How do you coach employees for career development?

One thing I’ve found helpful right at the beginning of a coaching or mentoring journey (there is a difference between the two) with someone is to explore “The Why”. Depending on the situation I will ask something similar to: Why have you asked me to help with your situation? Typically the response will be “I’d like to become a manager or I want a promotion”. I then continue to probe with a series of Why questions to get to the real sense of why they want development. One of the first tasks before setting any goals is to strip down to their personal purpose, so that both I and the mentee have a shared understanding of what is driving them…once we unlock that, we can begin to set some goals. As a coach, I’m never trying to give the answers

In addition to measuring the employee's strengths and interests, you will have to align these to the organizational and departmental goals and objectives. A mismatch between the individual and the organization will cause tension and reduce performance. Coaching in the current position must be tempered with individual progression and organizational succession planning. In coaching the individual for bigger and better things, ensure you are brining other individuals along in the coaching program who will benefit from the experience the current coachee's position will provide.

It’s not all about work! Being able to learn about your staff beyond their status as an employee is both rich and powerful. It truly gives you an insight into what their drivers and values are! Giving them the confidence to be themselves at work creates a powerful connection to work by aligning their values to work values triggers a motivation than no other. Learn more about your staff and they will do more for you.

Coaching and mentoring are dynamic tools. While following the structured steps, infusing each of the six phase with a deep alignment to the larger purpose can add more meaning and elevate the experience. Delve beyond strengths and interests; explore the resonating chords of their aspirations. Set SMART goals not only in terms of specifics but also in how they harmonise with their larger purpose. The cadence of regular feedback when gets transformed into profound "feedforward" to make it a deep conversation, guide them towards their intended destination. And as achievements light up their journey, let celebration echo the fulfilment of purpose, so that the start seeing success as part of journey, and not a distant destination.

When working with an individual SMART goals are great, however, to add value to the employee's experience you will need to consider SMART-ER goals. "ER" meaning "Emotionally Relevant." The provision of skills through effective goal setting is important, however, by adding the emotional relevancy to those goals, the coach is able to support intrinsic motivation. When the employee is motivated not only by the transactional element of achievement but can effectively see and demonstrate the personal value to advancing skills, the likelihood of achieving those goals increases.

SMART goals are good to record on corporate PDR forms to monitor progress for your staff. What does Success look and feel like to each of the goals they have identified. How do they know they have reached their goal? Getting them to visualise success and sense it helps connect to our neuro-transmitters and hormones that provide motivation, desire and connection.

Identify Career Goals. Goal Setting: Work with the employee to set clear, specific, and achievable career goals. These should be aligned with their personal interests and organizational objectives. Long-Term Vision: Encourage the employee to think about their long-term career vision and how they see their career evolving over time.

When coaching people, rather than improving the technical skills, I tend to focus on the behavioural aspects of transitioning from individual contributor to people manager and on to strategic or enterprise leader. Many of my coachees are looking for the quick fix to get promoted, so my aim when helping them to set goals is to calibrate the “realistic” expectations in SMART.

Beware - providing feedback is the job of a mentor, not a coach. When pointing out things you perceive as require improvement, you are removing the autonomy from the employee. You are removing some individual responsibility as you will be determining their success level. Coaching works because it drives self reflection, independent thought and intrinsic motivation. A coach supports this process by being present for the coachee and supporting exploration of perceptions, obstacles and action planning to address their unique situation. This style of leadership takes effort on the part of the coach, as it is much easier to tell you what I think is wrong as opposed to helping you explore and independently problem solve.

Getting a coachee to understand what the barriers were they faced and supporting them to build strategies through coaching can help realise their own feedback and how to stretch themselves to overcome the shortfalls they had previously.

Coaching allows the individual to reflect on their own performance. When I have coaching sessions, I’m careful to not offer my thoughts or opinions…instead I use a line of questioning that is open and will often repeat back verbatim what I’ve heard and then seek further clarification.

Reading! Listening! Observing! Be curious about everything and begin a journey of self discovery to grow as an individual.

Recognition successes is important to build rapport and perpetuate motivation. When recognizing achievements, ensure you are honouring the individual's achievement and not your judgement of the achievement. Being a coach is supporting the coachee's perception of self, not by handing out approval. For example, try to stay away from "You did a good job, I am proud of you." As this is you placing yourself into their success and links their motivation to your approval (being proud). Instead, "You worked very hard on achieving that. How does this success make you feel?" This second example honours the effort you witnessed and then honours their perception of their own success by exploring how they see and value this particular situation.

Celebrating success and milestones Recognition: Recognize and celebrate the employee’s achievements and milestones in their career development journey. Motivation: Use these celebrations as a way to motivate and inspire continued growth and development.

Goals should be set over all (the job description) and at each interaction (current focus). Keeping records of movement towards goals is important. Communication of progress towards goals should be in every conversation. Keeping focus on the goals, are able to identify obstacles and recognize achievements as you go, instead of waiting for a predetermined time to review performance (annual performance reviews, for example). With regularly checking-in, the action plan will evolve organically throughout the relationship. Not only will this enhance engagement, it will make conversations about performance more comfortable as they are innately built into your relationship as opposed to manufactured situations to meet company policy.

Create a development plan Action Plan: Develop a detailed action plan that outlines specific steps the employee needs to take to achieve their career goals. This plan should include short-term and long-term objectives. Skill Development: Identify the skills and competencies the employee needs to develop and suggest relevant training, courses, or projects that can help build these skills.