Staff retention can be made easier by using a professional coach to identify strengths and weaknesses
Using a professional business coach is one option companies suffering from a high staff turnover should be considering to aid staff retention.
While 70% of managers believe employees leave a company because of pay-related reasons, according to strategic planning consultant Leigh Branham, 88% of people leave for seven main reasons:
- Employees feel the job or workplace is not what they expected.
- There is a mismatch between the job and person.
- There is too little coaching and feedback.
- There are too few growth and advancement opportunities.
- Employees feel devalued and unrecognised.
- Employees feel stress from overwork and have a work/life imbalance.
- There is a loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders.
With tight budgets in a tough economic climate, organisations are looking for internal solutions to these problems and coaching is one of those.
The Bank of Ireland found that customer satisfaction increased when a coaching framework was implemented within the organisation. Customers reported a three percent increase in “feeling valued as a customer” and a five percent increase in “satisfaction with our relationship manager” as a result of the changes.
A professional business coach will come into your organisation and work with you to develop the culture of coaching which best suits your business. They will work on training, mentoring, peer-to-peer and other personal development processes which allow your employees to feel valued and listened to.
While a good salary package might attract employees, it isn’t what keeps them working for your organisation. Using a culture of coaching gives them a complete package which allows for career progression, diversity of responsibilities and allows a work/life balance.
Here’s just a few of the ways:
Mentoring – using a mentoring programme alongside a goal-orientated feedback system allows your employees access to a structured mechanism for developing strong relationships within the business. With a mentoring programme you can pair up someone more experienced with a more junior employee in the same area and have them work to develop specific competencies, provide performance feedback and design an individual career development plan.
Use communication – no matter how big your business, communication is central to retaining staff. Using an upward flowing information process, like a staff council or advisory group which solicits and acts on employee suggestions is just one method. A professional coach can help you draw up the correct format for your company.
Recruit from within – use a professional coach to help identify existing employees who have the ability to move up within your company’s ranks. They will be able to pick up on key skills like leadership qualities, empathy and identify employees who are already going that extra mile.
Coaching begins by setting expectations. Let your team know exactly what you want them to accomplish, and articulate these goals as clearly as possible.
We have a free video which explains more about coaching methodology here.
