Coaching Through Information Evaluation and Feedback
Coaching is a term used to describe an ongoing evaluation and feedback process. It tells employees, "How am I doing?" and "Where do I go from here?" How would you like to be a member of a bowling team and go bowling every week, but only get your scores once a year? Coaching is the day-to-day effort to review work, answer questions, discuss progress (or lack of it) toward meeting standards, develop skills, and provide positive guidance.
Is the supervisor the only person who can provide coaching to an employee? Coworkers, other supervisors, and even customers can often be in a good position to compare the employee's performance to established standards and then give helpful feedback. Such coaching opportunities can be part of a planned mentoring or customer feedback process or can occur spontaneously as a result of the employee asking these people for input.
The employee can also be her or his own coach by obtaining feedback from other sources. By reviewing one's own work products, data from reports, or even videotapes (when appropriate and if available) can provide the employee an opportunity for self-evaluation and improvement.
But can't that become a lot of information to keep track of? The most effective way to track and refer to that information is to set up a "memory file." This can be as simple as a file folder. It can include notes on exceptional (positive or negative) performance or behavior by the employee. It can also include copies of exceptional documents such as letters of appreciation or warning. By keeping a memory file on each employee, a supervisor can track an employee's performance progress as well as what coaching has been provided. Depending on how accessible and complete that file is, the employee may want to set up his own memory file to ensure all key aspects of his performance are recorded.
|
