When (and Why) to Use Coaching in the Workplace: A Guide

Coaching is often associated with supporting employees in their roles, but this doesn’t cover the depth or breadth of what coaching can do (especially Sanctus Coaching).

The unique, tailored feedback from a qualified coach can offer any employee a boost, regardless of their role within your organization. It can help them work through challenging situations with their colleagues, deal with personal issues that interefere with their work, and speed up skills development. It’s a vital tool for succession planning and helps you attract the best possible talent.

While coaching is often seen as a perk or a benefit, with so many employees now wanting development opportunities from their roles, coaching could actually boost your L&D initiatives so that your current and future employees stick around for longer.

So, here’s a guide for HR and L&D professionals to help work out when and why to implement coaching in each area of the business.

Onboarding new employees

Starting a new role is challenging. Your new hire has to adapt to a new company culture, new ways of thinking and working, get to know all their colleagues, and show what they’re capable of.

It can be stressful, with up to a fifth of new hires leaving within the first 45 days.

Coaching can support them with the transition into a new role as they adapt to the culture, learn about the product/service, and get to know their colleagues. Employees have an emotional outlet for what they’re going through, as well as the technical support to boost skills enhancement or fill in any skills gaps. As a result, they can become high performers sooner.

Keeping employees engaged

Employee engagement is a vital metric that shouldn’t be underestimated. If employees are disengaged, they won’t perform at their best. They may quiet quit—or quit all together—leaving you with the time and costs of hiring and retraining a new employee.

When our friends at Evoluted were struggling with employee engagement, they tried several options before settling on Sanctus Coaching.

Since implementing our coaching initiatives, their employees are happier and their eNPS leapt from 2 to 29. Their monthly coaching sessions are always full and it makes a huge difference to their employees.

Boosting your top performers

Over half of employees want to learn new skills at work. In fact, lack of development opportunities is now the top reason employees leave a role.

Coaching shows your top performers you believe in them and their future and that you want them to stay. It’s a conscious investment in their growth.

FitFlop implemented Sanctus Coaching as a way to support their top performers. With our Sanctus Boost packs, employees could develop their skills and talk about what was on their mind so that they could perform at their best.

Encouraging your underperformers

Sometimes all your underperformers need is a little encouragement. Development interventions can fill in the gaps in their performance, whether that’s based on their knowledge or approach to work.

Investing in the future of your underperformers also shows that you believe in them and have a culture of trust, even when they’re not reaching their full potential. They may be a better fit somewhere else in your business or need help learning relevant skills.

Nurturing your next generation of leaders

Fewer than half of leaders receive any training to help them become leaders. This can lead to issues like miscommunication, micromanagement, and mismanagement. Leaders need support to find their own leadership style. Coaching is the perfect tool to help them achieve just that.

Coaching your future leaders can give them the skills they need to support their future employees, as well as teaching them how to manage their own workload.

It also helps them find their confidence and their voice to lead a team before they get the opportunity to do so, meaning that when they do, they can hit the ground running rather than going through a teething period that can affect both their and their new team’s productivity.

Since implementing Sanctus Coaching, two of FitFlop’s coachees have progressed into managerial roles, showing the impact that coaching can have on succession planning. It can support future leaders’ skills so that when a role for them opens up, they can hit the ground running.

Helping middle managers juggle their priorities

Your mid-level managers often feel the strain because they have to balance their own workload alongside people management.

To be effective in their role, your managers need to learn the tricks of the trade, just the same as they did when they started out in their industry.

Coaching can accelerate their learning and development as managers, giving them the tools before they need them and the right support when they do, rather than them having to figure everything out as it happens.

Supporting your executives

Executives often feel the pressure in their roles. Executive coaching gives them the support they need to balance their responsibilities with their personal life and ensure that the pressures of their job don’t lead to burnout or impact their ability to perform.

It also helps them communicate with employees effectively, something that’s imperative during times of change like mergers, acquisitions, or redundancies.

Empowering employees through times of change

Change can be difficult for us to manage, especially for neurodivergent employees or those who’ve worked for your organization for a long time.

Coaching is a vital tool to help employees with transition periods as they navigate how the company culture has changed or is changing, new teammates or managers, and their own feelings around what’s going on with the business.

Allowing employees a safe, objective space to discuss their concerns ensures that your top performers keep performing at their best. 

If they don’t have this space to talk, it can lead to frustrations that fester and bring their mood down, which can have a negative ripple effect on their team members that follows through to the rest of the business.

Managing redundancies

Redundancies in the workplace are challenging for everyone to navigate, from those being let go, to the decision makers, to the employees left behind. Coaching can be a vital support tool for everyone involved in the process.

Employees who are being made redundant can find guidance and support to deal with their emotions and figure out next steps. Decision makers can get support with the emotional toll letting people go can have, alongside the most effective ways to do it. And those left behind can get support managing their changing role and the guilt at being left behind.

Supporting your DEI initiatives

Employees from different backgrounds face unique challenges. Supporting them to navigate these challenges, whether that’s to do with adapting to a disability, boosting their confidence, progressing in their career, or something else, shows a clear commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Encouraging skills development

It’s estimated that around 40% of the workforce will need to retrain over the next few years. Coaching will become an important tool to help employees learn crucial new skills.

The unique Sanctus Coaching model is both scalable and tailored. This ensures every employee gets the individualized support they need. Whether they need to learn new soft skills to help them better communicate with their colleagues, or transition to a new role/industry, we can help your team with this change.

Conclusion

Our unique wholebeing approach to coaching is a powerful learning and development tool to help employees perform at their best through the good and bad times.

If you’d like to chat to our sales team about a bespoke, scalable, tailored coaching package for your business, get in touch.