Amber Deol
How effective is coaching in modifying undesirable employee behavior?
Introduction
Coaching is a means of providing feedback in an attempt to enhance current skills, build new ones or provide insight and guidance to encourage confidence and motivation in the workplace. This essay will examine whether coaching can act as a deterrent for employees who exhibit undesirable behaviors by examining how businesses use coaching as well as analyzing several interviews about coaching with current supervisors who have had experience with coaching in their organization.
Coaching
No matter what organization you look at, in any part of the world, there will always be performance issues regarding employees, there is no possible way to eliminate all problems but steps can be taken to minimize this issue. Coaching whether formal or informal has been a part of business since its inception; it has evolved from employees seeking advice and guidance from a supervisor or manger to organizations implementing professional coaching sessions that allow employees one on one time with superiors to assess performance, keep updated on progression and to instill confidence. To properly address behavior that is unwanted in employees a manager has to attempt to understand the root of the problem, is it Laziness? Lack of motivation? Or some other outlying factor that the manager is not aware of. Coaching allows for communication between employees and managers that is essential to maintaining a healthy productive relationship, constant communication leads to feelings of trust, it is much easier for employees to accept criticism from someone they feel is looking out for their best interest, than someone who they meet with once a year for a performance evaluation that seems to be motivated by what the company wants and not what the employee wants.

Top Three Challenges

(world at work, employee survey)
This bar graph represents a question from a survey conducted by World at Work it suggests that employees feel that the most challenging aspect of performance evaluations is that managers lack the courage to have difficult performance discussions. Opening up communication to gain feedback and insight and have these discussions with employees during coaching will instill confidence. There will be times when the employee is doing extremely well and their productivity is not a concern however there needs to be a foundation that is consistent throughout poor performance behaviors and good ones. The number one concern of employees is job security, having managers that lack courage to have difficult discussions would be worrisome to these employees because how is one to improve behavior if they are not aware of it? It is the job of management with the help of tools such as coaching to have ongoing discussions that will improve relations and productivity.

A successful coach is someone who can help employees make the connection between their personal job and how it contributes to the overall success of not only their specific department but the company as a whole, this will make the employee feel valued which is important to curb low motivation. Everyone has some sort of trait that they believe can be worked on, coaches as leaders can take the prerogative to make a list of traits they want to work on so that employees feel comfortable in knowing that they are not being targeted. It is important in these types of situations to make the individual feel as though they are wanted and needed in the workplace and the coach is meant to help further their skills not impede them. There are four necessary skills of a successful coach and that is to provide guidance, provide advice, produce competency and instill confidence. I’ve talked about all the things a coach should do to help employees but individuals themselves have to take the initiative to want to be better and want to accept guidance in order to be successful.

On the next few pages I have included interviews with current supervisors regarding coaching.
In the interviews I have used just a single letter to identify a person:
J is John Parker
L is Louise Sibbons
C is Christine Blais

They are all supervisors in the emergency road service department at AMA
I used them because AMA uses coaching as a tool to motivate employees and to assure that employees are meeting the company’s performance standards so all 3 of these supervisors have extensive experience not only as monitoring the effectiveness of coaching from the perspective of the coach but from being coached as well. It is important to have a supervisor that understands coaching from the perspective of the employee as well because they will have a better understanding about how to approach defensive behavior, how to adequately provide feedback and how to give constructive criticism. Employees will relate much better to someone that has been in their shoes than to someone they feel does not understand them or their job.

Interview
How often do employees receive any sort of coaching in your organization?
J: once a week
L: once a week
C: once a week

In your opinion is coaching a successful tool?
J: yes
L: sometimes
C: when used correctly then yes

Why?

J: Coaching allows managers and supervisors to communicate directly to the employee what is expected of them and allows employees the opportunity to ask questions so that they are completely clear of their job description and expectations
L: I think it is important for coaches to build good relationships with employees and once a level of trust and understanding is reached a coach is more likely to reinforce certain attractive behaviors in an employee
C: I view Coaching as a sort of mini training session every week where employees get to refresh their skills Do you believe coaching can be used to modify an employee’s behavior? Why? J: Yes because the job of a successful coaching partnership is to help the employee find motivation or incentives to do the job better, if they have a good incentive to change bad habits, for example extra money, they will be less likely to continue their behavior L: Yes because coaching involves continually monitoring and evaluating employee performance so theoretically if there is poor behavior on the part of the employee it should be addressed during coaching sessions and carefully monitored henceforth C: Yes because poor performance should be identified during coaching sessions and proactive steps should be taken on part of both supervisor and employee to help curb it What is the difference between Coaching and Mentoring? J: It is a similar relationship however coaching is a means of managing performance and enhancing development to meet organizational goals and mentoring is more geared towards individual’s goals L: Coaching involves a much more professional relationship with an employee whereas a mentor develops a more personal relationship C: Mentoring is someone who guides you in a more personal manner a coach is someone that guides you in a manner that is beneficial to not only the person but the organization as well Interview Discussion The interviews show that real life supervisors agree that coaching is an effective method in deterring undesirable behavior, John talked about how coaching is a partnership between and employee and the supervisor which is an important point because employees have to feel as though they are not the ones with the lone responsibility and they are gaining something from modifying their behavior. All the supervisors said that coaching occurs once a week which could potentially lead to employees feeling they are being micro managed, if coaching is used as a sort of mini performance evaluation to keep one on the right track than once a week is not enough time to allow for someone to change their behavior or habits. AMA is a call centre so this strategy may be effective for them because call centers have relatively high turnover rates and keeping up with current staff would be a priority however for other organizations more time between coaching sessions should be the norm. I included the question of mentoring because it is important to distinguish between the two, at times they seem almost interchangeable however a coach is someone that provides guidance, advice and feedback to help facilitate learning and growth within the organization in attempt to meet objectives and standards that are set, a mentor is also a guide but helps facilitate growth on a much more personal level. Conclusion Overall coaching is an effective tool in deterring undesirable employee behavior if the coach is able to establish a relationship that is conducive to open communication and trust. To say that employees that exhibit unattractive attributes are a lost cause would be to say that nobody has the ability to change, given the right resources, time and attention even the most difficult candidate might prove you wrong. Coaches need to work with employees and help them break a bad habit or undesirable behavior if they are to be successful after all there is no such thing as a successful organization without happy committed employees working together; as Henry Ford said “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success” (Ford, Henry)

References
World At Work. (n.d.). The state of performance management. Retrieved December 1, 2009, from http://www.worldatwork.org/‌waw/‌adimLink?id=20261
Management Help. (n.d.). Maximum performance different things to different people. Retrieved November 16, 2009, from http://www.managementhelp.org/‌misc/‌perf-mgmnt-in-perspective.pdf
Human Resources(n.d.). The Strategic HR Coach. Retrieved Dec 4,2009, from http://humanresources.about.com/od/coachingmentoring/a/strategic_coach.htm

Appendix

Supervisors that were interviewed were
John Parker- Supervisor Ama emergency road service
Louise Sibbons- Manager Ama emergency road service
Christine Blais- Supervisor Ama emergency road service

All questions that were asked were included in paper. Interviews conducted on November 12,2009.