No new hire comes fully qualified to take on the job. Nor do jobs remain the same. Assessing training needs is one of a coach’s ongoing responsibilities. Be alert to new abilities staff members need to do their current jobs well, then provide needed training—or see that it is provided.
Sometimes, one or two employees, whose jobs have changed, need to attend a public seminar or university course. Other times, you might want your entire staff to take training. If you feel confident enough to do so, you might even provide the group training yourself. Many managers handle the following topics on their own.
Interpersonal Communications Skills
If your employees interact with employees in other departments or clients, give a periodic review of methods for dealing with others. You can make this a part of department meetings.
Open the session by using an example, perhaps from your own experience. Share a story about a complaint or a request you received from a coworker or a client and ask for suggestions on how you could have responded. Discuss how different responses would have affected the quality of your work or your ongoing relationship with that person. Ask your employees to share any experiences they have had with others in which they weren’t sure how to best respond.
Because there are no exact answers to these questions, employees should be encouraged to offer their opinions.
Telephone Skills
All of us have had a few bad experiences when doing business by phone. Use your own and your employees’ peeves to teach how best to serve both your internal and external customers.
Written Communication
Let your staff know the approved style for writing memos, reports, and other forms of business correspondence. Written communications should be clear and precise. Use examples to illustrate how this can be achieved.
Technology Tune-Ups
To introduce new technology without proper training is asking for trouble. Get training for yourself, and either bring your training to the department or have an employee, a coworker, or an outside trainer do the training. Once the training is given, check to see if any employees are having difficulty. Are some employees not using all the capabilities of the technology? They may need reinforcement sessions to improve their skills.
As part of your coaching efforts, such tune-ups should be given six months after the system is in use, because it takes time to identify what the technology is capable of doing and what an employee isn’t getting right. Such sessions can be offered one-on-one with a specialist or in a users’ group.