For twenty years or more, organizations in the traditional business community have offered senior staff the opportunity to work with a coach around the implementation of their priorities. Today this is rapidly becoming the norm and in fact some people accept new positions or promotions contingent on the company’s willingness to supply coaching or outside assistance. Employers view this as not just a nice fringe benefit but a way to strengthen the bottom line by keeping the employee focused on obtaining the desired results for the company.
Would coaching for lower level staff, even entry level staff, support the company’s priorities as well? During my 40 years of human service executive experience, I became increasingly impressed with the close relationship between organizational success and the work done on the front lines; this is where the organization’s mission is truly alive…or in some cases not so alive.
So why not offer leadership development and coaching to entry level staff?
As I talk to organizational leaders about this, most express their reluctance to begin providing this benefit by saying one or more of the following:
o the turnover at lower levels in the organization is so high that investing in their development would be like pouring money down the drain.
o they would rather put their money into training ins.
o there’s too many entry level staff to offer it to some and
o developmental issues are too “soft” to appropriately address…they’d rather invest in compensation increases or those coveted 1 year anniversary p not others.
While each of these objections contains an element of truth, I think there is a case to be made for why organizations should seriously consider providing coaching to staff at all levels and in particular those at lower levels in the organization. The talking points go something like this:
o Most lower level workers do not see themselves as working at any other level than the level they are presently on; when they leave one company they go to another for essentially the same kind of work where the pay is 25 cents an hour more. This is a major factor behind an unenthusiastic attitude which they bring to the workplace. If coaching, perhaps in a group setting could successfully address even a small portion of this reality, it could make major differences in the results achieved. Essentially coaching could result in the realization that, as John Maxwell says, you can be a leader regardless of your position in the organization. Coaching could also help staff develop goals that relate to the success of the organization as well as new directions in their personal lives. Research suggests that 95% of Americans have no formalized goals in their lives, but the 5% who do have a higher net worth, a wider circle of friends and a lower divorce rate. Helping entry level staff see that the world of opportunity is bigger than they thought would be good for everyone.
o Entry level staff will leave sooner than senior staff. For some, this may be their first job and they are not really sure yet what they would like to do with their lives. Let’s accept the proposition that most of those people will leave within 18 months of hire; they will spend the first six months learning the job, the second 6 month period actually “producing” and the final six months disengaging as they look for other opportunities. But look at what happens if we could figure out a way to add just six months to their total period of employment…the period of production increases by 100%.
o Training can sometimes build new skills and in certain settings is a part of the compliance requirements for operation. However, one-shot training provided during a day at a nice hotel with a chicken breast lunch is pretty much forgotten by the end of the week. Rarely is there follow-up and rarely does training address some of the attitudinal issues that prevent the implementation of new information. There is no attempt to help people integrate new information with the realities of their workplace environment. This is where the coaching process shines because it is all about attitude, integration, learning, follow-up and accountability.
o Although coaching could be done by in-house staff, my experience has been that having it done by someone outside the organization has distinct advantages. In a setting where the participants do not have to worry about what another, more senior, staff person thinks of their performance, the employee is free to expose what is not going well in his work environment as well as the successes he/she has experienced. In this way, the real issues standing between the employee and success can be addressed.
Over the last two years, I have been involved in the group coaching of about 100 staff members, mostly entry level staff earning $30,000 per year or less. With two organizations where I have been coaching , I have started a second group in one and a third in another because the management of the organization is convinced the process has reduced turnover. The feedback from the participants themselves is also positive and suggests that they have found the experience valuable. One participant presented me with a 3 page letter outlining what the experience had meant to her and described a number of positive changes she had made in her personal and work life as a result of the coaching process. Other comments included:
“This Leadership Program has allowed me to focus on myself as a person and to give thought before action”.
“I think we have all learned important skills that we need to lead effectively”.
While I find this feedback rewarding, we still need to know more about the actual impact of the coaching process with staff at this level. What does it really mean to their on-the-job performance and how does it impact problems like turnover? I hope that a year from now we will be able to assemble some of these answers in a more scientific manner. Until there is more science behind our conclusions however, we will have to settle for a more anecdotal evaluation, learn from our experience and every day try to do a better job than we did the day before.
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