For far too long, training has been an afterthought when it comes to business. But the good news is that things are changing. Unemployment is low, which leads to a tremendous increase in value of talent development in the last few years. There has never been a better time to position our managers to support training after it has been delivered through the art of coaching.
Combining training and coaching isn’t a new concept, but in recent years, coaching has continued to grow, which positions the value of training to ultimately increase. The challenge is not merely training managers to coach, but also positioning managers to practice coaching situationally against the real world. Once we have managers who are coaching, training then has an audience who can become reinforcement partners.
Let’s say the Training department delivers a program in the form of a workshop or e-learning course on the value of communication and teamwork. In the old days, managers would simply sign their employees up, send them off, and never follow through about the training’s value afterward. Today, managers who are skilled in coaching can become training reinforcement partners by asking good coaching questions as they relate to a workshop or course, such as:
- What did you specifically learn that you can share with the rest of the team so we have an opportunity to learn and improve?
- What did you learn about yourself from the training that you are committed to improving?
- On a scale of 1 to 6, with 6 being you feel like you can apply the material flawlessly and consistently and 1 being you still feel like you need additional training, where would you rate yourself and why?
Training departments also need to make it easy for managers to coach after programs. Here are a few tips to help the Training department achieve this task:
- Create a list of coaching questions they can ask for accountability purposes as they relate to the learning and application.
- Provide a list of short activities managers can utilize to reinforce the training and facilitate practice and change.
- Offer to follow employees back to the department to partner with managers by facilitating practice and behavioral change sessions. Forming the bridge of coaching ultimately shows managers how to coach specifically to the material that initially was taught.
Again, the notion of combining training and coaching is not a new one. But if there’s ever been a better time with unemployment so low, and talent development and retention becoming such a major focus of the corporate workplace, now is the time to train and support your managers in their journey toward becoming coaching partners to your training.
Tim Hagen is Chief Coaching Officer at Progress Coaching, which teaches organizations and their managers how to develop and retain talent through the Progress Coaching Training & Reinforcement System. For more information, contact Hagen at: Tim@ProgressCoachingLeader.com
