Want to help your employees grow? Try coaching!
Want to help your employees grow? Try coaching!
Want to help your employees grow? Try coaching!
This TIAH Guide details how the GROW model can be used to improve your employees' problem-solving skills and how you can improve your coaching abilities.
Employee coaching is a powerful tool for managers who want to help their team members develop and perform at their best.
Put simply, coaching is the process of instructing, guiding, or prompting people as they use their skills to work towards desired outcomes, rather than just directing or telling staff. This makes team members feel more empowered and able to make their own decisions and can save you lots of time in the long run.
Effective coaching has been shown to positively impact employees’ self-confidence, wellness, and work performance. It’s also profitable: according to the International Coaching Federation, 86% of companies say they recouped their investment in employee coaching due to improved performance.
Coaching approaches
So, you’d like to learn how to coach your team members. Where do you start?
There are lots of different models of coaching. They all have different uses and pros and cons, but most rely on asking questions and guiding employees to a development plan that works for them.
The GROW coaching model
A very popular coaching model for problem-solving, goal-setting, and performance improvement is “GROW.”
Management development consultant Alistair Gibb helps farmers and growers develop their coaching skills.
Alistair explains: “The GROW model is a ‘non-directive’ approach to coaching. It uses open-ended questions to steer a conversation, helping to guide an employee to solve a problem, be more effective, or improve their performance.
“There's a skill to it, and it takes practice, but using open-ended questions can really open people up and encourage them to think about how they can achieve a task, gaining their commitment to change how they work.”
There are four stages involved in the GROW model.
Grow model illustration. Adapted from Retaining and developing staff workbook produced by Cedar Associates.
Goal: this stage is about clarifying the goal or objective or the purpose of the conversation, which you and your employee or team should agree on together.
Reality: this is about exploring the current situation by asking questions and giving feedback.
Options: this is about exploring and identifying possible options. It’s important that the employee comes up with the ideas and that you evaluate them together.
Wrap-up/Way forward: this checks commitment to the goal and covers the next steps or plan of action. It involves discussing and agreeing on who will do what and by when.
Get started on becoming a great workplace coach and experience a virtual GROW model session to explore your goals.
Develop your coaching skills
With the modules all available online, you can complete them at times that suit you and gain up to 20 CPD (Continuous Professional Development) points!