Coaching and Performance Review

Answer

Coaching and Performance Review

Introduction

Coaching is increasingly recognized as one of the most effective approaches for improving employee performance across industries. Thus, today’s HR managers and coaches, both internal and external, have a task to understand the key components of coaching, the coaching process, and how coaching can be integrated with different leadership styles.     

Components of coaching

The components of effective coaching include coach-employee relationship, problem identification, goal-setting, observation, providing direction, offering feedback, asking questions, and reflection.

1. Coach-employee Relationship

Relationship between the coach and the employees being coached forms the fabric of the coaching process. For effective coaching outcomes, there should be a stronger relationship between the coach and the employee – a relationship that is built on trust, mutual pursuit of goals, effective communication and mutual respect.

1. Problem Identification

Employees in a coaching program often have skills they need to develop or work on most. Such skills can be only identified through a comprehensive problem identification process that enables HR managers and coaches to determine their employees’ strengths, weaknesses and skills gaps. 

• Goal Setting

Here, a coach and the employee coordinate to set goals of the coaching process and how its outcomes and success will be measured.

1. Providing Direction

One of the key features of a coach is that he/she plays the role of both a leader and a mentor. As a result, effective coaching involves the coach providing employees with direction towards achieving goals of the coaching process, while setting the footprints they can follow in the future. 

1. Observation

During the coaching process, a coach often observes the employee from time to time to determine if they are on the right track toward achieving the coaching goals. This way, the coach is able to identify the changes and additional resources required to streamline the coaching process. 

1. Feedback

Employees also need to understand how they are progressing with the coaching, and know whether it’s helping them develop their skills or acquire new ones (John Mattone Global Inc., 2019). The coach, therefore, uses feedback to inform the employee the areas he/she is doing better as well as discuss with him/her the aspects that need improvement.  

• Reflection

Having reflection as part of the coaching process enables the coach to understand the employees’ perceptions of and experiences with the coaching process by asking them what they think about the coaching sessions and what should be done differently. 

Integration of coaching styles with the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory

According to the Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership theory, the most effective leadership style is that conditioned by the circumstances of leadership and the characteristics of their followers. Simply put, the theory argues that the ability of a leader to lead effectively depend on situational factors in the workplace or the leadership environment, rather than on the leadership style (Business to You, 2020). Coaching styles, such as democratic coaching, authoritarian coaching, holistic coaching, autocratic coaching and vision coaching, can be integrated with the situational leadership model to improve outcomes of the coaching process. For instance, by incorporating the situational leadership approach in the aforementioned coaching styles, coaches are positioned to understand and recognize the characteristics and abilities of employees as well as the factors affecting them, and adapt accordingly to successfully influence the factors and the employees (Business to You, 2020).

The coaching Process

The coaching process is generally a five-step process that involves analyzing coaching requirements, setting goals, developing an action plan and ways to overcome barriers, conducting the coaching exercise, and assessing the coaching progress.

During the first step, analysis of coaching requirements, performance data is collected and interpreted and employees segmented based on their performance (Aftergut, 2016). Performance inadequacies and skills gaps of employees to participate in the coaching program are then identified. Second, targets and expected outcome of the coaching process are set and shared with the employees to guide the coaching exercise. In the third stage, the coach collaborates with the employee to develop an action, the steps to be taken, and how the plan is to be realized. Another important activity at this stage is identifying potential obstacles and resources and support needed to overcome them.

The coaching process then moves to the fourth step, where the actual coaching takes place. Here, employees taking part in the coaching sessions are asked open ended questions and are fully engaged through a two-way communication, which gives them opportunities to share their perspectives as Aftergut (2016) notes. In the fifth stage, which is the last stage in most coaching programs, the coach assesses effectiveness of the coaching process in achieving the expected outcomes and gives feedback to the employee and the management (MacDonald, 2019). The assessment involves evaluating the performance of the employee to determine if he/she had developed new skills as a result of the coaching program.   

Elements of Performance Review Meetings

HR management is anchored on performance management which has performance review as one its key components. As the name suggests, performance review essentially entails reviewing the performance of employees to determine the extent to which they are meeting their job goals and the levels of their motivation and commitment. The key elements of performance review meetings include job description regularity, strong focus on goals and objectives, two-way communication, self-evaluation, balanced feedback, and performance-based incentives (Geist, (2019; Halcom, 2019).