance on their progress can help connect their goals to the more significant objectives of the business. Supporting these goals can be achieved remotely from the onboarding stage and continue through employment by hosting video workshops and online training seminars. 

Many reasons cause an employee to leave an organisation, such as:

• a lack of training
• development
• engagement
• progression opportunities.

Quantify top performance 

Many assessments compare candidate results against generic benchmarks or no benchmark at all. In other words, this leaves the user with either no reference point or, at best, a near enough is good enough benchmark.

Great People Inside believes assessing an individual’s job performance as accurately as possible requires benchmarks built specifically for each role. Assessments can apply to both positions operating onsite or remotely. By identifying the success DNA of your top performers, you can create job benchmarks based on what success looks like in your business. Further development of your existing team members can be implemented where appropriate, including a coaching option.

As the employer, benchmarking flows through to promoting and succession planning of your people to measure candidate profiles against the relevant top-performing role profile in your organisation.

Given these points, assessments that treat people as multi-faceted complex individuals we are, open a world of possibilities with both your new and existing people. You will find yourself in the stronger position of identifying your people’s true potential and providing opportunities for laser-focused development.

If you’d like to trial GPI’s assessments for consideration as part of your organisation’s people management strategy – click here.

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Some of these more challenging issues can creep their way into your team’s workflow – damaging productivity and team success. These issues can sometimes act like a virus, going undetected until it’s too late and you experience your team performance crumble before your eyes.

A team coach gives teams the tools to identify and work through these issues before they become a bigger problem.

So what are the early signs that your team needs team coaching?

Your team isn’t hitting targets

A team is greater than the sum of its parts. While it’s a bit of a cliché, this statement couldn’t be truer when it comes to high performing teams. While individual talent is one of the key ingredients for driving company results, it doesn’t necessarily translate to the team hitting important workplace targets.

Team success relies entirely on effective collaboration. Take sport for example. An outstanding soccer player would not be able to succeed without the help from their team. A team coach can help teams overcome difficulties so that they can collaborate more effectively, work more productively and reach their targets.

There’s a communication breakdown in your team

It happens in all workplaces. People have different communication styles, some of which don’t blend easily together. This doesn’t mean certain members of your team are doomed to work in confinement. This simply will not work.

For a team to work at optimum performance, there needs to be clear and distinct lines of communication between every member of the team. Think of these lines of communication like electricity lines in a power grid. If lines are missing between members of your team, certain people will be left in the dark. Lack of effective communication can lead to misunderstandings and frustration among your team members. It can inhibit productivity, hamper morale and damage your overall team performance.

Team coaching helps teams communicate directly and efficiently so that teammates can work better together and improve team results.

There is a feedback gap

Constructive feedback is one of the most important tools that individuals and teams can use to work through challenges and improve results. While this is true, a really common workplace issue is the absence of regular feedback among teams – both positive and constructive. Feedback is best given frequently and to every member of a team in order for it to be effective. A coach will work with teams to streamline the way feedback is given (and received) so that individuals can work more constructively together and achieve team objectives.

Morale is low

Low morale can occur for many different reasons. Whether it’s personality differences within your team, an absence of transparency or a lack of forward progression, low morale can result in a major dip in productivity levels. It also often results in higher turnover rates which can cause companies to incur huge unwanted costs.

A team coach can help every team member feel ownership over their own success and the success of the team. This feeling of accountability helps to give team members a drive to succeed. It does wonders for team morale and can improve workplace results. A team coach will also give your team the tools to communicate more efficiently, build trust and improve engagement.

There’s tension in your team

Negative tension between members of your team can be extremely harmful for a number of reasons. It can draw focus away from important workplace tasks, hamper morale and damage employee engagement. Even worse, it can result in your best talent heading out the door.

While conflict isn’t inherently bad, when it isn’t addressed or resolved, it can interfere with a team’s workflow and inhibit success. Team coaching helps with conflict resolution and more importantly helps the team understand why a fear of conflict within the team can be detrimental to top performance. A coach will give members of your team the tools to identify conflict and address it head-on so that tension doesn’t brew and become a bigger problem than it needs to be. A coach will help each person in the team optimise their own communication skills and formulate strong lines of communication so that tension can be aired and overcome.

Our team coaching programs generally consist of a 6-12 month process that develops a team’s capacity to deliver measurable business outcomes and a self-sufficient approach to steer its ongoing development. In our experience, team coaching works best with newly forming teams, or when the membership of a team changes significantly, or when an existing team wants to ramp up their performance or reinvent itself to meet new business challenges.

To find out how your team could benefit from team coaching, contact us today for an obligation free discussion.

The post The top 5 signs that your team needs team coaching appeared first on Directions Unlimited.

While effective leadership and outstanding talent are essential ingredients in boosting team performance, a successful team relies entirely on effective collaboration. So, how can teams improve the way they collaborate? The answer is through team coaching.

Team coaching provides teams with the tools and communication mechanisms to achieve success. Similar to one-on-one coaching, team coaching involves developing individual accountability and improving performance. What sets it apart  is that it involves the development of teams to strengthen lines of communication, streamline collaboration and improve ongoing performance.

Here’s how team coaching improves team performance:

Improves team communication

Team success relies on the collaboration of individuals working towards collective goals. Without effective lines of communication, team success simply cannot be achieved. Effective communication is the basis for how well individuals work together, how feedback is given and received, the way in which individuals develop, and how conflict is resolved.

A team coach will work with teams to help improve these lines of communication. A coach can give teams the right tools and mechanisms to communicate effectively so that they can streamline team projects and improve performance on an ongoing basis.

Makes every team member accountable

When individuals feel accountability for their own mistakes and successes, they are more engaged with their work and more likely to achieve their goals. The same goes for accountability within teams. When individuals (no matter if they’re CEOs or junior executives) feel accountable for their team’s results, they are more likely to reach their goals independently and in collaboration with the team.

Team coaching works with every member of the team to instill a sense of accountability so that everyone in the team feels ownership over the team’s performance and results.

Resolves conflict

Most leaders find conflict resolution is a vital component of their role. A survey conducted by Stanford Business found that 43% of CEOs, board directors, and senior executives consider ‘conflict management skills’ to be their top area of concern. While conflict resolution is an important skill for leaders to possess, it’s just as important for individuals to maintain the skills to work through collective problems and manage disagreements promptly and independently.

Successful conflict resolution is one of the important skills that a team coach can instill in individuals and teams. A coach can give teams the right tools to develop an environment in which effective communication eclipses workplace conflict.

Boosts morale

High morale is a byproduct of effective team coaching. When individuals communicate effectively and reach collective goals, it can help to boost team confidence and morale. And when confidence and morale is elevated, team performance is likely to remain high. It’s a cycle that can be the difference between achieving great business results and the failure to reach important workplace goals. By boosting morale and improving engagement, employees are more likely to achieve their goals independently and with the team.

Lays the foundations for success

One of the underlying capabilities of team coaching is that it successfully instills a coaching mindset in each individual of a team. With this mindset, individuals are better equipped to communicate in the workplace and achieve important business objectives. It also gives them the skills to coach others to gain the same mindset. This is extremely valuable, particularly for training and developing new employees or new team members.

If you would like to learn more about how Directions Unlimited can conduct team coaching sessions with your teams to improve collaboration and performance, contact us: info@directionsunlimited.com.au

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Why do people avoid conflict?

Just as conflict is a part of human nature, the human construct of social niceties has brought with it the desire for us to avoid conflict all together. Our natural tendencies and how we are hardwired can influence how we believe conflict should be addressed. Managers who are naturally highly accommodating may want to be the ‘good guy’, but in doing so can often avoid important and constructive conversations that have the potential to ignite conflict. Equally, highly assertive managers may tend to take a very direct approach (the “four by two” approach) which can start the whole conversation off on the wrong foot. Which approach is right? Consider this.

Conflict happens. It’s a normal part of everyday life whether we like it or not. Although we might think that conflict interferes with our business objectives, the way we deal with it can have an even bigger impact on the overall success of your company.

Conflict that is swept under the rug will not just go away. Unresolved conflict can fester into a wound that is hard to heal, so it’s best to confront conflict before it turns into a bigger problem. If conflict goes unresolved, you could see employees’ engagement and productivity levels plummet and your best talent walk out the door. Taking an overly direct approach may see the employee defending their position rather than listening, and feeling hard done by, which is also likely to cause a reduction in engagement and productivity.

How does conflict interfere with communication?

When managers fear conflict, they can breakdown the communication lines that run within your organisation. If managers fail to communicate effectively with their subordinates and teams, employees might feel less likely to approach their leaders if and when something goes wrong. And if a manager is scared to give constructive feedback to an employee or team, it can negatively impact the growth and development of that individual or team.

So, how can leaders face their fear and address conflict head on?

Gain a coach’s mindset

Coaching skills equip individuals with the ability to communicate effectively, giving them the confidence to approach difficult conversations with ease. A coach will set regular one-on-one meetings with their coachee to see how they’re going with their work and find out what their challenges are, so that they can reach their goals independently. They will also provide regular feedback, both positive and constructive, so that individuals can better understand their strengths and areas requiring improvement. Regular and effective communication means that these leaders often know about issues before problems arise. Conflict is therefore less likely to occur and if it does, they’re well equipped to deal with it.

Be objective yet considerate

When conflict does arise, a great leader will consider each party’s concerns, while remaining focused on the overall objectives of the company. When dealing with conflict in the workplace, it’s important to put yourself in the shoes of each individual involved with the conflict while formulating an outcome that will best serve the company. Remember, if one or more parties isn’t happy with the outcome, it could impact negatively on their wellbeing, engagement and productivity.

Be open

A coaching leader is open, trustworthy and approachable. Maintaining open lines of communication amongst individuals and teams is the best way to prevent conflict from arising and to address it effectively when it does. Giving regular feedback is a great place to start. It’s important to foster an environment in which people feel confident to approach their managers and fellow workers when there is a problem or when they would like advice.

Seek out conflict

Poor managers often have their blinkers on when there is a problem within their team or wider organisation. In order to address conflict, you’ll need to know when it is occurring. Seeking out conflict is not as investigatory as it may seem. You simply need to communicate effectively and follow the progress of individuals and teams so that you know if they have any concerns and if any problems are emerging.

Leverage conflict for growth and development

Where there is conflict, there is the opportunity to learn and grow. Addressing and resolving conflict is a huge learning curve for leaders and employees alike. It requires leaders to problem solve in a high pressure situation and manage relationships in an objective yet empathetic manner which addresses each individual’s needs and desires.

To find out more about how to manage conflict effectively in your workplace, contact us today for an obligation free discussion.

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What exactly is a coaching culture?

A coaching culture is a workplace approach in which leaders, managers and staff members work together to increase individual, team and company organisational performance.

A workplace that has a coaching culture is one where workers feel empowered to work towards their own goals independently. Managers who foster this type of environment have a positive impact on employee engagement and organisational productivity. In the same report, Gallup found that managers are a huge influence on engagement rates, accounting for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. And with high engagement rates comes better company results.

So how can you transform your managers into coaches to create a coaching culture in your workplace?

Teach coaching skills

A coach is someone who works one-on-one with an individual or with a team to help them unlock their maximum potential. In a workplace environment, a coach helps individuals achieve their professional outcomes while still holding them accountable for their work. They also provide non-judgemental support, ensuring the welfare of their coachee is met, both at work and outside of work.

Not all managers have a coaching mindset, but all great managers do. Prioritising coaching in your workplace training is the best way to create a coaching culture at work. This type of training is particularly important for employees who are transitioning into leadership roles, however can be beneficial for every employee within your organisation, no matter what their role is. Make sure your coach training is from an International Coaching Federation Accredited Coach Training Provider (ACTP). The IECL offers excellent courses that comply.

Adopting a leader-as-coach mindset will help you as manager/leader to identify coachable moments. And in turn encourage your team to model this type of behaviour with their team members The development of a coaching culture starts at the top. As leaders we are constantly on display so maintaining self awareness and composure especially in stressful situations is a must.

Communicate effectively

A coaching mindset involves asking the right questions and listening intently. Rather than saying “do this please”, a coach will ask “what approach do you think will help to achieve this outcome?”. This type of framing puts the onus on the coachee to think, gives them ownership and empowers them to reach their own goals and helps them to gain valuable problem solving skills along the way. A great leader/manager will arrange regular one-on-one meetings with employees to see where each employee is at with their work. They will check in to see if individuals feel good about their work, and they will give feedback, both positive and constructive, on a regular basis.

A great coach will prioritise the development of individuals because they know that in order to achieve vital business objectives, the company needs engaged, motivated and high performing individuals to work collectively towards a shared goal.

Prioritise employee engagement

Tying together talent and employee engagement to achieve important business objectives is what coaching is all about. The more engaged your workers are, the more motivated they will be to achieve results.

In Australia and New Zealand, the Gallup study found that employees have lackluster engagement scores, with just 14% feeling engaged in their job.

To keep employees engaged, it’s important to nurture their own professional development. In order to develop your people, a good step is discussing with each employee their own professional goals and communicating clearly and precisely how the organisation can support them to achieve these. In this regard it’s really important that the employee understands they own their own development and their careers and that the company’s role is to support them and guide them along the way. It should not be a case of the employee waiting for something to happen to them. Remember, not every organisation has the resources to provide in-house training or coaching but organisations focused on developing people can support their development through various outsourced initiatives and check in regularly to see how they are going. A focus on workplace morale should be prioritised in the same way that other important company objectives are. The wellbeing of individuals and teams will have a direct influence on their level of productivity and performance.

Foster an environment of trust

A workplace environment in which managers trust their employees and employees trust their managers is one where productivity can thrive. Creating trust is challenging and again this is where a coaching mindset can play a huge role. Professor Ralph Stacey says it best – “the quality of the system is determined by the quality of the relationships which is determined by the quality of the conversation.”  

When individuals have accountability over their work, they are more likely to achieve important business outcomes independently. Autonomous workers also understand how their everyday work contributes to the overall success of the company. This connection helps to empower individuals to reach their highest potential.

To find out more about how to incorporate a coaching mindset in your leaders, contact us today for an obligation free discussion.

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It’s easy for employees to develop blind spots in the workplace. Even a company’s best employees can fall prey to this. Here’s where an external coach can help. A coach can support the development of individuals, teams and groups and boost their ability to deliver outstanding results. By providing an external objective perspective, a coach can help raise awareness of limiting assumptions, hold a mirror up so they can see the role they play, and hold them to account. In essence, a great coach is an individuals or teams unreasonable friend!

When is coaching best utilised?

When there is a communication breakdown within teams

Communication can break down for a number of reasons. Often managers will tell their teams what to do instead of asking the right questions to help them reach resolutions independently. This is a sure-fire way to hurt employee accountability, engagement and productivity. Feedback is another area of difficulty for many managers. When managers fail to give feedback on a frequent basis, or if they give feedback in a manner that is negative or discouraging, they can harm the confidence levels of employees and as a result hinder individual performance.

An executive coach can help leaders facilitate better communication within teams. A coach will show leaders how to ask the right questions to make individuals more engaged and more productive. By gaining effective communication skills, managers can build relationships of trust between employees, they can help employees develop stronger problem-solving skills, and help them to feel more accountable for their work.

When there are performance issues

When performance issues arise in the workplace, many managers are at a loss as how to properly address the issue without affecting the employee’s confidence or damaging the relationship. There is a risk that the process will breakdown the trust in the relationship and make employees feel less engaged, less productive and less secure in their job. A coach is able to provide an outsider’s perspective and take some of the emotion out of the process. They will support the employee to find solutions to specific problems so that they can independently reach their own goals. A coach can be used to work directly with the employee when issues arise and they are also an invaluable resource in the complexity that dynamic groups and teams operate in today.

When you feel an employee is ready for a promotion

When you’re preparing an employee for a leadership role, it’s important that they develop the skills necessary to truly lead their team. A coach can support individuals to gain insight and understanding about leadership, management and how to identify and develop their authentic self.

A study conducted at Wharton found that external hires get paid 18% more than internal recruits yet  are 61% more likely to be fired. Companies don’t always recognise that they have an untapped pool of talent which they can develop for promotion. By developing internal talent, you are often more likely to access the best person for the job. Coaching can be used to develop an individual who you think is ready for a promotion and can help to ensure the individual has the skills needed to take on the new role.

Succession planning

All organisations lose key leaders. Whether it is planned or unplanned, losing your key leaders can be very disruptive to your company’s performance and your company budget. This is why it’s important to develop employees at every level within your organisation and have a succession plan in place.

Often referred to as ‘bench strength’, the employees in line for leadership roles within an organisation can benefit greatly from coaching. Preparing employees to fill key leadership roles within your organisation is important for safeguarding your organisation for when you lose high performing employees.

At Directions Unlimited, we understand the importance of identifying areas of improvement within the workplace before problems arise.

To find out more about one to one coaching, team coaching, or group coaching, contact us for an obligation free discussion.

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By coaching your team you can improve their performance, build their skills and drive engagement. Skills like communication and strategic thinking are crucial for business success and can boost employee engagement. When individuals are given the time by their leaders to communicate openly and productively, they are more likely to be loyal, engaged and self motivated. Gaining communicative skills through coaching can help managers to develop the skills needed to help other individuals reach success.

Some numbers from the International Coaching Federation (ICF) on the benefits of coaching reveal that a vast majority of companies (86%) say they at least made their investment back. (Source ICF). Coaching generates learning and clarity for forward action with a commitment to measurable outcomes. It builds the self-confidence of employees to face challenges, critical to meeting organisational demands. Coaching also maximises potential and therefore unlocks latent sources of productivity in your team.

So, what is coaching?

Coaching is a process that enables the individual to develop and achieve their full potential. It’s about helping someone evolve and advance in their business, role, or life. Coaches collaborate with individuals and push them beyond their comfort zone through unlocking their barriers and facilitating awareness and accountability.

For more information on how coaching can help you check out our article on this topic.

Why is coaching such a powerful business tool?

Once only reserved for leaders, coaching is now commonly implemented with success among managers and teams alike, and everyone reaps the benefits.

Coaching is a valuable, cost effective and motivating tool a business can utilise in order to achieve success. It helps you, as a leader or manager, to reach your highest potential so that you can drive success among other individuals within your organisation.

Here are some of the benefits of coaching for your team:

Improve individual and team performance

When managers adopt a coaching mindset, they can help their team to improve collaboration, problem solve more effectively and strategise to reach business goals more efficiently.

Reduce turnover and help you to retain high performing staff

Coaching is a vital organisational tool for developing talent and also for reducing staff turnover rates. Improving the staff retention rate within your organisation means that you can dedicate less time to training new staff, and more time to achieving your important business goals. A study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management found that it can cost the equivalent of six to nine months of an employee’s salary in order to recruit and train a replacement. When you consider an employee with a salary of $100,000, this means it would cost over $50,000 to replace them! Coaching gives individuals the opportunity to discuss how they can grow within the organisation and also how they can help their company to grow.

Boost team morale

A team in which individuals feel comfortable to communicate openly is one that can thrive. By employing  a coaching approach you can communicate collaboratively and productively within your team and organisation. Rather than telling your team what to do, you’ll be equipped to be a more intent listener and coach to your team, where you can pull on your strong communicative skills and ask them open ended questions to reach a resolution. For those that may wish to read further on how leaders can work more effectively with their team, there is an excellent book by Nancy Kline called Time to Think – listening to ignite the human mind.

Foster company growth and success

Coaching can help your team to meet important business goals. Fostering an environment in which employees reach their highest potential can make a company’s growth-potential limitless. Through coaching your team, they gain first hand access to skills that can propel them forward and lead to success.

For more information on how to develop a coaching mindset check out our article on the three coaching skills you need to be a great manager.

Directions Unlimited’s Director, David Leahy, graduated from the prestigious Institute of Executive Coaching in Sydney, and has coached executives internationally in South America, USA, Europe, Asia and Australia – helping many individuals and companies attain their goals.

If you would like an obligation free discussion, contact us today and see how your team can leverage the power of coaching for success!

The post The power of coaching for your team appeared first on Directions Unlimited.

This is where things can get a bit muddy. Small to medium sized businesses often struggle with the recruitment process as they may not have to hire often and therefore are not going through the process of recruiting and interviewing enough to keep up a consistent standard of practice.

If a small to medium sized business has a HR department they may have increased success hiring the right person for the job as they will likely recruit frequently and are generally far more accustomed to interviewing. However, regardless of who is managing the recruitment process, using an intuitive hiring approach only; that is, making a hiring decision based on ‘feeling good’ about or liking someone, will mean increasing the risk of making a bad hire. In fact research tells us using this method we get a top performer only about 25% of the time!

Reflect for a moment on the last major purchasing decision you made, for example a laptop, Smart TV or car. It’s highly probable your decision was not solely based on intuition but that you researched and obtained as much data as possible on your potential purchase and a combination of both informed your final decision.

Why should the process be different when hiring someone for your business? Relying solely on resumes (which may be embellished), interviews and references does not provide us with the objective data we need to increase our success rate of hiring the right people.

What is a bad hire?

A bad hire is a person who ultimately doesn’t suit the role or the business. It doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything wrong with that individual – just that they don’t fit that role or that organisation. This could be for any number of reasons, such as a cultural misfit or the wrong skill set or approach.

Why is a bad hire so bad?

Employing someone and then realising they were a bad hire can impact your business in many ways.

Hiring the wrong people who don’t perform as expected can cost your business significantly. When a person has the right fit in their role, they enjoy the work they do and as a result productivity and employee engagement increases. Take the opportunity and employee engagement cost for example. Studies of more than 650,000 people by Towers Watson demonstrated that companies with high levels of employee engagement enjoyed:

– 19.2% increase in operating income in the 12 months (vs a 32.7% decline)
– 13.7% rise in net income (vs a 3.8% decline)
– 27.8% increase in earnings-per-share (EPS) (vs an 11.2% decline)

If you don’t have the right people in your business, you miss out on this great opportunity.

Additionally the costs of recruitment, especially if those people don’t remain in your business, are extremely high. This includes the money and time it takes to advertise, interview and accept a new employee. Then you have to train them, build their skills and invest time, energy, resources and money into doing so. By then you realise that this position for this person was not a good fit or they leave after a few months. This creates a great deal of extra strain on your business and team.

Consultancy Firm Retail Solution recently did a survey that found staff turnover in the first 12 months of hire is costing $3.8 billion in lost productivity across Australia. With those figures it’s easy to see why recruiting the right people is paramount to your business’ success!

Hiring the wrong person for the role, and subsequently losing them, might also give your business a negative brand or reputation hit. Remember that your current and ex-employees are your brand advocates and can have a huge impact on how the rest of the world sees you, especially with social media sharing and employer reviews on the rise.

How to overhaul your recruitment and interview process

Ideally, your recruitment process would look like this: you have identified a role that needs to be filled within your business. Once you have developed your job description you should create a role benchmark for the position. There are lots of tools out there to help you do this but we recommend the ProfileXT assessment as it’s the most accurate on the market and has benchmarking capabilities that allow you to scientifically measure and quantify the critical success attributes of the role unique to your organisation.

Then using the information from the role benchmark you can develop a targeted job advertisement (or we can help!) What do we mean by a targeted job ad? Most job ads these days can be a bit blah and look more like a job description than an engaging, exciting invitation to apply for a role. We recommend really “speaking” to potential candidates in the ad by explaining what is required to be a top performer in the role and by answering the burning question for the applicant – What’s in it for me?

You can include some screening questions in your advertisement to make sure candidates possess those basic skills required to do the role. These are skills you are just not willing to train for, such as email etiquette, English grammar or Microsoft skills. We recommend using an online skills assessment as part of the process. These are cost effective, short online questionnaires that can be customised if you wish and provide a rating on the candidate’s knowledge to help you significantly speed up screening applications.

Once you have reviewed the resumes, conduct the first screening interview either by phone or in person. Then develop a shortlist and invite candidates in for their first face to face interview. It’s in these interviews where you will confirm the skills, qualifications and experience of the candidates.

You then develop your shortened shortlist, and invite those people to complete an objective behavioural online assessment.

This process of objective behavioural assessments gives you a full understanding of a candidate’s abilities, personality traits, behaviours, interests and preferred learning styles. In addition you also gain insights into the candidate’s interests which helps you understand if they are interested in the type of work on offer. Making people decisions is about information and this objective data will help you immensely as you make your final decisions and offer the position.

Overall, the best thing you can do for your business is to determine fit, rather than just to verify the details of the candidate’s resume. Your goal should be to use the interview to determine whether your candidate is a fit with the role and whether they will fit into your existing team. This is where our assessment tools such as the ProfileXT assessment tool that measures JobFit can help.

What should I look for in an assessment tool?

A good assessment tool will cover the entire employee lifecycle, from developing the job description, through to the process of selecting, hiring, and developing them.

Ideally the assessment tool should be normed for the population and allow you to develop benchmarks that are unique to your team and culture.

The ProfileXT assessment does this really well as it shows at a glance how the candidate compares to the benchmark of the role and provides you with an interview guide report complete with suggested questions that help you to drill into any potential obstacles to success.

By using an online assessment tool such as ProfileXT, you can determine how well a candidate will fit within your workplace culture. ProfileXT allows you to look at the behaviours, attitudes and personalities of candidates as compared to the rest of your team, and helps you understand whether the candidate will be a good fit or not – this is the JobFit aspect.

JobFit also assesses the mental and physical demands of the role, the atmosphere and environment, and desired personality and behavioural traits, to give an outline of the type of person best suited for that role. This has proven to be extremely useful for businesses in helping them avoid bad hires.

Put simply, the ProfileXT assessment and JobFit give you essential objective data that cannot be determined by a traditional interview.

The facts are that the ProfileXT assessment, the basis of JobFit, has the highest predictive reliability of any assessments in the marketplace. Imagine having such a deep understanding of your new employee before they even begin work!

Where to from here?

It’s important to note that you don’t have to overhaul your recruitment process completely to successfully hire the right person. You can keep doing what you’re doing when it comes to finding and narrowing down to your shortlist of candidates. Then, once you have developed your shortlist, you can assess those people and compare them to the role benchmark to see how they fit. An objective assessment tool, such as ProfileXT, can easily dovetail your existing process.

So, are you sick of hiring the wrong people in your business? Contact us today to start overhauling your hiring and interview process.

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