Solutions for Happy Employees: Coaching for the workplace
No one is immune to the feeling of burnout and work stress. We all feel the impact, whether it's a change in our job, relationship, or life situation. It can be challenging to know what to do or how to feel when this happens. The pandemic has changed the way that we work. We've all heard about the great resignation and how that is impacting the jobs industry. It tells a lot about how people feel about their work and, more importantly, what they want to feel about their work. Thankfully, there is a practical and straightforward solution for retaining employees and making sure that the energy in the workplace is the best that it can be. That solution is coaching. Coaching can be transformational in any workspace; through specific coaching tailored to the needs of the job and the individual employees, managers can find confidence in their teams and passionate energy in the atmosphere that they need to make the best of the workplace environment.
Hiring a coach is a great way to unlock your employees' potential, show appreciation, and invest in your workplace for years to come. Research shows that happy employees are productive employees. An article by Bryson and McKerron (2017) found that sales for some companies almost mirrored employee happiness in the workplace. Increasing when happiness in employees increased and decreasing as happiness decreased. Another study found that over six months of tracking employees in a telecommunications company, the happy employees were 13% more productive than their less satisfied colleagues.
So, how does coaching fit into the happy and productive employee model? Adding a coach to the team is a great way to show your employees that their happiness is as essential to the workplace as their productivity and teach everyone involved how to support, engage, and appreciate on a whole new level. A great coach can show a manager how to communicate with their team and hand over the reigns so that they can all get their work done. A coach can eliminate micromanagement and distrust between employees and managers so that all the people involved can consistently do real and valuable work. Coaching can support teambuilding and innovation by taking what each workplace, department, and employee is experiencing as the barriers to growth and finding a way to work around them. All managers want their employees to succeed but wanting that and making that possible is often something that needs an outside opinion to make a reality. Allowing a coach to come in and go over the process from each side can be the simplest and quickest way to set everyone up for success. All employees deserve to be set up to succeed.
What are the Benefits of Coaching?
Improved productivity and performance. As if we haven't talked enough about what a difference happy employees can make to a business or employer, let's take a moment to think about how much better it can be to work alongside a person who is excited and pleased about their work and the job that they do than to do the same position with a colleague who just doesn't want to be there. The difference can be mindblowing, making or breaking a whole business. Simply setting up coaching for your employees can change everything for everyone involved.
Enhanced communication and collaboration. Nothing stalls a great idea or innovative momentum, like miscommunication and bruised egos. Let a coach come in and teach each team how to best work together to benefit their project, team, and overall work environment.
Increased self-awareness and growth. Happy employees are great but happy, healthy employees can be even better. Having a workplace or life coach to work with employees can make a difference in their growth in their jobs and as people. When employees can utilize their personalities, skills, talents, and autonomy in the best way for everyone involved, it just makes everything better. Conflict in the workplace decreases, and the environment shifts towards the positive, creating a pleasant and safe place for everyone.
Better problem-solving skills. With burnout and career overwhelm, problem-solving can often seem much more complicated than it needs to be. Using different coaching strategies, a workplace coach can help support burned-out and overwhelmed employees as they need to step back and take a new approach to an issue. Having a coach to process through problem-solving steps can teach valuable lessons in the safety of consulting before implementation.
Increased quality of life in the workplace and outside of work. At this point, everyone is tired of the phrase "work/life balance" While the phrase may be cliche, the idea of good quality of life at home and at work needs to be something that your employees can believe in so that they can give their best. A coach can be an excellent way to help each employee find what they need to balance living well and working well.
Employee investment in their work. Employee investment doesn't just look like retention and productivity; it can also look like competency, pride, and more energy to accept further challenges in their roles. When employees feel invested in, they also invest. Commitment, vision, and passionate employees come from investment in work-life details, and they can begin with hiring a coach.
Offering access to life coaching and work coaching to your employees can provide organizational and managerial dilemmas, but it can also help support your employees on an everyday level. Time management, communication, skill assessment, motivation, and life balance are all pieces of your employees' life that can be improved through work with a coach. Coaching for the workplace has so many outside benefits and doesn't carry the same social stigma of counseling and therapy that mental health services can. The funny thing about coaching, even though it isn't the same as therapy or counseling, is that it can have a massive positive impact on your employees' quality of life at work and home. Happy employees make happy workplaces.