Growth is not just important – it’s essential in any organization. There are many ways to build a learning culture. At Roundtable we can point you in the right direction. It starts with human-to-human experiences.
A hunger for learning is the best way to achieve goals in the workplace. But many corporate leaders are frustrated by a lack of hunger in their teams. We found that beneath the veneer of apathy is needed leadership engagement.
We all have coaches we remember. If you think back to your experiences, you may realize how big an impact they had on your success. In the corporate world, inquiry is largely under utilized. Facilitating employee growth starts with asking the right questions, which is the key to any employee development program.
What is Employee Development?
Retention, Performance and Employee Engagement
Forbes reported that between July and November 2022 over 4 million Americans quit their jobs each month. Work culture and leadership was a big part of the top reasons that negatively impacted retention rates.
You may be asking, are underperformance and turnover generational issues? Yes and no. The answer isn’t that simple.
Just last summer the zeitgeist of social media introduced ‘quiet quitting’, a phenomenon coined on TikTok that swept the workforce in 2022. While it had little impact on leadership practices, quiet quitting encouraged employees to do the bare minimum of their job instead of quitting outright. Underperformance soared.
Research shows it’s more than just a rejection of hustle culture, a glorified, relentless work style that says if you’re not hustling, you’re failing. On the other side of the coin is leadership strategies that address the work culture issues. The psychology behind creating a better work culture starts with understanding why the desire for change in culture exists in the first place. Employees want to be seen and heard.
Gallup reported a decline in engagement and employer satisfaction among remote Gen-Z and younger millennials below the age of 35. Their solution? Managers must learn to have conversations to help employees reduce disengagement and burnout. In fact they recommend managers have one meaningful conversation per week with each team member.
There’s no doubt the global pandemic changed social attitudes to work. But this cultural shift has real consequences for organizations. According to Apollo Technical, it costs an employer 33% of an employee’s annual salary to exit. Ouch!
What’s worse than high turnover rates? Quiet quitters make up at least 50% of the workforce. Underperforming employees may be the first sign that leadership needs a new strategy.
Successful executives must increasingly supplement their industry and functional expertise with a general capacity for learning—and they must develop that capacity in the people they supervise.
So how do we develop someone’s capacity to learn? Coaching conversations inspired by the GROW Model give employees options to achieve their goals and create accountability for growth and development by setting a plan forward. Within the methodology of training and development these conversations can be a powerful addition to existing effective employee training methods They also contribute to more holistic, company culture progress.
Employee engagement is key to improving retention and performance. Engaged employees are more likely to stay with the company and perform at a higher level so we need to incorporate strategies that boost engagement.
The GROW Coaching Model
There’s a big difference between asking someone if they like food and what their favorite childhood meal was. The latter sparks a flow of conversation that welcomes follow up questions and creates a connection. The GROW Coaching Model is a framework for asking the right questions to build connections that improve employee retention and inspire new performance goals. A structured training program can further enhance these connections by addressing different employee learning needs and ensure the coaching process is successful.
First published in his book Coaching for Performance in 1992, Sir John Whitmore’s GROW Model is arguably one of the most widely-used methods in organizational leadership today. Let’s take a look at the acronym’s four key steps:
G – Goal
R – Reality
O – Options
W – Will (or Way Forward)
Want to see how it works? Here’s a fun leadership scenario to help paint a bigger picture.
Ben’s CV and initial performance at work was impressive but he’s checked out lately. His tasks are completed but they’re done with minimal effort. Someone even saw him looking for other jobs during the workday. Ben is a quiet quitter. Leadership knows something has to change. They set up a meeting with Ben over coffee and structured the coaching conversation like this:
- Goal: Ben sets his personal and professional goals.
- Reality: They discuss his current performance and agree the challenges that are causing disengagement.
- Options: Together they explore potential solutions or areas for development, both employee training methods and behavior change.
- Will: They create a concrete plan of action with timelines and accountability checks.
Ben will leave this coaching conversation with a clear goal and leadership support. His performance will improve and he’ll be more likely to stay with the organisation.
Want to see more? Check out the 40 Best GROW Model Coaching Questions from Positive Psychology.
The Benefits
Inquiry is an effective way of coaching conversations so what are the real benefits?
For one, conversational coaching raises the company culture by giving employees the answers. The philosophy behind the GROW Model is that it prioritizes transformational coaching over transactional coaching. Transactional coaching is based on general feedback while transformational coaching inspires an emotional commitment to a goal. When leaders ask open questions, employees have the opportunity to self-reflect and solve on their own terms using effective training methods.
Coaching conversations are a leadership approach because they create a culture of continuous progress. Who doesn’t want a more motivated and committed workforce? Create a committed workplace through collaborative and thoughtful conversation where performance expectations become a shared goal.
Successful conversations get everyone on the same page and that includes company alignment. Gallup says employees and teams who most align with their company culture perform higher on internal metrics than those who least align.
Retention and performance go hand in hand. Conversational coaching motivates employees to stay with the organization and perform better while they’re there. The higher the engagement the stronger the performance. Training methods target different learning styles to improve training effectiveness so all employees can benefit from the coaching.
When To Use It
There are things coaching is an answer for. To create a vibrant workforce that performs with goals in mind knowing when to use this framework including on the job training is the first step to a better retention and performance strategy.
Conversational coaching is not for technical skills. Technical skills are learned through training. Coaching is for when there’s potential to change behaviour. Coachability is determined if employees have it within themselves to change their behaviour and attitude to work.Practical hands-on training methods such as cross-training and on-the-job training are key to ensuring an employee learns different job functions and gets practical experience while being in their work.
Conversational coaching should be used when leaders want to boost productivity and performance. Conversational coaching is also good for correcting employee judgement. For example: “Why did you do it that way?” Questions shape conversations that lead to collaborative solutions structured by leadership.
Harvard Business Review explains,
Of course, workplace coaching usually takes place outside of formal coaching sessions. Most often, it happens in brief exchanges, when a manager might respond to a request for help by posing a single question, such as “What have you already thought of?” or “What really matters here?” When more of those interactions occur—when you notice your managers growing increasingly inquisitive, asking good questions, and working from the premise that they don’t have all the answers—you’ll know you’re on the right track.
Putting Coaching Conversations Into the Broader Methodology of Training and Development Programs
Practice makes perfect. The GROW model is a framework that can be used in any industry and can be woven into the broader methodology of classroom training and development to support employee success.
While traditional classroom or instructor-led training still play a critical role in helping employees learn complex topics, conversational coaching adds another layer to engage learners and encourage practical application in real time.
There are many types of training methods to consider when building an employee development programme. For example some employees learn best when they can learn at their own pace using easily accessible online tools while others benefit from role playing or instructor-led sessions focused on collaborative problem solving.
Choosing the right training method often depends on learning styles as well as type of training required. Even within the GROW Model framework leaders can tailor the conversation to suit these different approaches.
Coaching into your employee development methods doesn’t replace traditional approaches; it amplifies them. By combining coaching sessions with technical or instructor-led training you can create a more holistic environment that addresses both skill acquisition and mindset. Ultimately this multi-faceted approach to employee training methods leads to better retention, performance and a culture that evolves with its people.
Online training is a flexible and modern way to develop employees, self-paced learning and remote teams. For best results try structuring your ongoing sessions around both technical upskilling and coaching conversations. In this way each employee gets support and clarity on complex topics and feels empowered to contribute solutions independently. The end goal is always to produce a more motivated and engaged workforce that can adapt to change and challenges.
Putting Into Practice
Company culture is not just a set of philosophies that the workforce subscribe to. Think of your workplace culture as a verb. Forbes advises scheduling both departmental and individual meetings, asking employees for feedback consistently to build a positive workplace culture.
These sessions can combine multiple types of training methods—like instructor-led training, online modules and role playing—alongside GROW conversations to ensure alignment and support professional development.
Leadership starts with inquiry. The more you ask the more you know!
Failed relationships often come from a lack of communication. Businesses are not exempt from the consequences of poor people skills and nurturing talent within your organization is best practiced through transparent and consistent dialogue.
While quiet quitting is a trend that’s still sweeping the workforce, the GROW Model can restructure how leaders influence company culture. Improving retention and performance is done in incremental steps of leadership engagement. Choose your words wisely!
As you navigate the 2023 workplace, incorporating coaching conversations as a performance and retention strategy will transform your business. When done right identifying a common goal, assessing the reality, evaluating options and inspiring willpower in others can all happen in one conversation.
Coach people to lean into their potential and keep exploring every method of training and development that supports their growth. Train employees using multiple methods like software and video training to ensure continuous learning and adaptability.
Want to learn more strategies for improving retention? Learn more from us here.