Employee engagement. Retention. Our secret? It isn’t always about the employee. Often, the best way a company can solve for retention is by training managers as coaches.
Unfortunately, across many industries, in companies big and small, managers rarely are ever trained to be managers.
Managers who simply hire employees, assign them tasks or goals, and maintain minimal communication will struggle to build a team of high-performing employees. Employees, no matter how experienced and committed they are to their job, can struggle to perform to expectations without an engaged manager.
The primary job of any manager is to help people be more effective in their job.
A recent article in Inc shared ways companies can reduce turnover, increase focus and productivity, and create happier places to work – here are two of our favorites:
- Support and encourage executive colleagues to mentor and coach people one-on-one.
- Develop and host leadership training programs and events to help boost their peer leaders’ skills and confidence in stepping up to play a more active role in their employees’ work lives.
Frequent employee assessments are important, but they can’t be one-and-done. There needs to be discussion and planning to foster improvement and better understand the needs and goals of employees to help them grow. This is when a manager takes on the role of a coach.
The Truvelop app allows managers to evaluate employees, including comments and context. Context matters, and the more of it you provide in your evaluations, the more informative and useful your data becomes over time. In each evaluation, contextual data on Team Member performance, attitude, and maintenance can be recorded for future reference.
In addition to evaluations with context, managers need to develop trusted relationships with employees which requires two-way conversations. Ongoing, regular check-ins with employees builds rapport. What barriers are they facing? Why are they struggling? Opening up that conversation with questions and offering to help work through solutions fosters a stronger level of trust between the manager and employee, increasing engagement.
Managers should work with employees to understand personal and professional goals. Understanding the drivers that motivate an employee is critical to engagement. Individual Development Plan, or IDP – an action-oriented plan to guide employees on their career and development path – is a great way to show an employee they matter and are valued. An IDP focuses on career goals and is a proactive plan that helps employees to achieve their developmental aspirations.
An IDP can help guide conversations, performance evaluation and goal development, which can all be tracked in the Truvelop app.
Managers can increase communication and coaching moments by using the Spark functionality, recognizing wins big and small, and providing encouragement for employees that can boost morale.
With the Truvelop app, managers can use the insights on the Team Member dashboard to help guide management strategies. Additionally, the Proactive Management Cue Cards help managers focus on developmental opportunities with suggested ways to encourage or engage an employee based on performance and evaluation data.
Effective managers coach employees to help them feel recognized, meet goals, and realize opportunities for professional growth.
Contact us today to learn more about our modern approach to performance management and development and how it solves for retention. Don’t just take our word for it, see what our Customers have to say.
