By Steve Taplin
The pillar of every successful business is happy employees, and effective coaching is a crucial ingredient to satisfied employees. Effective coaching leads to improved performance, knowledge transfer, skill improvement, and employee retention.
Here are some statistics on the impact of excellent coaching:
- 77 percent of Fortune 500 employees suggest coaching had a significant effect on performance
- Executive coaching created a 788 percent ROI for one Fortune 500 company
- Around 70 percent of employees that received coaching saw improved relationships and communication from their coaching
- 88 percent of companies saw a strong ROI from their coaching experiences
If you’re running a 100 percent remote technology business, you’ll need to ensure you have an excellent coaching strategy, and here are some ways you can do that.
Invite Employees Into the Conversation
The world’s best technology leaders listen to every concern of their employees. Former U.S Navy Seal Jocko Willink is one example, as he emphasizes decentralizing command during Navy Seal missions. Jocko believes companies can implement these principles into the corporate world with excellent success.
When you listen to your remote employees, you'll know which areas need more focus. Unfortunately, in many instances, technology leaders make the mistake of debating their employees instead of listening. Yet, when you invite employees into the conversation, they’re more likely to work with you for improvement.
I run my nearshore software development company to provide oversight, leadership, consulting, and continuing education for all employees. As a result, my nearshore software development company builds engaged remote teams that are eager to improve and get involved with the conversation.
Create an Effective Plan for Improvement
It’s challenging, if not impossible, to create an effective coaching strategy without a plan in the technology industry. Therefore, your improvement plan should cover these crucial aspects:
- The goal: Technology companies should clearly define the level of performance they want to see from their employees. As a result, the employee will know what you expect and be more likely to rise to the challenge.
- The action plan: Technology companies need a transparent action plan that sets a clear roadmap. The action plan should define the steps, the process and include unique ideas from employees.
- The checkpoints: Checkpoints are critical for encouraging improvement and growth. Technology companies should have set dates where they will review employee progress and see where things can improve.
- How to measure: Companies can’t gauge how successful their coaching strategy is without effective measuring. Therefore, companies need to make their observations and get individual feedback from the employees. Feedback is especially crucial when you run a remote business.
My nearshore software development company creates a plan and strategy to ensure all remote employees are on the same page and ready to succeed.
Show Confidence in Your Employees
Some managers believe that scolding employees achieves the best results, but that’s rarely the case. Some employees will have more confidence in their abilities than others, and leaders need to be aware of that. Nonetheless, when technology leaders involve employees in the company’s future, decision-making processes, and coaching strategy, they almost always encourage employee confidence.
Of course, if the employee isn’t achieving optimal results, you'll have to tell them. However, that doesn’t mean leaders should disregard an employee’s feedback and input. Research suggests that 98 percent of employees perform better when they feel confident.
Everyone understands the damage of high-staff turnover, and 96 percent of employees are more likely to stay at a company if they feel confident.
Push Employees to Their Attainable Limits
The best technology and business leaders will push their employees to their achievable limits. Although it’s critical to employ people with high motivation, you need to ensure you push employees out of their comfort zone. In turn, that will help employees become more engaged.
Employees want to grow and love a challenge. In many cases, they need their leaders to challenge and provide regular feedback to enable growth. Pushing employees is also vital to employee retention when you’re running a 100 percent remote business.
My nearshore software development company offers employees ongoing management and career guidance which encourages growth and pushes employees to their attainable limits.
Let Employees Work by Themselves
Many managers will make the mistake of continually interfering when an employee makes mistakes. That’s understandable because it could affect your business in the short term, but employees need to learn how to succeed through trial and error.
The best leaders will enable their staff to complete the job and learn from their mistakes instead of taking the job out of their hands. Of course, the leader will offer guidance and support through the difficulty, but they won’t take over the task.
Some Other Crucial Methods That Great Leaders use to Coach Their Employees
- Create a team feedback culture: Technology leaders should create a culture based on team feedback. In addition, ongoing dialogue encourages all employees to have a voice and prosper in the workplace.
- Recognize your employees: When employees perform well, the best leaders will always recognize it regardless of the situation. It will instill confidence, give staff the belief to work alone, and build excellent habits.
- Build emotional intelligence: The world’s best leaders are excellent at gauging emotional intelligence. Moreover, the best leaders often have high degrees of self-awareness, leading to higher emotional intelligence. When leaders have emotional intelligence, they can understand their employees better.
- Understand individual strengths and weaknesses: Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and that’s the same for CEOs of Fortune 500 technology companies. Recognizing strengths and weaknesses allows technology leaders to implement the most excellent coaching strategies for remote teams.
In 2021, it’s highly possible to run a successful technology business remotely through excellent leadership.
