Coaching Employees: 6 Practical Tips from Teachers

Your days — and sometimes sleepless nights — are full of forecasting, reporting and operational oversight.

So you probably don’t get much time to think about coaching employees (much less, actually doing it).

But it’s important to your people: Nearly three-quarters of employees in a Randstad study said development is important for current and future roles. More than 40% said they’d leave a job if they weren’t given development opportunities.

How do you become a better coach or trainer? Channel your favorite teacher.

“There are many things that leaders of all stripes can learn from teachers,” says Naphtali Hoff, an executive coach and author of Becoming the New Boss. “They are, outside of our parents, the first true leaders in our lives and those that we turn to for knowledge, guidance and direction.”

These six proven tactics from top-notch schoolteachers can help any finance leader become a better coach.

1. Build a Plan

Great classes are built on a lesson plan that includes:

• An instructional objective
• The resources to reach it, and
• A tangible result.

Everything needs to be concrete, from what you want to accomplish and the tools you’ll use to achieve a hard result.

When you plan the objective and result, avoid fuzzy phrases such as “understand,” “believe” and “grasp the concept.” Set goals that will be measured after training.

Examples:

• 90% of employees will adopt the new AI process within one month
• We will reduce payroll errors by 10% before peak season, or
• We will beat reporting deadlines next year.

And don’t leave any resource to chance. Line up the tools, whiteboards, laptops, software, manuals, guest trainers, vendors, etc., ahead of time.

2. Get Them Engaged

Teachers don’t just lecture while students sit quietly and take notes. Teachers take cues from students.

They watch and listen for activities, events and situations that excite them. Then teachers incorporate those into the learning.

For instance, at a Walgreens distribution center in the Southeast, most employees are neurodiverse. Trainers tweaked training to match their interests. Perhaps one loves football, so his training is themed around teams, stats and games, explained Steve Pemberton, the former Chief Diversity Officer at Walgreens.

Pay attention to what excites your team or individual employees, maybe it’s sports, arts, astrology, history or cars — and use those as themes to engage them in training.

3. Tweak the Environment

Teachers know that not all students learn in the same formats. And not all subjects are meant to be taught with the same approach.

That’s why teachers will cover the same subject in a variety of ways when necessary. Some subjects are good for whole-class instruction. Other subjects are a better fit for cooperative or individual work.

And most subjects need to be brought up in more than one format, some combination of classroom, email, online, side-by-side coaching, etc.

Mix it up. Include classroom, online and hands-on training as often as you can.

4. Get Passionate

The most memorable teachers are passionate. Think about your favorite. You probably could feel and recognize how much he or she loved the subject.

You may not be as passionate about software updates now as your literature teacher was about mythology back then.

But you can add passion to any training session by keeping yourself and employees focused on how the new skills and knowledge will help them succeed even more.

5. Grab Your Teaching Moments

The best teaching doesn’t always happen in a structured classroom fitted neatly into a lesson plan.

It often happens organically – on field trips, in the hall, sparked by an insightful question.

That can happen at work every day, too.

Use organic moments to help employees explore a deeper meaning. When employees ask questions, answer them. Then talk about how the task or project in question affects the company’s big picture.

Don’t just teach the material. Ask employees why they think what they learn is important and how it will make them and your organization better.

6. Final Note: Be a Role Model, Too

Kids naturally look up to their teachers. They like the structure and guidance classroom leaders offer.

Same can be said for employees. Good training isn’t just about skills and knowledge. Explaining how you use ethical standards and professional integrity to make decisions is important, too.