The world was disrupted by the Covid crisis. So many things have changed over a period of two years. The very concepts of work and the workplace have changed significantly.
Employees are now facing challenges and opportunities that they had never encountered prior to the global health crisis.
Many of them are burnt out or simply fatigued from these last two years. A lot of them are looking for new options beyond their traditional jobs. Remote and hybrid work are still in effect and will most likely continue.
Employees’ level of engagement is at an all-time low, and some organizational cultures have totally disintegrated.
In organizations where many people have left, those who stayed now find that they have extra work and greater responsibilities. At the same time, people are seeking to be more authentic at work and for their jobs to be meaningful.
All of these phenomena, and many others, have made a lot of employees’ work more challenging than it was before.
HR departments are busy recruiting and trying to retain personnel and are not really in a position to help with these situations as they could have done before.
The only people who can cater to employees and their development are their own managers.
To keep a healthy, balanced and well-performing team at this time, managers need to be able to coach and mentor their people. This has never been more true.
Managers coaching their people covers a number of objectives at this time.
Coaching in this way can help people focus and it can provide support when they face difficulties.
It can help them acquire new skills as they are needed and help them perform better. Moreover, it can be a way of empowering employees to take on new responsibilities or initiatives and to navigate themselves within the new reality.
Coaching and mentoring your people are both key factors for employee retention. People who feel that they are listened to, considered and developed by their managers tend to stay.
So why do so very few managers actually coach or mentor their team members?
For one, they are very busy themselves, and most believe that coaching or mentoring is a complex task. Secondly, generally managers were never trained to do either of those things.
The solution is to train managers to conduct SHORT, IMPACTFUL COACHING and MENTORING CONVERSATIONS.
These conversations should be concise and effective in responding to the needs of the particular employee.
A manager does not need to be an HR expert or a psychologist to conduct that type of conversation.
Managers have the experience and the expertise in their field that no external coach will ever have, which allows them to provide unparalleled streamlined coaching and mentoring.
Managers have the ability to conduct short impactful coaching or mentoring conversations.
They only need to be trained how to do it effectively.
Aviad Goz
19/05/22 Crete